Friday, March 15, 2013

Wizard and Glass – Book Review


Author – Stephen King

A review of Wizard and Glass

I’ve read the first four of the dark tower series now with three to go and must say this one rivals as my favorite.  This series is all I’ve read of King’s work, except for On Writing, and I admire his style.  All I knew of King before I read these books was the less-than-stellar movies that spawned from his writing.  It’s probably attributed to my non interest in horror type material.  Movies aside I’ll get to the book Wizard and Glass.

Blaine the train
The ending to the previous book left me interested as to what riddle Roland and company would come up with to stump this pious train.  I was left disappointed when Eddie and his uncreative riddles drove Blaine into a cliché overload.  Until that point I thought it started well.

The story of Roland
By far and away my favorite section of the book.  Back story is my weakness and it’s done amazingly.  The characters of Cuthbert, Alain, Susan, Jonas and Cordelia to name a few are far more interesting to read about than what we’ve been mainly exposed to thus far in the series.  I wasn’t sold on the series yet and still may not be since I’m guessing there won’t be a sizable chunk of Roland’s past to feast on.  His quest for the dark tower leading to the death of his love Susan while the deception of that witch Rhea, he failed to finish off, led to his mother’s death gets a hold of you.  It’s satisfactory to know what has made Roland who he is at long last.  I hope there is more to come as I’d rather read about Cuthbert and Alain over Eddie and Susannah any day.

Oz?
The shoes and Wizard of Oz segments to wrap the book up are silly.  I was hoping for something unique or different but get a telling of a movie I never liked growing up incorporated into a book I was very much into.  My favorite version of the Wizard of Oz is done in Futurama.

Wrap up
Despite an intro and ending that I didn’t care much for this book delivers thanks in large part to Roland’s history revealed.  I’m not as interested in what the dark tower is as to how fascinated by the character Roland I am.  Fortunately that should be enough for me to move along in the series just to see what happens to Roland.  King really has created an awesome character in him that powers this series.  With characters like Eddie and Susannah I suppose he would need to or I’m not confident I’d want to continue.

No comments:

Post a Comment