Fiction. Paperback, 714 pages, ISBN 0-7432-5162-8. | Buy @ Amazon.Com | Author Website

Stephen King has finally finished his western-fantasy magnum opus, "The Dark Tower," all seven volumes that span the 35-year length of his career.  The first four volumes ("The Gunslinger," "The Drawing Of The Three," "The Waste Lands," and "Glass And Wizard") chronicles how Roland, the last Gunslinger, came upon his quest to find the Dark Tower and prevent the forces of evil from destroying the Universe.  Along the way, he picks up a new ka-tet of gunslingers: Eddie Dean, a former heroin addict and mafia mule from 1987 New York City; Susannah Dean, wife of Eddie, a crippled woman with multiple personalities from 1967 New York City; Jake Chambers, the figurative son of Roland, a young teenager from 1977 New York City; and Oy, a talking billy-bumbler (a dog and racoon mix) from Midworld.  The "Wolves Of The Calla", the fifth volume of the Dark Tower series, begins in Outworld.

The citizens of the Calla normally have twin children due to radiation exposure from the long forgotten past, and birth of single children are quite rare.  The town is visited every 22 years for the last 200 years by humanoid wolves on horses who steal one child from each set of twins.  The children are eventually returned to the town with empty minds and grow significantly larger than their twin sibling.  Andy, the 2,000-year-old messenger android, returns to the town to inform them that the wolves will be returning in a month.  A town meeting is called.  Some people want to fight back, some want to do nothing, and a few want to flee the town with the hope that the wolves won't track them down.  Father Callahan, the compromised priest from King's second novel, "Salem's Lot", wants them to fight with the help of the gunslingers coming over the hill outside of town.

Roland and his gunslingers camp off the road that night. Jake and Eddie have an out-of-body experience while sleeping (or "todash" as it is called) that returns them to Jake's New York City in 1977, the same day that Jake leaves to join Roland in Midworld in "The Waste Lands."  Together they learn that a used bookstore owner, Calvin Tower, who owns the vacant lot with the magical rose that could lead them directly to the Dark Tower, is being pressured by mafia enforcers (whom Eddie will kill 10 years later in "The Drawing Of The Three") to sell out to a mysterious corporation.  Meanwhile, Roland is following a naked Susannah into the swamp as she is possessed by a new personality called Mia and is pregnant with a demon-child.  Physically, Susannah is not even aware that she's out in the swamp eating toads and snakes to satisfy the hunger pains of the demon-child, or "the chap" as he is known by Mia.  Intellectually, Mia perceives herself as feasting in a great hall with eager expectation of the demon-child's birth without being aware that Roland is watching her.  When Roland returns to camp before Susannah/Mia does, he notices that Eddie and Jake are todashing, and he fears for the unity of his ka-tet.

The following morning they hear the story of Eddie and Jake in 1977 New York City, and decide that they must buy the vacant lot from Calvin Tower to keep the rose (and, indirectly, the Dark Tower) safe.  They would need to find a magical door that will let them go back to that time and place to make that happen.  Roland mentions nothing about Susannah's night time activity or his suspicions about Mia.  Father Callahan appears to ask them for their help and offers to give them the Black Thirteen, an evil crystal ball that can take them to any place or time, and the location of a magical door.  The adventure to save the children from the Wolves, buy property in 1977 New York City, and keep Mia's demon-child at bay, has begun.

One of King's ability as a master story teller is to tell a series of little stories that form a larger mosaic of the main story.  We learn more about Father Callahan, whose faith in God was destroyed by the vampire Barlow in "Salem's Lot," serving a new god called alcohol for many years before he returns to vampire hunting.  He finds the secret highways and byways that lead to different Americas at different times to escape from the vampires.  He's eventually captured by the servants of the Crimsen King and handed over to Roland's arch-enemy, Walter.  It's Walter who gives Father Callahan the Black Thirteen and leaves him outside the magical door inside a cave outside of the Calla eight years before Roland's group arrives (these events are parallel to the events that happen in "The Gunslinger" and emphasizes how tightly controlled Roland's ka-tet is govern by fate).  The smaller stories includes the history of the Calla, the fascination with the numbers 19 and 99 appearing in the oddest places (19 is also the age that King first wrote about the last gunslinger chasing Walter across the desert), how one senile old man reveals what the wolves really are, how some of the women folk of the Calla are experts at throwing razor-sharp plates with deadly accuracy, and how Calvin Tower's family knew since the 1850's that Roland would one day claim the vacant lot.  There are several references to King (as expected) scattered throughout the story, and a first edition copy of "Salem's Lot" from Calvin Tower's bookshelf plays an important role at the end.

Everything comes to a showdown with the 70 wolves on one side, 99 innocent children (49 twins and a singleton) in the middle, and the seven (a perfect number) that made up of Roland's gunslingers and the plate-throwing women of the Calla on the other side.  Many different things happen during the brief episode of violence that Roland calls five minutes of stupidity.  Jake becomes a man at the tender age of thirteen by witnessing the death of his young friend (the singleton in the group) and pure gunslinger's instincts carries him through the fight with blazing guns.  Susannah cuts a deal with Mia to prevent the birth of the demon-child birth long enough to save her husband, Eddie.  When it was over, the town folks of the Calla are overwhelmed with being victorious while mourning the deaths of a child and one of the woman plate-thrower, the gunslingers realizes that Susannah/Mia and the Black Thirteen had already gone through the magical door without them, and Father Callahan discovers he may only be a work of fiction (which sets the stage for King to appear as a character in the next volume, "The Song Of Susannah").

After spending three months reading the revised editions of the first four volumes (where King fixes the inconsistancies that appears in various volumes written many years apart), and finishing this volume in a week, the tale of Roland and his gunslingers finding the Dark Tower is quickly coming to a satisifying conclusion.  Will Roland find the top of the Dark Tower empty (that is, there's no God) as Walter has taunted?  Only a few more thousand pages to find out in the last two volumes of the series.

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