Wizard and Glass is the fourth installment in King’s The Dark Tower series. It is something as unusual as a fantasy love story written by the master of horror himself, Stephen King. But even if it’s a theme the author rarely touches, he does it exceptionally well.
Here’s a quick recap (with some spoilers!): Eddie finally outsmarts Blaine – the mad monorail – with a riddle it cannot answer. Blaine becomes so infuriated by the question that the computer that controls it explodes and brings the train to a stop. When the companions get off, they discover that they’ve ended up in a city where a terrible plague swept through, killing all the inhabitants of the formerly great city of Topeka.
The path or the beam travels along a highway, making it easier for the band to get around with the wheelchair-bound Susannah. During Roland’s poisoning by the lobstrosity and subsequent delirious fever, he often talked about Cuthbert, Alain and Susan. Along the highway, Roland tells more of this story and his first mission as a gunslinger.
To summarize, this book was the best so far in the series. It paints a captivating picture of a world that feels something like a post-apocalyptic version of the Shire. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s the first by King (at least to my knowledge) that’s essentially a pure love story. It’s beautiful and sad all at the same time. At any rate it’s great, and fits perfectly into the middle of the series – now it’s impossible to put it away.
Tags: Stephen King, The Dark Tower