Savior Gaming

When reading the series on your own if you choose to, keep three and four close by because they are literally one huge story, Wizard and Glass picks up where the Wastelands cliffhanger ended. Also keep in mind, this is two stories in one, a continuation of our story forward and a another tragic piece in Roland’s enigmatic and tragic history.  Let’s dive into the halfway mark of this epic:

The riddle contest kicks off between our Ka-Tet and Blaine the Mono as he takes them to Topeka. They all take turns trying to stump Blaine but nothing phases him, but he makes a mistake in a comment which gives them all hope he isn’t all knowing. Eddie,having a breakthrough, rationalizes that jokes are a form of riddle in there own right and that’s Blaine’s weakness. They defeat Blaine and land in Topeka…after Captain Trips has hit. They find it a wasteland of wilted corpses and graffiti reading “Beware the Walkin Dude” and “All hail the Crimson King!”. Taveling down the turnpike they come across a huge emerald tower beckoning out to them with a pink light emulating from it. Everyone but Roland finds it’s beautiful, thinking of the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz; Roland tells them the story of the Wizard’s Rainbow and his first mission as aa young Gunslinger and the pain in his heart of Susan Delgado…Roland was sent to the small barony of Mejis with two of his closest friends, Cuthbert and Alian after earning his guns on assignment to make sure the devious Good Man hadn’t taken refuge there (The Good Man would eventually cause the destruction of Roland’s home and many others). On a lonely night he meets a beautiful young maiden named Susan Delgado. Both kids have a secret. Roland and his friends have kept there identities secret; Susan is being given off to the mayor of Mejis as his arranged gilly (pretty much arranged wife/ sex slave) by her bitch of an aunt. The mayor unknowingly hired a group of disgraced Gunslingers called the Big Coffin Hunters to act as his security. Roland’s group and the Hunters come into conflict with them as a plot unravels to bring chaos to the barony. Susan and Roland fall deeply in love, only to end in utter tragedy as she is burned alive while Roland is powerless to watch in the pink ball of the Wizard’s Rainbow, instruments of great magic and great evil. ..Roland and his friends follow the light to find the true Ageless Stranger- Walter in essence. We discover his other names he has used, Randall Flagg, Richard Fannin, Richard Frye, Maerlyn, and Marten Broadcloak to the Gunslinger. They try to shoot him but all of there guns magically jam at the same time. He leaves them with the resurrected Tick Tock Man and a warning to turn around and abandon there pursuit of the Dark Tower. They vote no and keep moving on…

So out of the series this may be my least favorite for one particular reason. The pacing feels off to me. The present parts feel quick as the rest of the general narrative but The past parts are slower, full of plotting and meticulous detail. As a love story it is solid but the tragedy is this book’s winning point. It’s a tragic story on more than one base as we get to see a Roland that wasn’t so worn and besides the death of his love, we see the death of his innocence as well the means to an end for his home and his family. Definitely check this book out but don’t go into it expecting as a quick read like the first three books. May the gaming gods bring you glory and come reap.

 Ok friends, full disclosure if you have read my other reviews and have previously read the Dark Tower books, I’m giving only general synopsis’s of each book. Every book gets more and more immaculately detailed as they go on; I can’t deliver justice to them the way reading and enjoying them yourself can.  That being said, let us continue the odyssey of Roland and his Ka-tet (group brought together by fate for a purpose) on there way to the Dark Tower.

So again this picks up almost immediately after where the previous installment left off, a few weeks later if I’m not mistaken. Roland has recovered and is training Eddie and Susannah how to be Gunslingers; both are promising. They’ve formed a bond together; Eddie and Susannah are husband and wife; Eddie is clean of heroin and has rediscovered his passion of whittling. While training with Susannah in the woods, Roland hears a noise. Miles away an angry guardian of the Beam awakens, a seventy foot cyborg bear named Mir driven mad by time and maggots eating away at it’s brain. It tears through the forest, knocking trees down like bowling pins, barreling down towards Eddie. Roland and Susannah rush to the rescue. Eddie starts hauling ass up the tallest tree he can find, scared for his life. Roland puts Susannah on his shoulders and tells her its up to her to kill it, to blast it in the tiny radar dish between its ears. She manages it and Mir dies. Roland inspects the beast, revealing a label reading SHARDIK of the LAMERK CORPORATION. Roland explain the tower some more and reveals a secret to his friends; his mind is dividing after the paradox he created by saving Jake from ever dying in the previous installment. Meanwhile, in Jake’s New York, he is suffering from the same fate as Roland. He knows everything that happened in the first book but he knows it didn’t happen but should have. Ka pulls him foreward, bringing him to a book store owned by a man named Tower where he finds a certain two books that will help save his life later and a rose that means everything in a vacant lot. On the Ka-Tet’s side, Eddie is whittling a shape that is meant to be the key to Jake’s door. Jake is led to an old haunted house by a younger version of Eddie; the house transforms into a horrible demon intent on murdering Jake. On the other side they struggle to draw a door in the dirt, fighting a coming rain storm while Detta comes forth to fuck another demon that’s haunting the area. Jake is brought to there side and him and Roland have a touching reunion. Further ahead they come across a billy bumbler (a creature between a roccon and a small dog that can make human like words) that takes a liking to Jake they name Oy. they come to a small seemingly abandoned town across the river from the shell of a once great city called Lud. The town is inhabited by decrepit old people that treat Roland and his friends as honored guests once they see he is the last Gunslinger. The people tell them of the horrors of Lud, the horrible music and the war that broke out between two factions: the Grays and the Pubes. Crossing what’s left of the bridge, Jake gets kidnapped by a diseased freak named Gasher who threatens to blow them all up with a grenade. They have no choice but to let him go. The group splits: Roland and Oy goes after Gasher and Jake, while Eddie and Susannah heads towards the monorail train. Jake is taken through a dark underground maze under the city where the Tick-Tock Man resides with his thugs. Eddie and Susannah have to solve a mathematical puzzle to access the train called Blaine.  Jake, Oy, and Roland wipe out the Tick-Tock Man’s gang and haul ass to the others; The Ageless Stranger of Walter’s prophecy revives the Tick-Tock Man for his service in exchange for safety which won’t be possible in Lud much longer after, while pulling away from the station, Blaine unleashes a massive storage of nerve gas on the city and massacres it’s denizens out of boredom. Blaine is really a network of highly intelligent supercomputers under the city that connect to the Dark Tower and with the decay of the beams holding it up, Blaine began to malfunction and go mad. He ultimately decides to kill himself with our heroes on board, wheras they make a deal for there lives via riddle contest, and book three ends…

I adore the hell out of this particular installment. Great character development and a dark theme of madness spiced throughout. Also I have to say Blaine is my favorite villain in all of Literature so far, he’s insane, sarcastic, creepy, and just plain evil as hell. Definitely tune in next time to see what’s next….and hell yeah read this book.