Climbing the Dark Tower: Song of Susannah

SPOILERS FOLLOW

This is probably going to be a short one. Which is fitting because Song of Susannah is a pretty short book, especially compared to some of the others in this series. But that's the problem with big multi-book series like this. If you go past about four books, the penultimate chapter is only going to be so much running in place and setting things up for the finale. Not that nothing important doesn't happen, indeed some very important things do happen here, but as we near the end (and the Tower) they either get dealt with quickly or are left hanging for the finish. But let's look over what Song of Susannah does give us...

Climbing the Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla

SPOILERS BELOW

The back-half of the quest begins with a riff on a classic western. Yeah, King is pretty upfront and blatant about this book, the fifth in the series, being a post-apocalyptic sci-fi version of The Magnificent Seven. But I don't begrudge him. The whole series has been built on Western archetypes and iconography. Plus, enough new plot threads are introduced and spread throughout to build a much richer experience as the Tower itself starts to come into view...