Rating: 
Summary: The Best of the Dark Tower Series
Review: If you're like me, then by the time you get to this point of the series you'll be very curious to know about people from Roland's past such as Cuthbert, Alain, and Susan. Well, that's what about 500 of the 672 pages in this book deals with. And that tale of Roland's youth is an excellent one. We learn of what he and his friends get involved in in the Barony of Mejis, not long after Roland becomes a Gunslinger.There is great insight into who Roland was and how he became who he is. We see Roland not as the hardened man of The Gunslinger but as a boy, and we see the beginning of the events that would eventually turn him into that cold, imposing figure. Not to say that he is soft and weak here. Even at fourteen Roland is a born leader and a great fighter; he just hasn't shut away his emotions yet. Around the flashback, we also get the excellent conclusion of the Blaine escapade on one end and the next part of the journey towards the Tower at the other. The Wastelands comes very, very close, but ultimately I have to say that this is my favorite book in the series thus far. A must read for anyone who has read the previous three books.
Rating:
Summary: KING'S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT
Review: Quite simply, this is not only the best of the Dark Tower series to date (number 5 is good but will be better appreciated along with 6 i feel) but the best book King has yet written. Great western elements, great characters and at least one moment that brought tears to my eyes. The only thing is that you NEED to read the (brilliant) series in order for it to become worthwhile. Please read them all!
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: Fantastic and engrossing
Review: A masterful work that is epic, engrossing, and nary a dull moment to be found.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of the Tower Series
Review: I have always been a fan of Stephen King, but I have not jumped aboard the Dark Tower series as many others have. The series has always struck me as a bit pretentious, and I think that Roland's character has changed more times over the years than Michael Jackson's nose. He has gone from being the distant, dangerous, and single-minded force of nature to the two-fingered raving sick man to the get-along guy of the third novel--the ultimate team-player and all-around reasonable chap. I preferred his first incarnation, although I found the storytelling in The Gunslinger a little shallow and presumptuous. But in this work King has returned to the full-fleshed characters of the second book, The Drawing of the Three. Yes, this work does little to advance the overarching storyline, but it goes a very long way toward helping us understand the man Roland. The story reads a little like a Louis Llamour novel, except with wonderful characters and a much more deft hand guiding the plot. It is a classic tale of doomed love, and even though you know the outcome through knowing Roland's future, it is no less heartbreaking. One of the strongest characters in any King novel is the witch Rhea, she is the ultimate villain and I loved hating her. Apparently she will yet play a role in the series. King is at the top of his mature form in this novel, with the work being nothing short of breathtaking in its breadth and depth. Yes, we do have to spend a little time at the first of the novel finishing with that embarrassing nonsense of a dangerous and crazy monorail that asks riddles (?!), and a little time at the end meeting the "tick-tock" man in a very anticlimactic showdown. It is the story of Roland and Susan that makes this novel. You could never have read a Dark Tower book in your life and that would be a tale well-woth getting into.
Rating:
Summary: A damn good novel, although it is a step back in the series
Review: Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King is good, but not the best in the series (that would go to Dark Tower 3: The Wastelands). Anyway, Wizard and Glass starts off where Dark Tower 3 left off: Roland, Jake, Eddie, and Susannah on Blane speeding 800 MPH and ready to commit suicide with them aboard, and the only way for the hero's to escape is to give Blane a riddle he cant solve! So now as time rushes on, Roland and his ka-tet are stumped, and now Eddie is the only one left to give him a riddle that he cannot solve. Of course this works, and Blane crashes, but they escape with no harm. The ka-tet then enter Kansas, but this Kansas has been wiped out with a killer virus, the freeway is packed with cars with dead bodies in them (remind of you something King fans?). So now on the side of the freeway, Roland then tells his ka-tet his tale of long lost love.
