I have a confession to make:?I didn't buy WIZARD?AND?GLASS?when it first came out. My local supermarket sells books, and always had a plentiful stock of the new Stephen King. When I?saw that it was the fourth in the DARK?TOWER?series, I?wasn't really interested. Stephen King was a horror writer. IT?and THE?STAND?were my all-time, absolute favourites. King didn't write fantasy, he left that to people like Terry Brooks and Tolkien, surely??I had to admit that I?was attracted to the packaging. It first appeared as an enormous trade paperback, and I was intrigued by the cover - and the blurb. Two weeks later, when my late mother gave me some money for my birthday, I decided that, even if I?never read it, I had to have this handsome volume. So I?bought it. And, of course, I couldn't resist it. I read it, I?devoured it, I loved it. This was something different, something new.
So, you see, here's my confession:?my name is Paul Edmund Norman, and I?am not one of the people who have always loved THE?DARK?TOWER?series. I am not constant. You cannot number me among your ranks. And yet, here I am, almost done with the final volume, DARK?TOWER?VII:?THE?DARK?TOWER, and prepared to say that in my opinion this series is not only King's finest, but also rivals LORD?OF?THE?RINGS?as the greatest work of fantasy fiction ever written.
WIZARD?AND?GLASS?opens in the Barony coach of Baline, the mad monorail. Roland and his ka-tet:?Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy, the bumbler, have to pit their wits against Blaine otherwise he will carry on at a terrifying speed along the track and, when the track finishes, plunge them all to their deaths. Their only means of escape is to set Blaine a riddle he cannot answer. It's no secret that they survive, of course, and continue on their way, along the path of the beam, towards the dark tower. But WIZARD?AND?GLASS, whilst not advancing the quest much at all, brings the whole series into focus. It is during the reading of this book that most things are explained - the nature of the quest, who Roland is, and, most importantly, what has gone before.
For WIZARD?AND?GLASS?casts a backward glance - a long one, at that - at the time before Mid-World ended and the world moved on. Yes, Roland has not yet begun his quest, and even he does not realise its importance at this stage. He still has his fellow gunslingers, Alain and Cuthbert for company, and together they are sent to the backwater barony of Meijis as a punishment. Here he meets Susan Delgado, already betrothed to a much older man against her will, and Rhea of the Coos, together with Sheemie, the apparent retard who will feature again in the unfolding tale of the quest. For me this is the most important, pivotal book in the series (I'm saying that as though there are no more to come - naturally each subsequent book becomes the most important, with the seventh and final volume eventually staking its claim), and explains things that are only hinted at in GUNSLINGER, DRAWING?OF?THE?THREE?and THE?WASTELANDS.
It's not in my nature to spoil things for people by revealing what happens, even though it's fourth in the series and DT aficionados will already have read it. This review is for people who haven't read the Dark Tower at all, and there will be plenty of people out there in that category. Like I?said at the outset, there are those who have, and those who haven't. WIZARD?AND?GLASS is a tour de force of King at his absolute best. You will laugh, you will cry. You will hate and despise the cruelty, you will cheer at the courage and the resolve of the heroes as they tackle an apparently insurmountable obstacle. And, more importantly, in WIZARD?AND?GLASS, Roland and his companions experience the force and nature of the "thinnies" that herald the breaking down of the old order and the possible destruction of the universe. Don't do what I did - assume that King is just a horror writer. There is horror in WIZARD?AND?GLASS, but there is also romance and adventure in the truest sense of the words. A fine, fine book - no, a masterpiece, and one that appeared six years after THE?WASTELANDS. It will leave you wanting to read the rest of the epic, no doubt about that.
A big thank you to Kerry Hood and Hannah Norman at Hodder UK?for supplying images for this series.
Links: There are numerous sites dealing with King's Dark Tower series, many of them started with the best of intentions but fizzling out before book 4, Wizard and Glass was published. Best of all are the three official sites, one from Stephen King's own official site, one from the US?publisher Simon and Schuster, and one from the UK?publisher, Hodder. Click on the images below and you will be transported to Mid-World, Stephen King's universe of the Dark Tower. But don't forget to come back here, Constant Reader!
