Rating: 
Summary: havent read it yet!
Review: haha, i read King when i was a highschooler,(im 30 now). I enjoyed it then. i feel King writings are geared toward entertainment. and that is what i liked about it then. I sure its an Ok book but for me with all the other forms of visual media there is no way a book is going to do it for me. Also it think the two best books maybe of all SK novels were VOl 2-3 of the dark tower. they work very well. The first one was OK and the fourth novel was lame as lame is. Another thing is that I would appreciate having this novel released directly to a PDF version that I could read on my PDA while at work. I might even pay $20.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible Disappointment
Review: I loved the previous books in this serious and eagerly anticipated this novel. Boy was I disappointed. This book is a boring, rambling mess that made little sense and did nothing to further the series. Save yourself some time by reading the first 200 pages (at most) and then the last two chapters. You won't miss a thing. Let's just hope the next one is better and that he starts listening to his editor (or gets one with the guts and/or power to trim his novels).
Rating: 
Summary: Seriously, Don't Read Unless You've Read 1 thru 4!
Review: From the outset, King states that this book shouldn't be read as a stand alone volume and that you should read volumes 1 through 4 before tackling "The Wolves of Calla." The only thing I can say is; "Amen to that!" I read the first 4 volumes over the course of about a year, finishing the 4th installment about 2 or maybe 3 years ago. I've read the first hundred pages of this book and I've decided to go back and read 1 through 4 again before proceeding. Maybe I'm slipping into early senility, but there is simply too much backstory to sort through without having it fresh in your mind. Even with this problem, I'm giving the book 4 stars, because it is starting out nicely, personal memory problems aside. I will edit my review after I backtrack through the series in order. By that time, I'm sure the final volumes will already be in print.
Rating:
Summary: I was not moved by it.
Review: "Wolves of the Calla" was okay, but I was not really moved by it. In my opinion, it suffered from the same problems as "Wizard and Glass," which were too much backstory and it being too long.While I know that Stephen King can go on for a few more pages than necessary, I really think this story could've been told with a hundred or even two hundred less pages. I don't think the extra pages, or the story as a whole, really contributed to the reader knowing much more about the Dark Tower than we did in "The Waste Lands," which in my opinion is the best book in the series. While I am looking forward to the next book in the series, I hope it's better than this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Yet
Review: Wolves of the Calla is, in a word, outstanding, both as a stand alone novel, and as the fifth book in the Dark Tower series. I'll try to express my opinions of the book without spoiling the book for anyone who hasn't read it yet (I hate it when people do that).
I loved the character development in this book. We finally see what being a gunslinger really means and Roland, Eddie, Sue and Jake really live up to the title in a gripping ending. The old style Western feel of the book (with a few differences) really appealed to me also. King has created a world where things are almost normal, with subtle and some not-so-subtle differences that make this book my favourite of the series. I could write a lot more but I'd probably give too much away.
And look out for characters from King's other books (I just love the way he interweaves different stories). Read this book; you will not be disappointed, and keep an eye out for his next in the series, which I hope will be out soon.
Rating:
Summary: Roland and the Wolves
Review: This is one series that I hope never ends, although I know, because Mr. King has stated, that there are only two more books to go until we reach the Dark Tower. I've read all of Mr. King's works, since I chanced upon his first by accident when it was first published. The books have grown in length, and often they cry out for some editing, but this series could be twice as long, and I would have no complaints about length. It's great to get wrapped up in another type of world, and to see how many of the author's books blend into the story line of the Tower. When a new Gunslinger book comes out, I just open the cover, and go along for the ride with Roland, Eddie, Suzannah, Jake and Oy!
Rating:
Summary: 5 of 7 - The Dark Tower Phenomenon
Review: ~ Mayhap I'm todash! ~ Prerequisites (Don't even get close to this book without reading): "The Gunslinger", "The Drawing Of Three", "The Waste Lands", and "Wizard and Glass".
Recommended additional reading: "'Salem's Lot" and "Hearts in Atlantis". Movies don't count. By the way, "Who is Finli? Finli o' Tego?"
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This is the perfect installment to this long running series. In addition to being a sequel to 'Salem's Lot to a certain degree, it contains elements of Insomnia, Heart's In Atlantis, the Regulators, and The Talisman. But then some of those books contained elements of the Dark Tower as well. Once again, another page turning read from the master of suspense and fantasy!
Rating:
Summary: Immensely inadequate
Review: The great Shakespeare scholar notes: "I have described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis."
Rating:
Summary: Sprawling is not the word for this book and series.
Review: I have read all of Stephen King's other books, including the earlier volumes of the Dark Tower series. As much as I like King, the Dark Tower series -- particularly the last two -- could use some serious editing. The Wolves of Calla has three plot lines going. Of these one -- the confrontation with the wolves of the title -- is resolved in this long book. The other two are left hanging in midair at the conclusion. This is frustrating, even though King has stated he has written the remaining two books in the series in rough draft, and they are to be released in 2004. It's interesting to contrast this book with King's excellent "On Writing." One would have to conclude that Wolves of Calla should be much shorter. Far too much of the story is dragged out at extreme length; in "On Writing," King advised that a second draft should always be 10% shorter than the first draft. If he followed this rule, then I would hate to see the first draft of Wolves of Calla. Indeed, the entire series has been written at great length. It would be one thing if the book ended with a well-written confrontation with the Wolves. However, that confrontation is disposed of in a few pages, despite the hundreds of pages leading up to it. King really doesn't seem interested in it. At one point, Roland says that the shooting will be over in 5 minutes, and that seems accurate. King's real interest here seems to be setting up plots for the upcoming two books. However, I am not saying that this book is a waste of time. Anyone interested in the series will have to read it. And there are sections that are well-written and engage the reader. I never had much of a desire to put the book down. When I did finish it, however, I did not take much from the book. And economy has never been one of King's virtues. He seems to enjoy cramming his novels with as many incidents as possible, even if they stray from the main plot line. I have often found these tangents, while stucturally awkward, one of the pleasures of reading King. Sometimes they work here, sometimes they don't. Certainly King is stretching himself in the Dark Tower series. If this were the only thing he had ever written, I would expect he would have had difficulty in getting it published. This is not a criticism of the series; much of the problem would have been his original mixture of Western and Fantasy elements in the same book. Most publishers want fiction to fit neatly into genres, and King refuses to do that. Anyhow, while this book is an improvement over its predecessor in the series, it hardly ranks with King's best. It's worth a read, if only to keep up with the series -- which will be an amazing length when completed. Let's hope he returns to form for volumes VI and VII.
|