Susan Delango is her name, and she is going to marry the Mayor of this western town in Gilead; it is a post-Apocalytic town where oil is useless and people use horses for transportation. Roland and his ka-tet (not Jake, Eddie, or Susannah), but Allan and Colbert. Roland is just 14 and he settles in Gilead. As the story moves on, Roland catches Susan's eye, but the Mayor and Susan's aunt want her to have the Mayor's baby. Susan's aunt is obessed with this glass where she can see people doing what people do behind closed doors. She is obessed with the glass (like Gollum was obessed with the ring in the Lord Of The Rings triology), but she hides it away from Susan. Eventually Roland and Susan fall in love, and of course they have each other sexually. Allan and Colbert get jealous because they think that she is trying to break their ka-tet. Then in the oil fields, the man in black (Randal Flagg) is trying to start a civil war, and he is taking the oil to use for weapons. So now Roland and his ka-tet head to the oil fields, they blow it up, and Susan get's her hands on the ball. Susan then gives the ball to Roland and he uses it to his advantage and try to figure out what Randall Flagg is doing. Eventually Susan is taking to town and is burned at the stake, and her last words are "ROLAND I LOVE THEE!" Roland watches her burn at the stake through the ball. Then Roland smashes the ball so no one can use the power of the ball again. So now we enter back to Roland's world where we begin off. Now they set off to the Path Of The Beam where they run into Randal Flagg again telling his ka-tet that they should stop now for the quest of the Dark Tower. They then tell him no, and so once they are back where they were, and they head to the Path Of The Beam. Wizard and Glass is a good novel, long, but it is still worth reading if you got the time and also the patience to go through this whole novel. Keep up the good work King.
Rating:
Summary: King writes Horror, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi and now Romance!
Review: "Roland, I love thee!" screams Susan. Readers will all come to love Roland through this insightful look into his past at what made him the man he is today, the last gunslinger of Gilead. Book 4 satisfies us first by resolving the cliff-hanger from Book 3, "The Wastelands" that left us on the suicidal Blaine the train. They end up in a Kansas of another world devastated by Captain Trips, the superflu from "The Stand." They continue walking on their quest for the Dark Tower. Off in the distance they see an emerald palace, much like the one from the book, "The Wizard of Oz." On their way there, one night they hold palaver. Roland tells his ka-tet of times of old, when Gilead still stood and a war was just being waged by a John Farson. As a teen, just after passing his test to become a gunslinger, his father sends Roland and his two closest friends, Cuthbert and Alain away to the town of Mejis. This is for Roland's safety, for we learn that his father's magician and advisor, is out to kill Roland. It's a very complicated entanglement and it seems best all around that Roland leave Gilead for awhile, until tensions calm. While undercover in Mejis (the boys had to assume names and a cover story for their protection) Roland meets Susan, the love of his life. Unfortunately, Susan is promised to be a gilly (mistress) of the mayor. All bought and paid for with dishonest money. Susan only agrees to this deal so that she can regain her late father's land for her family. Mostly, she is goaded into it by her aunt Cord, a greedy spinster. Roland and his friends maintain their cover of "counting" supplies for the barony, however while doing so, they uncover evidence that the men in power in Mejis has taken sides with Farson, "The Good Man." Mejis has been used as a storage area for Farson's horses and weapons, tanks from another time or world. Little do the boys know that the real secret weapon is one of the wizard's glass, an orb that allows one to see events of the past, present, and future. It's too late for them to alert Gilead and send for help so they must take action themselves. There isn't much time, Farson's men will be coming soon to collect their supplies. Roland vows to protect Susan, who is now carrying his child. The two of them plan for a fairy-tale ending. Things don't always happen the way we hope.
Rating: 
Summary: Even years later... Its still crap.
Review: When I had first picked up the Gunslinger series, it was unlike anything I had ever read before. The descriptions of a post- apocalyptic future rang horribly true and real for me, and Roland had the dark appeal of a man with a noble cause doing questionable acts in the hopes that one day it would all be justified by the ends.
The more I read the more I became trapped in the world that King had created, and as a reader Roland's quest became my quest. What was the Dark Tower? What would happen in the final climax? Who would walk away in the after math to start the day anew?
Needless, to say King had me wrapped around his pinky in a manner of speaking.
However, the spell was not to last.
The fourth book came out, and with it came perhaps the one of the greatest insults to story and innovation I have ever witnessed a creator inflict on his own creations.
The DT series went from being a powerful tale that lampooned many of the stereotypes associated with the genre, to one that shamelessly espoused it.
The love interest has always been the bane of almost every form of entertainment be it film or literature. S/he is the anti-thesis of the hero and often makes one either gag or roll their eyes in exasperation at his or her blandness and/or sheer stupidity. Susan here is no different from every other typical damsel in distress we've been forced to swallow since childhood in fairytales. As another reviewer once stated there is nothing particularly beautiful or admirable about her, and we only know that she is pleasing to look at because King tells us so, however other than that she is merely a foil for Roland's own character rather than a real character herself. She isn't smart, she isn't strong willed, she doesn't actively try to refute the machinations of her aunt, nor does she have any real defining qualities but her supposed beauty. The maddening thing about this is that when one reads King's Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, and Gerald's Game it is quite clear that he is more than capable of writing interesting and strong females characters and as such one can only assume that he does this on purpose so as not to detract from the main characters.
