Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: WILARD AND GLASS
Penguin Putnam Inc. November 1998
694 pagesThis is the fourth book in the Dark Tower Series. It begins with the ka-tet finishing their challenge with Blaine. Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susan and Oy find themselves in a parallel version of Kansas where everyone has been killed by a super flu. It is here that Roland opens up and reveals his past. This revelation includes his early life as well as his romance with Susan Delgado. After reviling his pain filled past the ka-tet is finally ready to advance on the Dark Tower and face the evil ahead of them.
This book was wonderful! Steve King is a born writer. Like all of his books King does a masterful good developing the characters. They are so real they could live right across the street from me. The suspense startes on page one and increases with each page. The clocks stopped as I put my life on hold for this book. Any one looking for action, suspense and romance should really check out this book. Jennifer Johnson
Dutch Fork High School
Rating: 
Summary: Will the real Stephen King please stand up?
Review: I really wanted to like this book. The first three volumes in the Dark Tower saga are some of my favourite King novels of all time. Unfortunately, Wizard and Glass will not join them. DT4 starts off great, concluding the tale of Blaine, the psychotic, riddle-loving monorail. From there, it moves on to a long, drawn out flashback that contributes very little to the mythology of the Dark Tower. Lastly, just when it looks like we may get back to the real story, King slaps together a truly awful Wizard of Oz scenario. If you're looking for a sappy romance with a heavy helping of B-Western tragedy thrown in, give it a shot. However, if you're expecting more tales of adventure in Midworld, wait for the next volume. You won't have missed a thing. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't like a single King book since Needful Things. Wouldn't it be ironic to find that his talent was buried in the ruins of Castle Rock?
Rating: 
Summary: Flashback fizzles; read only pps. 1-110 and the last 60
Review: Okay, mathematically, here's how I calculate 1 star for this drivel. FIVE stars for the first 112 pages and the last 61 pages, which is almost exactly 1/4 of the total of 672 pages. So that's .25 x 5 = 1.25 stars. ZERO stars for the other 500 pages. Total stars = 1.25. Round to one star.
Now some advice: 1. find the book in your local library (or the unabrdiged audio version). 2. Read the first 110 pages, which advance the story of the Dark Tower and are great. 3. Use this instead of the next 400 pages: "As a teenager, Roland falls in love with a girl. She dies, and so do his 2 friends." 4. Read the last 60 pages of the book, which advance the story. There, wasn't that easy? You're welcome.
The first three volumes are sprinkled fairly heavily with references to Susan Delgado, and one assumes she is dead. Ditto for Alain and Cuthbert, Roland's two friends. So there is absolutely no suspense, and for me absolutely no interest, in reading page after page after page of juvenile love story.
In books like this, there are several "kisses of death", severl omerta if you will. The first is when I quit a book part way through, because I'm just not into it. (That happened with this book). Then, if I resume the book, I try to find the unabridged audio and listen to it while I exercise. (That happened here, too). Rarely does this fail to get me through the book, but of course... When I got to the audio part about Alain whining about going back to the Hillock because Jonas was destroying it... yuck. So I quit the audio version too, went home and tore out the first 400 pages of the book and put them in the recycling bin. At least no one else will suffer through THIS copy of the book.
Now I have returned to the print versiion, tearing out sections as I read. A sense of accomplishment, don't you know. And so, dear reader, do I plod my ponderous path through this pithy pablum. I really do want to read volumes 5-7 but Mr. King is trying my patience mightily.
I have even started rooting for the bad guys, which is the ultimate kiss of death, I suppose. I mean, maybe the Good Man isn't so bad after all. Keeps a lot of people employed, it seems.
In conclusion, read the beginning and end and skip the rest. Use the saved time to do something enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Suburb!
