Song of Susannah is the sixth and penultimate novel in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. This is the shortest book we've had in this series for quite a while. And, as the characters are split up into three groups, we get less than 200 pages for each. Since King likes to move things along at a rather glacial pace, not a whole lot happens here.

Picking up where Wolves of the Calla left off, the characters disperse back to different times and places in twentieth-century America. Here they all mostly wander around for a while until they get to convenient stopping points that will (one hopes) give the last book an exciting beginning. The "cliffhanger" here is anything but. Like the entire Susannah-is-pregnant story arc, it's hardly compelling (and it's grown rather tiresome).

In Wolves of the Calla, King inserted himself into the Dark Tower world. Now he shows up as a character. While the reader's initial impression of this is likely something along the lines of "Wow, how stupid," like most things in this novel, it doesn't matter one way or the other to the story, really, although King tries to tie together his writing career, life, the universe and everything with it. The book ends with a cryptobiographical diary from King the character which is, again, not particularly compelling.

This makes two poor entries in a row into the Dark Tower series. Song of Susannah is practically nothing but setup for the last book. On its own, it wouldn't be worth bothering with.

King's sixth book in the "Dark Tower" series picks up immediately where "Wolves of the Calla" left off, reinserting the reader into the world of the gunslinger and his travelling companions. They resume their quest for the Dark Tower with a great opening scene, and soon cutting to the absconded Susannah and her new passenger ...

Things progress smoothly and very competently in this penultimate volume, a shorter story than many of its predeccessors and more focused for it. The writing is condensed but not neglectful of the characters or the scenarios, and has all the fluidity and poetry of the previous volumes, although sadly not to the extent of the wonderful "The Gunslinger".

The novel benefits from the sense of movement and progress, that was sadly lacking in the last two novels, "Wizard and Glass" which was almost entirely flashback, and "Wolves of the Calla" which took place entirely in one town. Now things are rolling and the excitement and urgency return to the story.

I'm not a fan of the metafictional aspects of the series, which begun in earnest last novel with the mention of "Stephen King, the authord from Maine", a plotline which is expounded upon and reaches a kind of conclusion here as well. Mixing real-life with fiction is often a bad idea, and although Stephen King appears here as a character, the novel itself doesn't appear to suffer greatly despite the cringing feeling you might get at the hubris of the author.

Still, there are some truly heart-stopping moments, such as the escalation of Susannah's troubles in the final chapter, and the moment of Jake and Pere Callahan's emergence into the New York of 1999. Despite another cliff-hanger ending, which generally drive me nuts with anger and disappointment, it's still a strong book and worthy of the collection. If you felt a little deflated after books four and five, you'll be happy to see a return to form with book six.

I bought the first 4 books and being forewarned borrowed the remaining from the library. And I say thank you if it please, because King ruint the story as the wolves ruint the twins. Read no more for there are spoilers below, but take my word and borrow the last of the series. Or if you have sufficient control over curiosity, just say it ended with Wizard and Glass. No more; say thanks; Roland and his friends continue searching endlessly for the tower.


The Wolves of the Calla gave some reason for concern but had enough action involving the wolves and Black 13 and Susanah's pregnancy to make it interesting. Where it began to fall apart was with the hulldrum story of Father Callahan being forced into our ka-tet? Or is he part of the Ka tet. Though he later dies in the Pig, his death does not unmake the Ka-tet. Still it's obvious King wrote or wanted us to have a strong feeling for Callahan.

I should say it's obvious what King wrote or wanted because he put himself in as a character. Here is where he ruint the story completely. Whenever you read a portion of fiction, you take on a suspension of disbelief. Yes people can time travel, yes they can battle wizards and win, of course Roland's the fastest draw... But when you start to see the seams of the plot waved in front of your nose, you're shocked out of that world. Perhaps it's what he intended but I cannot imagine why. Whenever the character King shows up and says something or is the topic of Roland's Ka-tet discussion, I'm shocked out of their world and thinking about what the Author wants to tell us?

