Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good, almost great.
Review: This installment of the Dark Tower series takes us away from the Glass Palace and towards the Calla. The story of how our protagonists try to rid these folk of the Wolves that have haunted them for generations is a compelling one, and there are many nice sub-plots going on with a certain vacant lot in New York and a bit of a problem that Susannah finds herself in. I had been worried that after all these years King would have finally lost his touch with these books, but after the first fifty pages I had put all of those fears to rest. One quote from another reviewer, Eileen Rieback, sums up perfectly why this book lost a star from me: "Pere Callahan's tale is essentially a sequel to Salem's Lot, and has no place here." Now I remember liking Salem's Lot when I read it years ago, but when the first large flashback(there are two) of the events after that book was suddenly dropped upon me it completely destroyed all the momentum the story had been building up to that point. I had been flying through the pages, but when that first large flashback came I suddenly knew how Roland must have suffered and struggled through that immense desert. The thought that kept going through my mind was that King should have just written a Salem's Lot 2 instead to cover this stuff. It took awhile after plodding through this drawn out flashback, but I did manage to get myself wrapped back up in the Calla. The second flashback of Callahan wasn't nearly as bad since it is a lot more relevant to the story. And the story in this novel is excellent, gripes aside. Not as good as The Wastelands or Wizard and Glass, but it's right behind those two. If you've come through the first four books of the Tower there's no reason not to read this one. And if you haven't, well the series winds down in less than six months so there's no time like the present to start. And hey, if you're a big Salem's Lot fan that is eager to know what happened to Callahan then you can easily consider this a five star book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Last Gunslinger & His Katet
Review: I thought this book was very good. A good suspenseful tale Along the Path of the Beam and well worth the wait. If I would've had reason to believe I would have to wait another 10-15 years before the next one, then I guess I would've wanted a story that came across as a little more important, as opposed to feeling like this was just a sidebar (despite all the things we discovered.) But since all the other books are done, it gave me the luxury of being able to enjoy this book on it's own merits without feeling frustrated about the series as a whole. Good Read! The only thing I didn't like was the incredibly, disappointingly BAD illustrations from the legendary Bernie Wrightson. What in the world happened, Bernie?! I agreed with another reviewer who said it was like he never even SAW a black woman before. Yikes!
Rating:
Summary: Closer To The Tower
Review: Tha latest chapter in the tale of Roland, has the ka-tet riding into the town of Calla and preparing to fight a battle against a group of mysterious child snatching wolves. The wolves come every twenty years or so, and take one of the many sets of twins that populate the town. When the children return sometime later they are husks of their former selves, or roont as they call them. Much of the lengthy book is buildup to the eventual confrontation, but there are also character events large enough to propel the story into an entirely new direction that will obvious be what the next installment is about.If you've read and enjoyed the four books previous to this you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best of the Dark Tower books
Review: I just finished reading Wolves of the Calla, the fifth book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It might be the long wait between books four and five, but I think that this may be the best book in the entire series up to date.
Rating:
Summary: Further proving King's genius
Review: As several of my fellow "constant readers" have already mentioned here, King's genius is apparent in this lastest Dark Tower adventure. I can't accurately describe how wonderful I thought this book was. After all, I'm not a writer. But I will say that King is able to make you feel the whole spectrum of human emotions within the covers of this book. Not only that, but he triggers your imagination to think of things that other novelists don't seem to be able to do nowadays. Fantasy/sci-fi has always been a take-it or leave-it area, but he makes his series accessible to all audiences, using that flavorful narrative voice of his we have all come to love. The self-reflexivity he shows here is brilliant. It also proves that he still knows how to have fun as a novelist even after all these years in the game. "Leave 'em wanting more" is how the saying goes, and I can't wait until "The Song of Susannah" so that I can go through the whole, thrilling ride once again.
Rating:
Summary: Building Block of Books!
Review: In November of 2003, the wait of Dark Tower fans was finally over! After YEARS of waiting, the Wolves of Calla finally made it to book shelves across the nation! Dark Tower fans grabbed and groveled over the book, for good reasons!