Review: This book is one of the best books that King has written yet. I am a true fan of Stephen King, and have read all of the Dark Tower series, and this book is nothing short of fabulous. Roland is a chrismatic character, and in this book we get a feel of what made him what he is in the previous 3 books. The storyline of the search for the Dark Tower is not advanced much at all in this book, but the world that once was that he (Stephen King) spins in this book somehow makes the search for the Tower pale in comparison. This book proves once and for all that the type casiting of Stephen King as a horror author may need to be reconsidered. The illustrations throught the book are thought provoking and interact in a deep level with the story line. This book is a must for anyone that loves Action, Romance, Intrigue, Mystery, Fantasy, and above all the pleasure of reading a truly outstanding book.
Rating: 
Summary: New Dark Tower Book is a mixed bag.
Review: Here's the thing. King has presented us with the fourth book in the Dark Tower series and the long, long, long awaited sequel to The Waste Lands. The problem is that the third book in the series was so phenomenally good that anything King did as a follow up would have to be a let down. Wizard and Glass does resolve the tense cliff hanger that ended Waste Lands, but it does little to advance the story of Roland and his Ka-tet. The bulk of the book concerns itself with a flashback into Roland's teenage years and serves to fill in some of the gaps concerning the gunslinger's past. The romance/western that King presents us with is compelling and interesting, but seems to pale in comparison with the surreal bombast of Roland's more recent adventures as he quests for the tower. As a reader, I found myself enjoying the story of Roland's romance with Susan Delgado, but at the same time I found myself counting the pages left before we get back to the main storyline. King has tended to overwrite in the past seven years or so, but it doesn't bother me the way it does some people. I would, however, have prefered 700 pages of the bizzare sci-fi/fantsy that made Waste Lands so wonderful. All in all, good King, but not great King.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth reading...
Review: Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass. Now this is a step backward in the Tower series, but there are somethings I did find problems with. One thing I did not like was Roland's past being so long. It spreaded through 540 pages, which I personally thought that it could of been about 300 pages, but King stretched it like what Tom Clancy did it in Red Rabbit. But unlike Clancy, King took his time and created a world unlike we have ever seen which Clancy needs to do research to make his world as real as possible. Wizard and Glass takes off just a couple of moments after the third book, and of course they got off and now Roland tells his tale of love, and finding his place and fighting off Randall Flagg. The story is quite interesting, but I didnt like the tale of a sci-fi western, but I personally dont like Westerns so I didnt like the Western part. The rest of the story is telled rather well. The end is good, and is worth your time? yes.
Rating:
Summary: A novel worthy of the name Dark Tower.
Review: The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass continues Stephen King's epic series. King's loyal fans have waited five long years for this book. I personally had fears that Roland and his band of gunslingers would never find a way off the demonic Blaine. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded. I don't want to give away the events of the book, but a clue to the resolution of the Blaine situation is in the song from the Charlie The Choo-Choo book described in The Waste Lands. The defeat of Blaine was artfully done and my favorite part of the book. But Blaine is only a very small part of this novel. The majority of the novel deals with events just subsequent to Roland's becoming a gunslinger as a teenager. This book is basically a love story, involving Roland's first (and only) true love, Susan Delgado. Although I'm not typically a fan of romances, I enjoyed reading about Roland's past because we are able to gain some insight as to how Roland became the stone cold man he is today. After we learn of Susan's fate, the book returns to the present, where Roland comes face to face with Randall Flagg. Flagg, the imp of Satan introduced in The Stand, stands in the way of Roland's journey to the Dark Tower. In my opinion, the encounter between King's greatest hero and greatest villain is all too brief. However, Flagg promises Roland that this will not be the final meeting between the two. While I was disappointed that we didn't learn more of the cause of Roland's obsession with the Tower, I greatly enjoyed this book and think it is a fitting continuation to a fantastic modern literary epic.
Rating:
Summary: FINALLY!
