Wizard and Glass

Just finished reading Wizard and Glass...the fourth book in Stephen King's dark tower series, following the adventures of Roland of Gilead, the world's last gunslinger. What can I say, except that I'm helplessly blown away, a leaf in a King-maelstrom. I think King has outdone himself this time. The first three books were good - heck the first book was amazing - but this one...it's ascended above and beyond.

A more-than-sizeable chunk (I think 600 pages out of 700) of the book is a flashback. Near the beginning, when I realized that I'd been rudely yanked out of the present (Roland's present, at any rate) and nudged into his past, I admit I groaned, and I had the right to, I think. Flashbacks are tough for the reader. You have to find your groove all over again, and I'd say it's almost as bad as starting a new book. But my groans died down mighty quickly...oh yes, The King saw to that!

More than anything, it's the world that King wove that just drew me in, until I could almost smell the characters...until the characters were not characters anymore, but real people from a different world, a different time. Even right now, as I sit typing this in the afterglow of the book, I feel groggy and zoned out, like I've woken up from being hypnotized (aye, mayhap by the coin rolling on the gunslinger's knuckles, I wot!) The town of Hambry sits in the back of my mind as if it really were a place I once visited, and the people there are folk I'm sure I once knew. Some I admire in awe (Roland, Alain, Cuthbert, and the lovely Sue Delgado), some I sneer at (Jonas is at the top of the list), and some I hate with numbing coldness. Rhea of Coos, black ashes on thy face, and death to thee by the bleeding eye of the Demon moon! By bird and hare and bear and fish!

I'm kind of afraid to go on to the next book now. I'm not entirely sure how The King can top this one.