Wizard and Glass

Read for the Second Best Reading Challenge, the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge, the Author! Author! Reading Challenge, the High Fantasy Reading Challenge, the Need to Reread Challenge,, and the Read the Sequel Challenge.

This novel was nominated for the Locus Award, which qualifies it for the Second Best Challenge.

This is my favourite novel in one of my favourite series. This is the one that gives it all focus, the one that tells us where Roland's quest began and why he fights; the one that turns him from a cliche into a living, breathing human being who is driven to extraordinary effort by extraordinary circumstance.

Balancing a brilliant tightrope between post-apocalyptic Western and epic fantasy romance, it's the story within the story that's important. What happens in the present is almost insignificant. Although, it neatly establishes that clearly, the Dark Tower mythos is a thread that ties all of King's work together. The idea that there are cracks in reality that defy explanation in this universe, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense in another universe, is the glue that binds it all.

Every now and then I hear a song and I wonder if this was part of the soundtrack King had playing in his head while he was writing it. I won't tell you what they are because they would spoil the story. But if you hear them after you've read it, I'm sure you'll wonder too.

If you like Westerns, fantasy, apocalyptica, gothic romance, or supernatural horror, give this one a try. I don't think you have to read the rest of the story to understand it either.