Rating: 
Summary: what the hell
Review: wolves of the calla is by far the worst of the series.
as mentioned by others, there is over 100 pages dedicated to father callahans past, which could have been surmised in a short paragraph.
personally, i think the entire plotline of the rose in new york is superfluous. everything about our world is just a waste of ink, nothing in new york is a challenge. its just sort of a menial task they have to take care of, and as such, instantly makes the reader (such as myself) apathetic to it. if it isnt challenging to the katet, its hardly interesting. what is uninteresting should not be written at all. at least it contributes to his page quota, though. very sly, that Mr King.a minor complaint: the people of the calla dont speak with the same charm that was present in volume 4 (the "aye" and "ye" just have a way of creating atmosphere. expressions like "big-big", "camalla", and "babbies" just to give you a few examples of what has taken their place (more on this later) let me say King mentions himself no less than 3 times. read the last page before you decide to buy this. i might have rated as high as 3 stars, but this is such an atrocious error on kings part it must not go unpunished. (like i said, mr king is quite clever) you probably want to know what happens to susannahs suspected pregnancy, the pieces of maerlyns rainbow, what happened to roland after he killed his mother.. but remember, king likes to disappoint his readers, so you wont find out with any real satisfaction what happens to any of these questions even questions about the connection of thundercap to the calla are left unanswered (who slightman was reporting to, andys programming, things of this nature). you spend hours reading, and nothing to show for it at all. this is how king hopes to get us hooked up and ready to spend more money on volume 6, since volume 5 does almost nothing to progress the story. this might sound like kings ineptitude to entertain, but you have to think: it must be damn hard to write a 700 page book, and leave the reader just as unfulfilled as when he/she picked it up. it leaves you with the feeling of impotent rage. it really does. oh yes, dont forget about the sly references and allusions to harry potter, star wars, marvel comics, charles dickens, and websters dictionary (might have been oxford, i cant remember). yes, King, we know what "run" means. most of us Readers can understand the written language. starting as far back as volume 3 we could tell King was relying more and more heavily on cutting and pasting ideas.
its become obvious that king feels he needs to complete the series out of obligation, but he lacks the will power or imagination to deliver. oh yea, if you do decide to buy the book. tear out the pictures and burn them. they are thick and glossy, and act like giant bookmarks. so if you inadverdently flip to one, you might get ahead of yourself and ruin what little suspense there is. dont worry though, the pictures are so grotesque and inaccurate that this shouldnt be much of a problem. in case you were wondering, the front cover is supposed to be susannah. yes, i know. susannah is supposed to be black. yes, it is strange that she appears to be quite naked, but if things like that bother you, count on a migraine somewhere between the cammala crap and the abominable illustration of roland. apparently, it was decided that shoddy writing should be matched with shoddy illustrations in a package deal. we waited over 5 years, so we fans deserve at least that much
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not really that good either
Review: Ugh. I'm so torn by this book. I waited six years for it to come out, so obviously I had some pretty high expectations for it. Obviously, anyone who reads this book is A. A fan of the DT series
B. Concurrently, will be interested in knowing what happens next, so they'll read the book whether it's written well or not. Having said that, the book is enjoyable and I don't feel screwed. However, after the first four books, having the best praise I can honestly give be "I don't feel screwed", I think this is a bad sign. Here are the main points that I was unimpressed with. #1. This book could easily be 200 pages shorter. King is starting to write like Dickens, as if he is getting paid by the word still. Not good. I appreciate King's unique ability to paint a picture with words, but there are far too many times (the page he spends describing the word "run" as being the English word with the most meanings) I read for awhile and I was like "What the hell? What does this have to do with anything?" #2. Callahan's character is interesting in principle, but he somehow manages to take up a third of the book and you honestly just don't care about him at any point. #3. There used to be interesting allusions to the way Roland's world was back when he was a child, and thousands of years ago when the world was more advanced that ours. In every story there has been some interesting tidbit given away about the history of Roland's world. Not here. There's some "Great Old Ones" stuff that makes an appearance (some of it MORE than a little odd and seemingly hackneyed) but there's no explanation for it, it's just there. #4. The ending. First of all, it seems like the last ten pages were written in about 10 minutes, as if King was using the last of a second wind to stumble across the finish line. Also, the last two pages.... Stephen, please. Don't do what it looks like you are trying to do. If a certain character makes an appearance in this series in person (Those of you who read the ending know who I'm talking about) I will kill you. All in all, once again, not a dissapointment, but I truly hope out of the 3 books he wrote back-to-back-to-back, this is the worst one. It's just not as good as the other 4, plain and simple.
