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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
"They would go down fighting, but they were going to die there. And he thought dying would be all right. It was going to break Roland's heart to lose the boy...yet he would go on. As long as the Dark Tower stood, Roland would go on."
Not my favorite book in the series, but wow. The seventh and final book is going to be one wild ride (I think!). Can't wait to see how this ends.
Also, only Stephen King would be bold enough to make himself a character in his own novel. And of course, it fit perfectly.
Not my favorite book in the series, but wow. The seventh and final book is going to be one wild ride (I think!). Can't wait to see how this ends.
Also, only Stephen King would be bold enough to make himself a character in his own novel. And of course, it fit perfectly.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don't know what to say about this novel. I am nearly at the end of this epic journey and yet I don't know if I'm attached to these characters. I love the quest aspects though. The Dark Tower is so near!
Even more appealing, and my favorite part in general, has been Roland throughout, the one constant drawing me back in. Here, he did not carry all that weight like before. He takes a back seat in a lot of scenes and in the overall story as well. Susannah's arc is the main thrust of the plot yet she has some of the most unenjoyable scenes for me. Eddie and Jake are better than usual which is nice. Father Callahan is a great character but doesn't get a ton of page time. Like I said, I don't know, I'm all over the place on this one. Song of Susannah doesn't hit the same high notes as certain parts of the series has before and some of the low notes are the lowest yet. I'm extra baffled by the scenes with Stephen King in them. What a strange execution of an interesting concept.
All in all, I will certainly continue on to finish the series but I'm left more bewildered than ever.
Even more appealing, and my favorite part in general, has been Roland throughout, the one constant drawing me back in. Here, he did not carry all that weight like before. He takes a back seat in a lot of scenes and in the overall story as well. Susannah's arc is the main thrust of the plot yet she has some of the most unenjoyable scenes for me. Eddie and Jake are better than usual which is nice. Father Callahan is a great character but doesn't get a ton of page time. Like I said, I don't know, I'm all over the place on this one. Song of Susannah doesn't hit the same high notes as certain parts of the series has before and some of the low notes are the lowest yet. I'm extra baffled by the scenes with Stephen King in them. What a strange execution of an interesting concept.
All in all, I will certainly continue on to finish the series but I'm left more bewildered than ever.
First off, I cannot imagine creating an eight novel series of books that interconnect with multiple universes of other stories. Let me put that out there before I dive into critique and criticism.
I felt like the dark tower book 6 (Wolves of the Calla) helped recapture some of the momentum in the dark Tower series that seem to have gotten lost with some of the previous books. And the start of the Song of Susanna seem to continue that momentum. However, that momentum died away pretty quickly and it felt like King was spinning his wheels for a good portion of this book.
There was a lot of repetitive themes, and Innoway, a lot of repetitive actions carrying over from the prior book. Perhaps it was a lot of build up to the final chapter, but this book felt like a placeholder in many cases. The introduction of King himself as a character in who’s head these universes are colliding could’ve been intriguing, but for some reason it really put me off. I may revisit my review of this book after I read the final chapter.
I felt like the dark tower book 6 (Wolves of the Calla) helped recapture some of the momentum in the dark Tower series that seem to have gotten lost with some of the previous books. And the start of the Song of Susanna seem to continue that momentum. However, that momentum died away pretty quickly and it felt like King was spinning his wheels for a good portion of this book.
There was a lot of repetitive themes, and Innoway, a lot of repetitive actions carrying over from the prior book. Perhaps it was a lot of build up to the final chapter, but this book felt like a placeholder in many cases. The introduction of King himself as a character in who’s head these universes are colliding could’ve been intriguing, but for some reason it really put me off. I may revisit my review of this book after I read the final chapter.
slow-paced
2.5 stars!!!!!!
i just really hate the whole "stephen king created us" plotline
i just really hate the whole "stephen king created us" plotline
I liked this book better than The Gunslinger, but it just wasn't 4 stars for me.
I have mixed feelings on this one. Parts of it I liked a lot and other parts....not so much.
First off....Susannah has been pregnant FOREVER. This book seemed like a throwaway in the sense that in a book all about her having this "chap," that whole piece still isn't fully resolved by the end of it.
My least favorite parts of this book were the Roland/Eddie storyline. Like, throughout the book, their sections were my least favorite. I also struggled with Stephen King entering the story as an actual character...I'm still not entirely sure what to do with that.
I liked when Jake and Callahan finally came back into the picture, but feel like they were kind of treated as a throwaway since it never really came back to them. I guess it's all waiting to be resolved in the final book? Still, kind of annoying...
I do love Susannah as a character so I didn't mind necessarily spending so much time with her and Mia. but I also found myself losing the thread of the story a bit throughout this one. Forgetting who was doing what, and why. And now as I think about the ending I realize what a cliffhanger it ended on, with all of the protagonists in different places.