The Ka-tet now face a new enemy, the infamous Wolves of Calla were coming back to a small town of strange human beings who mated in twins. This time the people of Calla plan to fight back, with the Gunslingers' help! Roland and the Ka-tet then plan their battle with the mysterious enemy.
This book is suspenseful, mysterious, and breath-taking in its non-stop drama of violence, betrayal and heart pounding plot points! A book that definately lives up to the rest of its series's expectations.
Rating:
Summary: Good to the last drop
Review: This is excellent, vintage King. Not quite as good as Volume IV in the series (although very similar in feel), but still a great read. The main story is that of the ka-tet's intervention to save a town from a bunch of marauding who-knows-whats that come every 23 years to steal one of each pair of twins and then return them later horribly afflicted. This was OK, but I found it not as interesting as the back story. Pere Callahan is clearly identified early on as the Father Callahan from King's Salem's Lot. What's up with that? How can there be a fictional character in the "real" world of Roland et al? This leads to more questions about the nature of Roland's world and its relation to that of the rose, and to our own and to the worlds of many of King's previous novels to which allusions are sprinkled throught the text. All this leads up to a rather suprising cliff-hanger ending which has upset some readers and reviewers, but which I thought was great. I can't wait for the next volume to come out.
Rating:
Summary: Long time coming
Review: For me, this was a much anticipated release. Having waited since 1997, when the fourth book in the series was released. The time it took for publication was my biggest complaint. In this fifth part of the epic tale of Roland and his ka-tet, the group is met by, what appears initially to be, a distraction to their journey to find the dark tower. It soon becomes apparent, that this is no segway, but a part of the path they must take, no matter what the danger entails. The fifth book keeps me wondering what the sixth and seventh books are going to be about. The story, which in some respects can stand alone, but in many respects, if you have the first through the fourth books of the series, fits in nicely. If you want to read this book as a standalone story, there are parts that might not make a lot of sense to you, but the story overall will still work. The end will make you want to buy the next in the series when it comes out later this year. At times, the book did seem to drag out. However, if you can continue through those parts where the story slows (probably a direct result of being a part of the MTV generation, where everything changes rapidly) you will be rewarded by seeing the pieces of the puzzle fit together nicely to complete the whole picture of the other world where the story takes place. All in all, The Wolves of Calla, tells a great tale of how intelligence and understanding of the world around you, and a little luck will enable even the most unlikely of people to become heros in some form or another. King has created an elaborate world that is separate and connected to this world in a manner that, in time, will be a major contribution to the world of literature.
Rating: 
Summary: The Dark Tower is starting to make me a little drowsy
Review: Let me start this 'review' off by saying that I consider myself a very, very big fan of Stephen King and the majority of his book's. The Stand was an absolute work of genius, 'IT' was fantastic, and 'Everything's Eventual was a dare I say, gripping and eerie read.
I have also forced myself through the seemingly endless pages of the Dark Tower series. While being able to stomach the books 1-3, I have had definite trouble getting through the yawns of 'Wizard and Glass', and found the same was true in 'Wolves of the Calla'.
I feel that I should reiterate some of the points written in "ohnjayjdp's" review: the whole idea of Detroit not facing Lake Michigan and then just writing it off, using the excuse of a different universe. That idea has gotten stale and could be construed as a little lazy. Also, using the references of past stand alone books has gotten boring:maybe a fun little way of boosting sales of other books,i.e Salem's Lot, Hearts in Atlantis, and Desperation, etc.
The trick's were interesting at first, but come on. I am only praying that it is worth the trip in the end, when we finally reach the Dark Tower.
Rating: 
Summary: What was that???
Review: It looks like Steven King has thrown the story out the window. He turns to shameless self promotion of his other writings and the same digression that we see in so many of them. Instead of expanding on a truly great work in progress he tries to tie several of his other works into this story, Salem's Lot is the most obvious and does not belong. The story no longer flows well and we have 700 pages of crap to digest, hard to eat, painful to read. This book clearly does not belong in the series and is not part of the story that Steven King set out to create.
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