Rating: 
Summary: And Roland is Closer
Review: Five hours from page 1 until the end. Its that absorbing. Its that good. The characters have deepened, and as Dark Tower has permeated King's other works, so do they to the Dark Tower. The sense that it is all revolving around something of utmost importance (the Rose? the Tower itself?)--something that ties us all together with meaning, makes King's Dark Tower universe sometimes seem more real, more powerful, and more intriguing than the ordinary one we inhabit. Even if there are crazy creatures running around.
Rating:
Summary: Too long to wait.....
Review: I never was a Fan of King's work until I got started with the Darktower Series. Each book, so far, has been a masterpiece of Storytelling and I have anxiously awaited each new Book in the series. Far too often Authors let quality slip to the wayside in projects like this. Seeing the profits they make off of the original work, they expand the Story with more Books and before you know it, the original concept has been lost trying to continue something that should have been left alone. This is NOT the case with "Wolves of the Calla". Obviously, King intended this to be one long story from the very beginning. Thankfully, he has been able to pull it off so far. This Series, in my opinion anyway, will be Kings "Magnum Opus" and the continuity of the story, from book to book is seamless. Like others who have mentioned it, the ending worrys me. The hints that he has given us throughout "Wolves", especially in the last pages has changed my perception of the Story greatly. If King does what I think he is doing, I can only hope he is able to pull it off without cheapening the end product....
Rating:
Summary: Not sure...
Review: Well...I have been waiting 6 years for this book to come out. And i am still undecided as to how much I really liked it. I read it in 2 1/2 days so it kept my attention, but the very ending of it. I do not want to spoil it for anyone else...but those of you reading this should know what I am refering to. It was the last page...I did not like that at all. I sure hope Mr. King didn't go in that direction and totaly destroy the entire epic. The first 4 books were amazing, and to an extent this book was also...I guess I will have to wait until March to see where it is going.
Rating:
Summary: King at his best
Review: The original gunslinger Roland Deschain and his companions (Eddie Dean, Susannah Holmes, Jake Chambers) along with their pet Bumblers Oy deter from the quest of averting the eradication of the Dark Tower. Though they have no time to leave the Beam's path if they are to prevent Chaos from ruling the worlds, Roland follows his Ka anyway. The group are in the farming community Calla Bryn Sturgis where apparently every decade the Thunderclap Wolves abduct a child from each pair of Calla twins. They take the misfortunate members to the Tower before sending the twin home a mental and physical damaged husk of what they were. In 1977 New York City thugs from the Drawing of the Three threaten bookstore owner Calvin Tower. They demand he sells to them a vacant lot in midtown Manhattan where the Rose that is this world's manifestation of the Dark Tower lies. The gunslinging quartet with the help of Old Fella must fight evil in two worlds. The fifth novel in Stephen King's Dark Tower series is fantastic as the action continues, the team takes a detour yet paradoxically steps closer to their goal, and the connections to other books continue. That link to SALEM'S LOT and THE STAND, etc. is part of the fun (Scribner offers THE CONCORDANCE to assist the audience in following the who's who from where). This particular volume contains an exciting story line starring absorbing characters who get deeper with each tale. Readers will appreciate the latest adventures of the gunslingers as Mr. King's epic fantasy is moving forward towards the climax. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Master of his literary universe
Review: I picked this up on Tuesday afternoon, and have read it twice already. Even when I put it down, I keep wandering back, picking it up; it pulls at me like the Tower pulls Roland. I love the immersiveness of the Tower books, and this one provides that in spades. I was too busy reveling in the details of the world, the clues that are scattered throughout, the tantalizing glimpses of how it all fits together, to worry about it feeing slow, or bloated. The return of Father Callahan, the examination of the vampiric nature, Tower and the bookstore, all fed my growing sense of where this is going. I'm already speculating on who will be showing up next. I'm sure Jack and Speedy will be a part of it, and Tyler. The mystery of the changing authors has some really intriguing possibilites, too. Maybe George will be showing up soon...or Richard? The sensation of time expanding and slipping that permeates the whole of the novel is only emphasized by the sudden, almost truncated nature of the confrontation at the end, especially given the repeated musings of Roland throughout on the nature of the waiting game. I felt the same way waiting for the book to come out all summer long, then I had it, read it, and now it's over!
