I got my copy this morning!! Now I'll get nothing done for the entire weekend!

Wow.

I could stop there and it would be a perfect description of this book. After my disappointment with Wizard and Glass, I’d had high hopes that Wolves of the Calla would be better but I could never have hoped for how much better it turned out to be. As I reckoned above, I really did spend the whole weekend doing little else but reading, and there was never a point where I got bored or fidgetty – and on the occasions when I had to stop and cook a meal or go to the shops (or go to bed!), I was hurrying all the time so that I could get back to my reading.

One of the few things that did annoy me was the pictures. I don’t like pictures in novels, particularly in a novel like this one which is the fifth part of a continuing story. Over the past many years since I first read The Gunslinger, I’ve built up very strong mental images of what I think Roland and everyone else look like, and I find it disturbing to see someone else’s image of them. Also, one of the pictures – the one of two men (presumably Roland and Eddie) standing on a cliff and firing at something – didn’t even happen anywhere in the book but after seeing the picture I was waiting for that event to take place and was kind of disappointed when it didn’t. But at least all the other pictures appeared after the event they depicted had already happened, so they didn’t spoil things.

Spoilers do follow, so be warned that if you haven’t read it yet, this might give away plot points.

Another annoyance for me was something that I mentioned in my review of Wizard and Glass – the fact that I don’t like King’s repeated insistence on self-insertion. He did it in one of his Bachman books when he mentioned Stephen King – at the time he wrote it, I suppose he was still trying to convince people that Richard Bachman wasn’t Stephen King but when I read the book (I think it was Thinner) he’d already been ‘outed’ and so I just found the insertion of the name arrogant. So I really rolled my eyes when his name appeared on the ‘menu’ outside Tower’s bookshop – and when the reason for that became clear right at the end of the book, I rolled my eyes again and said, “Oh, purleeese” and lost some of my belief in the story. It’s personal opinion and I’m sure that some other readers don’t get as irritated as I do but it really does honk me off.

Unlike the Roland and Susan backstory which so irritated me in the previous book, I loved the whole Father Callaghan story, especially the bit where he died and woke up in the way station from The Gunslinger, and I particularly liked the way that King left it for us to realise that this was the way station before confirming it.

Jake’s realisation that the Wolves take the twins for the something special in their brains came rather out of left field. Up until then there’d been no reason given or even speculated for the reason for the children’s abduction and I couldn’t work out how or why Jake had realised it. Also, there hasn’t yet been any explanation of why so many kids come back ‘roont’ (unless it’s because they’ve had their brains drained) nor of what causes them to grow so bizarrely but hopefully this will be dealt with when our heroes finally reach Thunderclap.

Did anyone else think that the Wolves were the lost Calla children until we were finally told the truth? I had no idea that they were robots until Roland told the villagers, and hadn’t picked up on the clue about the horses all being an identical colour.

Because I didn’t enjoy a large proportion of Wizard and Glass I’ve only read it twice – and the second time was some years ago – so I stand to be corrected but I have no recollection of the mention of Black Thirteen before now, or the significance of the number nineteen. I suspect I’ll have to force myself to read it again.

However, I have re-read the other three books many times, but I again have no recollection of Jake’s housekeeper calling him ‘Bama or the reason why he had that nickname, nor do I remember the Turtle that guards the other end of the Beam they’re travelling being named before now.

A couple of errors, the first a plot point and the second a rare spelling mistake:

Overholser tells how, when the Wolves came when he and his twin were nine years old, his parents tried to hide them. He adds, “So I’ve been told, anyway. I remember none of it ... taught myself not to, I s’pose.” However, a couple of pages later Roland asks what time of day the Wolves came and Overholser says, “Breakfast not far past, I remember, because Welland asked our ma if he could take his cup of coffee into the cellar with him.” I noted it at the time but was waiting for Overholser to be revealed as a bad guy, but it never happened.

During Mia’s second feeding session (the one which Jake witnesses) she spears a rat on a meat fork and then dumps it in a sink of water. The next line says, “The tip of its twitching tale stuck up.”

Thank all the gods that we only have to wait until next year until both of the next two and final books come out! After waiting five years for this one I couldn’t have stood such a long wait again!

And finally, The Afterword. Often the most fascinating and interesting part of the book. This one made me cry, especially the final sentence.

About the picture you mentioned above; My understanding of it was that it was Roland and Cuthbert at the Battle of Jericho Hill (if I got the name right). It's the one he mentions early in the book.
As for the book itself, I have to say I loved it, but I did think it spent a little too much time on Callahan's back story. It brought up a lot of stuff which didn't seem to have too much relevance to the rest of the story, although I did love the moment where Callahan arrives at the way station.
Callie, you're not alone, for I too have no idea what the significance of 19 is, nor how the hell Tower had Roland's name on a hundred year old piece of paper. But I suppose these are things which will be addressed later. Hopefully anyway....

No, they won't.

OK, so Jake finds out the Pere's house or church is bugged when he goes into the Dogan. So, why does the ka-tet have their conversation in the town square (when Roland tells them that everything he says will be a lie), when Jake saw that the square was also bugged?
I found the book to be an improvement over "Song of Susannah", but then "Song" was just King stalling for time until the next book.