I am enjoying this series, but I am also ready for some resolution and to be able to say I am done with it.
First off....Susannah has been pregnant FOREVER. This book seemed like a throwaway in the sense that in a book all about her having this "chap," that whole piece still isn't fully resolved by the end of it.
My least favorite parts of this book were the Roland/Eddie storyline. Like, throughout the book, their sections were my least favorite. I also struggled with Stephen King entering the story as an actual character...I'm still not entirely sure what to do with that.
I liked when Jake and Callahan finally came back into the picture, but feel like they were kind of treated as a throwaway since it never really came back to them. I guess it's all waiting to be resolved in the final book? Still, kind of annoying...
I do love Susannah as a character so I didn't mind necessarily spending so much time with her and Mia. but I also found myself losing the thread of the story a bit throughout this one. Forgetting who was doing what, and why. And now as I think about the ending I realize what a cliffhanger it ended on, with all of the protagonists in different places.
I am enjoying this series, but I am also ready for some resolution and to be able to say I am done with it.
The Dark Tower series is undoubtedly Stephen King's magnum opus, and this book more than any other has solidified this fact for me. I've seen quite a few "ranking the Dark Tower books" lists on the internet over the last couple of years, and for whatever reason, Song of Susannah is almost always near the bottom. And now that I've read it, I have no idea why. I think this book is an excellent, high-octane, all-thriller-no-filler edition to the series, and the reasons I've heard for people not liking it are actually things I enjoyed quite a bit - namely the extremely meta-textual elements at play here. Which before I start on those, obviously, spoilers ahead (also, uhh, Don Quixote spoilers.. Don't ask).
So this book has essentially two concurrent storylines playing out. One in which this new Susannah / Mia hybrid has used black thirteen to time travel / regular travel to New York City in 1999 where she / they are going to have this enigmatic demon baby. This plot line is, admittedly, the slower of the two I would say, but there are some very interesting things about it. One, the concept of the "dogan" is introduced which is sort of cool, basically an internal control room where you can turn dials and levers and whatnot to influence what your body is doing. Two, I enjoy the idea of two people inhabiting one body and having internal monologues with one another - something which very much harkens back to The Drawing of the Three. Three, Susannah and Mia spend a lot of time todash in the "castle on the abyss" (which gives me very strong Haunting of Hill House vibes for some reason) which I enjoyed because a lot of the general Dark Tower mythos is explored re: history of this strange universe, the beams, the prim, the many other strange creatures inhabiting this area near The Dark Tower itself, etc. And lastly, I love the idea of the little Sköldpadda mind-control turtle thing. Also within this story line you have Jake and Pere Callahan tracking Mia / Susannah down, but that seems like it will be explored further in the next book.
The other storyline here, and the one that was most engaging to me, involves Roland and Eddie trekking through Maine in order to find none other than Stephen King, the author of the book in which they are characters! Again, lots of meta stuff about to happen. Before they find him though there is one of the most intense action sequences of the whole series in which Roland and Eddie basically have an enormous shootout inside and around a normal small-town gas station, easily beating Jack Andolini and his crew despite being severely outnumbered because, well, Gunslingers, etc, etc. After this, the two of them start making their way to Stephen King's house, and when they arrive, we get an entire chapter of Roland and Eddie badgering Stephen King, the author of this story and ostensibly their creator and God, to continue writing the Dark Tower books (which he hasn't done yet because they meet him in the 70's before the series really gets going).
And here's where I'm going to get on my soapbox: despite what nerds on the internet will tell you, this is actually cool as hell and can lead you down such weird rabbit holes of logic. Like okay: Roland and Eddie are technically in the "real world" as they are confronting Stephen King, the person writing the book, but it's obviously still fiction. The version of Stephen King they are meeting is obviously not the real Stephen King because he's still in this book! Even them finally coming into the "real" version of reality is not real, because there is still another layer of fiction on top of that - which is this actual book! And so you think "okay cool, they're gonna try to influence Stephen King to finish the story because this fictional (to us real-life people) King they are meeting, in this story, is who is writing them. But then this man has the gall to kill himself off! Stephen King fucking dies in the 90's in this universe when he gets hit by that van! So the version that Roland and Eddie met is obviously not the real Stephen King, because they are still characters in this book and someone had to have written them. And what happens if they meet the "real" Stephen King who didn't die? He's still fake because he's still part of this book. The actual, flesh and bones Stephen King from our reality is unattainable unless our reality is actually fiction.. And honestly, who knows maybe that's true.