1) Stephen King has to write his series so that the Dark Tower does not fall and the universe collapse.
2) Some of the self-deprication also seems ego driven; Eddie comments that King has a lot of bad habits that needs to be managed. Oh won't the world help King lose 10lbs and stop drinking.
3) Stephen King's too lazy to finish the series; chuckle chuckle

All in all, he started w/ a great story and great immersion. I saw another reviewer mention that 90% of it's good and it's just the 10% that gets harped on. That is true; I imagine if King had limitted Father Calahan to a minor character ("I'm an alcoholic; I used to be a priest; now I kill vampires") and deleted the King is God/Rose plotlilne completely (was never part of the first 4 books) we could have had a great series ending at 6 books. As it is that 10% of the time kept jumping at me; like Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace! I kept trying to enjoy the movie and every 5-10minutes there was Jar Jar.

Finally one other criticism I'll make, while not at the level of his above screwups, the dialog and conversation between Mia and Susannah was overdrawn. A lot of set up and important revelations that ended up revealing nothing and taking a lot of pages. A good editor could have fixed this.

Like most people who have read this book, I was a fan of the Dark Tower series. Specifically, the first three Dark Tower books. Ever since "Wizard and Glass", however, King has been sliding and turning this once fantastic series into an aimless, boring mish-mash of different pop culture fads. This book is by far the worst in the series, and takes forever to explain several simple and uninteresting ideas.

1) The first problem is that too much of the action takes place in New York and Maine, as opposed to Roland's world. I know I'm not alone in saying that the strangeness of Roland's world is one of the things that drew me into this series in the first place. This is a fantasy series, and I just don't find our own world very interesting in a fantasy series.

2) One of Stephen King's worst writing habits is his tendency towards over-description and overkill. This habit has never been more evident than in this novel, where King takes an average of probably three pages to explain something that better writers could have done in three paragraphs. Being a descriptive writer is one thing, but over-describing to the point where it ruins the pacing of the story is another. By the time King finally finishes describing some concept, I would have already understood what he was trying to say and lost interest in it, just wanting him to move the story along.

3) As you might have heard, King writes himself into this story. I don't know of too many readers who were pleased by this, and I certainly wasn't one of them. I still can't believe that King did that and thought it would be a good idea. Not only is it incredibly stupid and tacky, it's arrogant. Even though King doesn't glorify himself, the simple fact that he decided to include himself as a character in this series indicates a massive ego that won't be satisfied unless he himself can play a vital part in the Dark Tower series. And sure enough, it's revealed that his role in the story is to do the will of ka by writing the story of the Dark Tower, and that if he is unable to finish the story, then the Tower will fall and the universe will collapse. If that's not a sign of a God complex, I don't know what is.

4) There were way too many scenes between Susannah and Mia. The whole split personality thing was tiresome back in "Drawing of the Three", and King does nothing to make it fresh here. We have to listen to endless palaver between Susannah and Mia, and equally endless mentions of Mia's "chap" (man, am I tired of hearing that word). If I know Stephen King, I'm guessing that after he's built up how important Mia's baby is to the plot, he's going to put it completely to waste by having it die almost immediately.

If you feel like you have to finish the series like me, then unfortunately this book is a must. Although it is boring and tiresome, there are a few things that happen during the story that you need to know or the next book won't make any sense.

Begging your indulgence for a moment here at the beginning of this review, There are a few philosophical asides that I would like to bore you to tears with, enjoy.

There is an odd thing that happens in epics. I speak mostlh of Western epics here, I haven't really experienced Eastern epics so I can only speak to Western ones. They usually have, within them, a meditation on the art of storytelling itself. The Lord of the Rings has this as do Babylon 5, Star Wars, A Song of Ice and Fire and those are just the meager few I can think of.. Even the classics of Western Literature like War and Peace have that in there as well. Hell, The Illiad begins by invoking the Muse. I think that may be where this thread entered our fiction, but that's just a personal theory.

This interest in the art of storytelling has appeared in The Dark Tower in several places. Stories are told and, on a couple of occasions, the universe actually stops so they can be told.

By the time you reach the end of this penultimate novel of the Dark Tower series you'll understand that the whole SERIES is a meditation on storytelling. You'll also understand the full extent of Stephen King's hubris as he commits the ultimate act of self-indulgence of a writer. How you deal with that is up to the you.