Rating:
Summary: the saga continues...
Review: I've long thought of The Dark Tower as King's best work, and Wolves of the Calla helps to solidify that opinion. There's little to say except you must read this one if you've read the others.
Rating: 
Summary: Wolves of the Calla
Review: The essential plot of this fifth Dark Tower book will be familiar, as King intends it to be, to watchers of Sergio Leone westerns. A little town is victimized by bad guys, until the gunslingers from outside come and save them, doing some damage in the process to the town itself. The prominence of this plot, the relationship of which to the series' primary plot is as yet unclear, may be one reason why I found this book disappointing. Although the Wolves plot works reasonably well as an idea, it seems to lack tension, partly perhaps due to being drawn out over a long book, and partly because the final confrontation is brief, easy, and (to me) unengaging. Wolves of the Calla also incorporates two other main plot threads, that of Callahan (Father Callahan from Salem's Lot)'s backstory, and that of the vacant lot containing the Rose. I'm not sure of the relevance of Callahan's story and find him unlikeable as a character, and since that thread is all in the "past", it lacks tension. The Rose in New York is clearly relevant, of course, but the details of the thread are confused: why do the New York characters need to flee, and how will that help the gunslingers get control over the lot, which as far as I can tell they haven't established by the novel's end? Characters remain appealing in this installment, with Roland's possible illness and Susannah's possible pregnancy adding much-needed tension. I like Oy and was sorry to see him apparently forgotten at the novel's end. Though the Calla seems a bit too archetypically familiar, the plate-throwing is a nice touch. The illustrations are awful. I respect the fact that they're apparently what King prefers, but to me they look like rather cloudy pictures of strangely squinch-eyed, universally bucktoothed beanpoles usually firing guns while making faces. A startling bit of deliberate authorial intrusion occurs near the book's end with the characters' discovery of a copy of Salem's Lot. For a moment, I was afraid King was thinking of putting himself into the story. That would be scary, and not in a good way.
Rating:
Summary: Best in the series?
Review: I received a Donald M. Grant Artist Edition of this book a couple of weeks ago and threw aside my life for the next couple of days. I was a little weary because while I enjoyed "Wizard and Glass", I was afraid that maybe Stephen King may have lost his Dark Tower touch from the earlier novels (namely "Drawing of the Three" and "The Waste Lands"). My fears were assuaged and as it now stands, this may be the best book in the series to date. Past characters that readers of the series may have forgotten about resurface and King entwines them into the narrative magnificently. Favorite characters from the series also mature and the climax of this installment literally had me trembling with anticipation. Anyone who may have doubted King's ability in recent years to reel off an excellent "yarn" can rest still as this book reinstills the notion that SK is our master storyteller. Fans of the series will not be disappointed and I encourage anyone who has not yet picked up the DT books to start at the beginning as this is not a series to pick up right in the middle. The only minor gripe is one that I have with most of SK books (don't get me wrong, SK is without doubt my favorite author) in that the book can seem a bit bloated at times, but not nearly as bad as Wizard and Glass (or the dreadful Tommyknockers). I am so excited for this series and I hope that for a wonder, the next book, Song of Susannah gets pushed to next spring instead of next summer, as King pulls a bit of a Blaine the Mono on the reader and we are left with quite a cliffhanger.
"Wolves of the Calla" gets my highest recommendation!!!
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