A lot of people seem to have gripes with this but I personally eat it up. Don Quixote is one of my favorite books of all time, and it does essentially this same exact thing. Cervantes is a character within Don Quixote. The whole second half of that book is Don Quixote and Sancho wandering around this world in which they are famous for being those book characters! People stop them on the road and go "hey aren't you those guys from that book?". And the same type of meta-text exists because within this world Cervantes created - where he is in it and Don Quixote is a book within the book - our actual real life is still separate. The world of the story exists in a limbo state in between reality and fiction. Those two things inherently don't include one another, and trying to reconcile a world where they simultaneously exist is a paradox, but it's a cool paradox to read about! Which is why I think it's weird that Don Quixote is one of the most lauded works of fiction ever written (rightfully so), and this book is like, unanimously thought of as one of the worst in the series for doing pretty much the same thing! And also that King himself is egotistical for doing it or something? Makes no sense to me. This book is great, the meta elements are cool and they work well, and wow I have no idea how this thing is going to end.
So this book has essentially two concurrent storylines playing out. One in which this new Susannah / Mia hybrid has used black thirteen to time travel / regular travel to New York City in 1999 where she / they are going to have this enigmatic demon baby. This plot line is, admittedly, the slower of the two I would say, but there are some very interesting things about it. One, the concept of the "dogan" is introduced which is sort of cool, basically an internal control room where you can turn dials and levers and whatnot to influence what your body is doing. Two, I enjoy the idea of two people inhabiting one body and having internal monologues with one another - something which very much harkens back to The Drawing of the Three. Three, Susannah and Mia spend a lot of time todash in the "castle on the abyss" (which gives me very strong Haunting of Hill House vibes for some reason) which I enjoyed because a lot of the general Dark Tower mythos is explored re: history of this strange universe, the beams, the prim, the many other strange creatures inhabiting this area near The Dark Tower itself, etc. And lastly, I love the idea of the little Sköldpadda mind-control turtle thing. Also within this story line you have Jake and Pere Callahan tracking Mia / Susannah down, but that seems like it will be explored further in the next book.
The other storyline here, and the one that was most engaging to me, involves Roland and Eddie trekking through Maine in order to find none other than Stephen King, the author of the book in which they are characters! Again, lots of meta stuff about to happen. Before they find him though there is one of the most intense action sequences of the whole series in which Roland and Eddie basically have an enormous shootout inside and around a normal small-town gas station, easily beating Jack Andolini and his crew despite being severely outnumbered because, well, Gunslingers, etc, etc. After this, the two of them start making their way to Stephen King's house, and when they arrive, we get an entire chapter of Roland and Eddie badgering Stephen King, the author of this story and ostensibly their creator and God, to continue writing the Dark Tower books (which he hasn't done yet because they meet him in the 70's before the series really gets going).
And here's where I'm going to get on my soapbox: despite what nerds on the internet will tell you, this is actually cool as hell and can lead you down such weird rabbit holes of logic. Like okay: Roland and Eddie are technically in the "real world" as they are confronting Stephen King, the person writing the book, but it's obviously still fiction. The version of Stephen King they are meeting is obviously not the real Stephen King because he's still in this book! Even them finally coming into the "real" version of reality is not real, because there is still another layer of fiction on top of that - which is this actual book! And so you think "okay cool, they're gonna try to influence Stephen King to finish the story because this fictional (to us real-life people) King they are meeting, in this story, is who is writing them. But then this man has the gall to kill himself off! Stephen King fucking dies in the 90's in this universe when he gets hit by that van! So the version that Roland and Eddie met is obviously not the real Stephen King, because they are still characters in this book and someone had to have written them. And what happens if they meet the "real" Stephen King who didn't die? He's still fake because he's still part of this book. The actual, flesh and bones Stephen King from our reality is unattainable unless our reality is actually fiction.. And honestly, who knows maybe that's true.
A lot of people seem to have gripes with this but I personally eat it up. Don Quixote is one of my favorite books of all time, and it does essentially this same exact thing. Cervantes is a character within Don Quixote. The whole second half of that book is Don Quixote and Sancho wandering around this world in which they are famous for being those book characters! People stop them on the road and go "hey aren't you those guys from that book?". And the same type of meta-text exists because within this world Cervantes created - where he is in it and Don Quixote is a book within the book - our actual real life is still separate. The world of the story exists in a limbo state in between reality and fiction. Those two things inherently don't include one another, and trying to reconcile a world where they simultaneously exist is a paradox, but it's a cool paradox to read about! Which is why I think it's weird that Don Quixote is one of the most lauded works of fiction ever written (rightfully so), and this book is like, unanimously thought of as one of the worst in the series for doing pretty much the same thing! And also that King himself is egotistical for doing it or something? Makes no sense to me. This book is great, the meta elements are cool and they work well, and wow I have no idea how this thing is going to end.