However, Susan herself isn't the only thing that brings down the whole novel. The very idea that King has written a book about a single flashback into Roland's past that for all intents and purposes has no bearing on the current events is the problem. The concept is inherently flawed, then to devote 400 pages to it plus cliche characters , plus a cheezy love story makes one want to vomit all over the book, and a super sexually charged Roland- that no woman can resist- seems more like an ideal rather than the rugged fanatic he was depicted to be in the previous books... Add all these things together and you have a book that seems more like a Harlequinn Romance rather than a King novel.
The characters of Alain, and Cuthbert are no better than Susan in their cheeziness they are again identified by gimmicks: Cuthbert as the sly risk taker, and Alain as the sweet, innocent boy who would stick up for any of his friends *TM.. and dear god the bit at the end with the ruby cowboy boots was just taking pop culture too far...
The only thing I can think of in an attempt to explain the popularity of such below standard piece of work is the name of Stephen King, like other authors his name has such commercial drive that even if he slapped it on to a turd it would sell.. As I said even after revisting it years later, I find it to be as much an insult to me as a fan, a woman, and reader, as it had been when I picked it up so long ago as it is now, and maybe even more so. I still have difficulty accepting how something so good just went to hell and never came back, and how a creator could be so calloused as to let it happen.
ON a final note:
Please Mr. King go back to Robert Browning's disenfranchised and stoic Childe Roland, literary brother and the heart and soul of Roland of Gilead.
Rating:
Summary: Strays
Review: 3.5 stars. Let me start off by replying to those who criticize the romance in this novel. First, to those who are upset because this is romance from a horror writer, I got some news for you: STEPHEN KING HATES YOU, AND SO DO I. It was exactly that kind of blind generalization that made him want to write stories like this in the first place. Secondly, if you think that Stephen King is bad at writing romance, I'd say you're full of ____. Stephen King, if you think you write bad romance, YOU'RE FULL OF ____. I know that in all my life I will never forget the warm and heartbreaking story of Roland and Susan. Now, on to the book itself. First, it starts out with three chapters that, while they are gripping, do not belong in this novel. For more on that, read my review of The Waste Lands. After Blaine is settled, the ka-tet find themselves in a weird version of Kansas. There is a strong connection with The Stand here, which was why I stopped to read that book before I went any further with this one. I've also heard that there is a connection with Insomnia, but since I haven't read that one yet, I wouldn't know. Then Roland tells his friends of the time when he first met Susan, how she died, how he killed his mother, and how he began in his quest for the Tower. This flashback is the bulk of the narrative. After that, they end up at this crystal palace, and there is a strange allusion to the Wizard of Oz. This part really didn't have that much to it, as there's a bit of a let-down. The real story is the flashback. The flashback, in itself, was quite entertaining. There was more to it than the love story, including intrigue, shoot-em-ups, and fantasy. While it did seem to drag at parts, it was for the most part engaging. We also get to learn a lot more about Cuthbert and Alain. However, the worst part was that it was hard to enjoy the story knowing how it would end. I read through the whole thing with a sense of dread. When it finally did happen, I felt a great sense of relief, alomst like a catharsis. I suppose Stephen King was right when he said the story needed to be told, but I've never really liked flashbacks, because they stop the present story. This whole book is a flashback. So, when I read this, I felt a great sense of straying. This novel is a detour. But, looking at the whole Dark Tower story, I do see that it really couldn't be any other way. That fact doesn't make this novel any better, of course, so the rating stands. And this isn't the end of Roland's backstory, either. But, I don't think the rest will be told like this. More like the flashbacks on The Gunslinger, I'm thinking, and I can handle that. Now, don't we have a quest to take care of?
Rating:
Summary: My Best Read Ever! Very Exciting Book!
Review: "The Dark Tower 4, Wizard and Glass" was a great read for me. At first I didn't think I would like reading the book until I started reading it. I belive that this is the best book that Stephen King has ever wrote. Stephen King's plot immediately pulled me into the great storyline. This book continues where the third one left off with Roland and his ka-tet engaged in a riddling contest aboard Blaine the Mono, a crazy train that forces them into a riddling contest that they must win to live. Then they arrive into a diseased kanas, they find everyone is dead from an awful plauge. It is now that Roland decides it is time to tell the story of Susan.after you emerge from Roland story you are back in Kansas,as Roland's ka-tet continue along the path of the beam the come upon five pairs of bright red slippers and begin ageless stranger in order to return to the path of the beam. This is a great book and it changed my whole opinon on how Stephen King writes. Once i started reading it i couldn't stop until the end. I know that if you read this book you will love it.
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