Review: This unbelievably complex and broad tale that Stephen King has been spinning for over the past decade is the most unique world I have ever visited. I refer to the "Dark Tower" saga not as a story but as a world because of King's ability to bring such depth and realism to storytelling that I literally forget that I'm reading and feel that I'm observing. King started his tale not at the beginning, but in the middle, leaving limitless possibilities in what direction the story will take. I have one thing to say to Mr. King. "I hope that it takes you a very long time to get this tale under control." So far in this tale's life, King hasn't taken a single shortcut. It's for that reason that it has taken on such monstrous proportions. For what it's worth, if the story continues for forty more years and fills eighty volumes, I'll continue to look forward to thelatest release of each installment. I would recommend before starting to read any book in the "Dark Tower" series, approach your decision to do so with the utmost of caution. You will be unable to resist reading the rest of the series, the conclusion of which is as unpredictable as it's yet untold beginning. Thank you
Rating:
Summary: Roland and friends go on a coffee break
Review: Earlier this year, upon hearing that Stephen King had completed the Dark Tower series and that the last 2 books were to be published in 2004, I chose to finally crack up this series. I was immediately enchanted by the truly grandiose landscape that King was painting and thought the first 3 books were excellent, especially #3 The Waste Lands. It is in this third novel that the path to the dark tower finally became clear and oh so much happened in that book to advance the story. The fourth novel Wizard and Glass, although a fine literary achievement, does practically nothing to advance the series. The story of Wizard and Glass picks up immediately where the third book left off, with Roland and his companions trapped aboard Blaine the monorail, a suicidal train running at a speed of about 800 miles an hour. Blaine, who adores riddles, cuts a deal with the group whereby they must ask him a bunch of riddles and if they happen to stump him on one he'll let them off the train safely. Once safe and sound, the group sit around a campfire and it is here that Roland will tell them the tale he had promised to tell. It is a tale of Roland at the age of fourteen and two of his friends, Cuthbert and Alain, who leave the land of Gilead after being sent west on a mission by Roland's father. They settle into the county of Hambry, where Roland will fall in love with a woman named Susan, and make enemies with almost everyone in town. I was aware before diving into Wizard and Glass that the majority of the novel was set in Roland's past and welcomed the idea with open arms, wanting to learn more about Roland. The book focused on the wrong things however. I was hoping for things like character development on Roland's parents and on his mother's affair with the wizard Marten that devastated family dynamics. Or of Roland's training as a young gunslinger at the hands of Cort. Cort appears to be such a fascinating character and this would have seemed to be the best opportunity for King to develop him but alas he barely gets a mention. Or how about digging into the roots of Roland's obsession with reaching the dark tower? Nope, not in this book. The 500 pages focus pretty much on events that bear little to do on the quest to the dark tower. Roland falls in love. Great. Him and his companions battle forces of evil in a small town. Great. To be fair, King does weave an enchanting tale that is fun to read, therefore that's why I still gave this book a high rating despite my frustrations. The town of Hambry is vividly captured, the setting feels magical, the characters really burst to life. The love story between Roland and Susan is heartfelt. I also found Rhea, the witch who lives on top of a cliff, to be an amazing character. Every scene with her was great, and lent some much-needed gloom to a story that otherwise would have had all the gloom of a harlequin romance novel. One problem that bordered me immensely: Roland is narrating the tale to his friends around a campfire. So how does he know all corners of the story? Such as all the things that happened between closed doors in Rhea's lair, or in Susan's home, at the Sherrif's office, all events where he was not present. Around the campfire, Eddie Dean asks him precisely this question, to which Roland replies:"I don't think that's what you really want to know Eddie". A one sentence cop-out for something that just doesn't make any sense. Or maybe Roland knows all these things because he saw them through the crystal ball? It's not explained and I've given up trying to make sense of it. My final analysis of Wizard and Glass is that although still good, so far this is the weakest entry in the series especially after the absolute high that was "The Waste Lands". Wizard and Glass reads well as a singular tale, but for those looking for advancement towards the dark tower I would actually go so far as to recommend reading only the first 112 pages and the last 60 and skipping everything in the middle. It would be a much better use of time.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could give it 4.5 stars!
Review: Yes, it's a bit predictable, but I still couldn't put it down. This is a great read - particularly for Stephen King fans. There are allusions to other King "worlds" in here, but the book would read okay if the only world you are familiar with is Rolands. I wouldn't try and read this before having read the other novels in the series, and the concordance that I ordered here was a nice refresher. It's not quite perfect, but "it's got a nice beat and you can dance to it!" 4.5 Stars!
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