Rating: 
Summary: Masterful
Review: I was captured by SK's latest Dark Tower Work. The book was clear while very complex in its originality, as were the first three in the series. Bravo Mr. King, Bring on the last three books. I'm having trouble waiting for them.
Rating: 
Summary: Disgusting
Review: Well, Steven King finally decided to do sleazy pulp. Cause this is just what this is. 400 freaking pages of Roland and his love, who for some implausible reason fell in love right in the first sight. And after that details of their affair to ad nauseum. Now When I Pick up a Stephen King book, I'm not looking to read some sleazy pulp fiction that could belong in a V.C. Andrews novel. I hated Susan Delgado, she personifies the weak, romantic, female. Now that coming from a guy who has done tough as iron female leads, this is SAD, just plain sad! The charactrs are all cut out, and have their roles shoved down their throats. You know who you have to hate, and who to like. There is no mystery, nothing whatsoever. As it is: SK didn't have to include ALL of Roland's past in one book, and then give us about 50 pages of some goofy Wizard of Oz, paraphernalia with the ruby red shoes { I kid you not about this!] The only saving graces in this are: Alain, Cuthbert, Jonas, and Rhea of the coos. { even they're given minimal roles just to have more scenes of Roland and Susan rolling around in the hay] Eddie, Sussanah, and Jake are hardly even involved in this. To sum it up: Damn this peice of trite, and read the three books before this. they are MUCH better.
Rating:
Summary: Wizard and Glass
Review: I needed a book for my 8 hour train ride to Niagara Falls. Having read Stephen King before, I chose Wizard and Glass not realizing that it was the 4th in a series. Needless to say, after reading Wizard I have gone on to read the first three volumes. Captivated, my 8-hour train ride didn't seem to matter. I only wish it had been longer so that I could have finished it in one sitting!
Rating: 
Summary: Bravo!
Review: I love this series! I have been a Stephen King fan for years, but for some reason I decided the Gunslinger series wasn't for me. But, I recently read this installment just for the heck of it, and boy was I pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it so much, that I went back and read the previous three. I particularly like his take on Roland's great quest. Granted, Roland can be rather ruthless when it comes to the Dark Tower, but I do like the fact that he does have a something bigger than himself to invest his life in. He has a passion, a calling, a true purpose. He knows who he is, and why he's alive. His one goal is to reach the Dark Tower, and perhaps save his world in the process. And along the way, he communicates this sense of destiny and purpose to three other relatively lost souls. Whatever Roland says, does, or feels, is done with great passion, intelligence and intensity. This much we see in his great love for Susan. Roland represents what many aspire to: to be fully, and completely alive and vital. To face life head on, with as much courage, dignity, and strength as possible. To keep going until you finally achieve that for which you were born. This series is by far King's best work!
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: This is one book you will not be able to put down. I want more. The Story pulls you in and will not let you go.
Rating:
Summary: Steven King's Wizard and Glass: Dark Tower IV
Review: This book was wonderful. I don't know how some people can think it is too long. I wish that it had been twice as long. I was actually dissapointed when the flashback ended. I urge you to read all of the Dark Tower books. The best fantasy I've ever read. I can't wait until the next Dark Tower book comes out.
Rating: 
Summary: The gunslinger fled to the east, and we followed.
Review: I am in favor of the minority about this book. It is tinted with too much tragic love, and cross-references to other books. Specially the Wizard of Oz ones. It seems that the more info you get about Roland life, the more inconsistent it becomes. I would prefer to see him traning Jake as the next gunslinger along the Path of the Beam and find out whether he's got the guts to act as Cort did to him. Or will Jake play the the part of a new hawk to win one further step to the tower? From what I remember, Roland will find another love, who will die with a nail in her forehead (just read again The Gunslinger) This is not the end of Susan Delgado, so will another romance pop up in the DT V book? I think, and of course it is just an opinion, that the series theme is much too diverse for this excursions into Roland's Past. Was there ever the need for Roland, son of Steven to have a surname! If you like the Gunslinger as a character, you can skip this book. It makes you feel that Roland is nothing more than a lunatic with an unbending purpose. The more details given, the most the focus of the series is lost. I hope the next book will be a simpler but darker tale, for all readers' (and their fathers') sake. P.S. : Mr. King's spanish is lousy, and he should either improve it or stick to his mother tongue in his writing. It is not that he may blunder, but in the U.S. there are lots of spanish-speaking people that may just laugh when he writes gringo-jargon.
Rating:
Summary: Failed Literary Experiment
Review: phil_swanwick@hotmali.com The Dark Tower IV. This novel explores the psychic undercurrents of the previous three novels. I could not help but feel some pangs of autobiography in this latest novel - a gunslinger, beyond his time - in his realm, yet out of it. Roland is a dinosaur - respected, but despised. King, a horror/thriller writer, can surely relate to this situation. Writing a western/romance well past his prime, is King the gunslinger? The author deepens one character while ignoring the other two. A superb artist of the english language, King is nevertheless burdened by a overbearing narrative style, which occasionaly buries his true meaning and results in hefty tomes such as this one. King is too subtle a writer to directly state the differences between the good and evil characters in his works, yet state them he does. There is never a question as to which characters the reader is to love or hate. He is further at fault for repeating Francis Coppola's mistake in "Heart of Darkness" - attempting to define Ultimate Evil. Like Alan Grant's "Unkillable Thing", such a concept is too difficult to project to the common reader, and is thus doomed to fail as a literary device. In his favour however, his subtle contrast between Shakespeare's heavenly Cordelia and his own Cordelia Delgado is a brilliant concept and an effective form of foreshadowing. Despite her namesake, she is more akin to the calculating Lady Macbeth and becomes one of King's greatest creations. Her end, like Cordelia's and Lady Macbeth's is essential to the plot and moving on of the protagonist. All things considered, a well-rounded novel by a veteran.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Storytelling by the King
Review: Wizard and Glass is a magnificent piece of work. In its pages, we find so much more information that fleshes out Roland and we can see how much this "obsession" for the Dark Tower has cost him. At first I wasn't too happy with most of the book being this huge flashback but King can wrap you up in his imagination until you can't sleep, dream or think of anything else. The story is a sci-fi western fantasy for the most part but there is a strong human element as in most of King's work. You can't help sympathize with Roland, as grim and unfeeling as he can be. I have only fleeting acquaintance with the other Dark Tower novels but I plan to buy the first three and I eagerly await the fifth. I hope that in the final novel, when all is resolved, all that this quest has cost Roland will be returned to him. Those who have read Wizard and Glass know what I'm talking about. All in all, a great, great book and King just keeps getting better and better.
Rating: 
Summary: This is the worst in the series
Review: This book was definitely not as exciting as the previous volumes in the Dark Tower series. The story of Roland's past was way too long, and I found myself skipping about 80 pages. The whole Randall Flagg thing sucked, too, and the Wizard of Oz part was very cheesy. I hope the next part in the series is better than W and G.
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