OK, I'll admit I am a huge Stephen King fan. I have been since the early 80s when I read Cujo in 7th grade. However, I still find some of his work to be tedious. I hated "Bag of Bones", most of "Everything's Eventual", and "Tommyknockers" was a pile of crap. The Dark Tower series has always been one of my favorite epics. Its no LOTR, but it least it doesnt have Tom Bombadil or all that friggin Elf and Hobbit singing in it. The first 4 books were amazing, and I couldn't wait for King to finish the next three. When I saw on CNN that King was run over by the idiot in the truck, the first thing that ran through my mind was "oh well, so much for the Dark Tower". Yeah, I know, I'm real sensitive. A lot of people hated "The Wolves of Calla" because 1. it just sorta got stuck in Calla 2. Stephen King mentions HIMSELF in the book 3. it copied Seven Samurai 4. it just feels different somehow I personally liked the fact that Callahan from "Salem's Lot" made his way into these books. I hope to catch Brautigan from "Hearts in Atlantis" and the Flagg-chasing brothers from "Eye of the Dragon". Is it weird that King is making all of his books bleed into his magum opus? Maybe. But its his universe, and if we dont like it, we dont have to buy the books. Now we come to "Song of Susannah", in which Stephen King becomes not only a character in his Dark Tower series...but essentially sort of a God. Not THE God, but a God. Or at least one of the more important servants of the Rose. Some people may be enraged by this. I've read some reviews in amazon that are along these lines: - What kind of egomaniac writes himself into his books? - By making King's world the "real world" and King's writing create parallel universes which in turn create characters that impact the Dark Tower saga, the books lose their magic!!! (this reviewer needs a girlfriend, pronto) - How could he reference Star Wars and Harry Potter? I recall early other bbs-ers were pretty pissed about Book 5.....so....if you have read Song of Susannah...how do you feel about it? Are you psyched for Book 7 this fall? Personally, I liked it. I dont have a problem with King writing himself into his own fiction, or tying all his novels together. I thought it would ruin the story but in the end, I thought it was clever. (Plus, its not like Roland came into OUR WORLD.....thats all I can say about that without spoilers, but I am referring to the final entry in King's journal - the newspaper clipping) I also found the Mia/Susannah/Detta storyline to be compelling.
I just finished the book also. Although you know this because you lent it to me. The fact that I borrowed it from my brother may make me more forgiving. I enjoyed reading SOS (some people may find those initials appropriate as they believe the Dark Tower boat is sinking), but I almost threw it down at one point. I had to take an enormous leap of faith to buy the "King in a King novel" angle. In the end, I'm glad I jumped. The fact that King rips on his alcoholism and drug abuse in the late 70s/early 80s, his chubby build, and his wimpish tendencies sorta made me forgive him a little more. At least he didn't paint himself as Brad Pitt or Earnest Hemingway (although he does say all the great writers loved the bottle). Good book, looking forward to you buying Book 7 so I can borrow it again.
I hated "Wolves of the Calla" for all the reasons you mentioned, but mostly because of the terrible Calla dialect that saturated everything. I'd rather slit my wrists with a blunt spoon than read "thankee-sai big big, do ya fine" one more time. "Song of Susannah" was a little better, but still a huge disappointment. I agree 100% with those amazon reviews. King is starting to really cheese me off. Anyway, I explained my feelings in greater detail in this thread.