With all that structural and philosophical stuff out of the way... is this a good book? HELL YEAH it's a good book. We are back to world hopping and time shifting and all the stuff I was complaining about the lack of in the last book.

I now understand what was happening in Wolves of the Calla in a different light. We started with Roland in The Gunslinger being a Sergio Leone type gunslinger, Leone's characters are, as a rule, Single-minded, cynical and they are very good at what they do.. they are the best at what they do actually. In Wolves of the Calla (which I gave a luke warm review when I read it) Roland, in spite of himself, has turned from Clint Eastwood into one of the Magnificent Seven, which Wolves of the Calla is essentially a retelling of.

Like it or not, Roland has been dragged kicking and screaming to a more likable character.

The characters in this Novel are now a family entire but they are also split up, separated and scattered through time. Susan is in 1999 controlled by a demon named Mia and one (or perhaps both) are pregnant. Jake, Callihan and Oy are zonked into 1999 also to help Susannah by attacking a restaurant called the Dixie Pig and Eddie and Roland are sent to Maine to fight an ambush and maybe meet the writer who created them.

The fact is that the story of the Dark Tower is becoming interconnected with Stephen King¡¦s accident (the one which prompted Kingdom Hospital) and, as a result, the last page (whether you have been following this series fanatically or have been slogging through some of the recent books like I was) will make you HAVE to read book seven.

The good news is that King seems to be firing on all cylinders again. The Bad News is that there is one more turn before the Clearing say thank ya.

At the end of this book you will be in the disorienting state of hanging off three separate cliffs at the same time º

Enjoy, after my, un slightly unfavorable reviews of the last two books I need to stress how good this one is.

I am not going to go into detail, I see that has been done quite nicely. This is the 6th book in the Dark Tower series and it does not disappoint. This book continues the journey of Roland and his posse (ka-tet) trying desperately to reach the Tower, and save the rose when its about to be destroyed. I am amazed that the story is still so intriguing after this many installments, it just gets better and better the deeper you get into Roland's world and King's psyche. The story is compelling and extremely well written. I highly recommend this book. I do not recommend you read this book out of order. To fully appreciate the story you need to read the entire series in order. You do not want to be lost in Roland's world.

I found this book to be the weakest of the Dark Tower books. Susannah is not a particularly endearing character. It felt like this book could have been reduced to 50 pages and just added on to the previous book. This book only sets up the last book. However, in typical Dark Tower fasion it is an enjoyable read. And, it does leave you wanting to find out what happens in the next book.

This is not a book you can pick up if you haven't read the rest, but it is also not one you can skip if you want to read the final one.

Thus far the Dark Tower series has been an up and down read. There have been highspots (The Gunslinger & Wolves of Calla) and not so high spots (Drawing of the Three & Wizard and Glass) but nothing I'd really call a low spot. Song of Susannah and Wolves of Calla together should have been one book. The pregnancy of Susanna was drawn out far too long and with some trimming of Wolves of Calla both books could easily have made one good solid novel.

Song of Susannah picks up immediately after Wolves of Calla and honestly has a pretty good pay off to the Susannah pregnancy storyline. It's just too dang long of a series. The entire Dark Tower series should be one book shorter there is just too much needless dragging out of the events in Wolves of Calla which stretches into this book as well.

If you are this far into the Dark Tower series then obviously this is a necessary story to read. There has been much criticism about Stephen King interjecting himself into the novel but it really didn't hurt it too bad to me.

As I now move on to the final book of the Dark Tower, I look forward to seeing ongoing stories wrap up and find out just how bad this child of Susanna's is.

A must read, though anyone who's started reading the Dark Tower series already knows that. Stephen King never ceases to surprise or amaze me!

The first time I picked up the first book of the series, "the gunslinger" I couldn't get past the first few pages...it was so different from anything I'd read by King or anything else. But once I put my mind to getting past the "difference" of the book, I started getting into it. This series is unlike anything you'll ever read!

The product was exactly as described on the page: In mint condition... The package arrived in the time promised. So, no complains here from this user, only kudos.