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Science Fiction & Fantasy |
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Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6)
written by Stephen King
Studio : Simon & Schuster Audio
by Simon & Schuster Audio
Release Date : 2004-06-08
Publisher : Simon & Schuster Audio
Released : 2004-06-08
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 12
EAN : 9780743536707
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 363 reviews)
List Price : $59.95
Our Price : $36.92
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Product Description |
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The next-to-last novel in Stephen King's seven-volume magnum opus, Song of Susannah is a fascinating key to the unfolding mystery of the Dark Tower. To give birth to her "chap," demon-mother Mia has usurped the body of Susannah Dean and used the power of Black Thirteen to transport to New York City in the summer of 1999. The city is strange to Susannah...and terrifying to the "daughter of none" who shares her body and mind. Saving the Tower depends not only on rescuing Susannah but also on securing the vacant lot Calvin Tower owns before he loses it to the Sombra Corporation. Enlisting the aid of Manni senders, the remaining ka-tet climbs to the Doorway Cave...and discovers that magic has its own mind. It falls to the boy, the billy bumbler, and the fallen priest to find Susannah-Mia, who in a struggle to cope -- with each other and with an alien environment -- "go todash" to Castle Discordia on the border of End-World. In that forsaken place, Mia reveals her origins, her purpose, and her fierce desire to mother whatever creature the two of them have carried to term. Eddie and Roland, meanwhile, tumble into western Maine in the summer of 1977, a world that should be idyllic but isn't. For one thing, it is real, and the bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called Salem's Lot, a writer who turns out to be as shocked by them as they are by him. |
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The Dark Tower Series Gets Stranger... |
Whereas the previous five "Dark Tower" novels take place over large, sprawling periods of time, this novel is much shorter both in reality (400 pages) and within the text (all the events take place within a day or two).
When I first started this book, I was disappointed by the focus on Susannah-Mio, as that (at least to me) was not a very compelling part of the storyline. However, the interactions of those characters in 1999 New York City provides for some entertaining moments.
The much more interesting plotline in this novel, however, is Roland and Eddie meeting Stephen King in the flesh. Yes, King wrote himself into his own book! While the phrase "there are more worlds than these" had played a big part in the series to this point, I was shocked to find out that it perhaps even including OUR own world as well. Much like the TV show "LOST", which once hinted that it's characters were nothing more than one man's paranoid delusions, "Song of Susannah" intimates that perhaps the entire Dark Tower creation just springs from the mind of King...that Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and the like aren't even real! The coupe de grace comes when King (the real one!) questions which world the fictional Stephen King actually resides in.
So, although "Susannah" starts off a bit slow, it slowly builds to an exciting crescendo that will whet your appetite for the final installment. I am a first-time reader of the series, and I am chomping at the bit to finally be ushered into the Dark Tower itself! |
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tiresome drudgery |
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This was painful. I just wanted to get through it. Boring, silly, egotistic and just....bad. If I hear the word "chap" one more time, I'm going to freak out. I'm listening to it now..oh god, please let it end. Kill me |
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Don't worry, it does get better once we pass this part of the quest... |
I wanted to read the entire series before reviewing this and confirming that it is the worst volume in the series, and it is...perhaps this was deliberate on king's behalf to make the last one seem even better, who knows?
This book is essentially an 'add on' to Wolves of the Calla and the whole story could have genuinely been cut down to 50 pages and put at the end of the last volume...
As the title suggests, volume VI revolves around the character Susannah. How you, the 'Constant Reader', views her will have an impact on the enjoyment you get here. I personally don't rate her as my favourite and perhaps this was the reason I wanted to rush through it and get to the final book...
Anyway, the book is almost 500 pages of, what I feel, needless detail on the struggle between Susannah and Mia in regards 'the chap'. We found out about Susannah's/Mia's pregnancy in Wolves of the Calla and yet King goes on and on and on and on and on, boring us at times and (SPOILER ALERT) she doesn't even give birth to the damn thing until the beginning of volume 7.
I just feel it could have been condensed and the series made into 6 books
with any of the relevant content cut down to 50 pages and added onto book 5...I know King can sometimes go into too much detail but I feel this was well overdone perhaps to make sure the series had 7 volumes, was this King's plan? It seems very likely this is the case because this isn't an enjoyable experience.
There are a few good parts to the story, Roland and Eddie meet up with an old friend named Jack Andolini but I won't spoil that bit ;)
Basically, the parts not involving all the palaver of 'the chap' are good, and if you like you could skip most of these parts and not miss a thing...
Of course, if you've got this far, you'll have to read this as I doubt anyone could give up on the Tower at this point..
Book 7 does get better say Thank Ya!!!!! |
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SONG OF SUSANNAH by Stephen King |
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.
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Dark Tower 6 - Song of Susannah |
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. |
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