![]() While he has breached the Dark Tower, he is now shut out on some kind of balcony. We learn that the major villain has always been a creature known as the Crimson King. ![]() Roland’s evil misbegotten son Mordred (it’s a long story) is after them as they try to stop the Breakers. Powerful psychics called Breakers have been working (semi-unconsciously) to erode the Beams, energy tethers which intersect at the Dark Tower and are responsible for holding all of reality together. Split up throughout the duration of Book 6, Roland and his ka-tet reunite and discover the source of the decay in Roland’s world. King could have found a way to get this into the main novels, and make it relevant in a way this book is not. ![]() ![]() The Wind Through the Keyhole ultimately feels unnecessary, even though it reveals a piece of backstory about Roland’s mother. King might have benefited from either splitting this into two or three short stories or novellas. The Wind Through the Keyhole is an enjoyable tangent, but not essential reading relative to the Dark Tower series as a whole. What follows is a fantasy fable peppered with characters like The Covenant Man (a parallel to the perennial king villain, Randall Flagg, or The Man in Black) and an intelligent white “tyger” revealed to be the legendary wizard Maerlyn, whom Tim eventually frees. There’s a story within a story, which follows a young boy named Tim, who lives with his mother on the edge of a great and dangerous forest. Set after the flashback events recounted in Wizard and Glass, and before we catch up to the gunslinger in the first book of the series, The Wind Through the Keyhole recounts how Roland’s father, Stephen Deschain, sends him and his friend, Jamie de Curry, to deal with a shapeshifter, who has been terrorizing some outer territories. The story nearly stops cold right before the long-awaited final entry, which is why Book 6 remains on the bottom of this list. Song of Susannah is important for its focus on the story’s major female character, but upending the structure so late in the game is a narrative miscalculation. It’s also very confusing, adding a tangled origin story to the entire mythology far too late to truly resonate. It’s a pivotal scene, expanding the metafictional nature of the series. Roland and Eddie encounter the 1977 version of Stephen King, a functioning alcoholic and family man with a newly-established career as a novelist. King structures the book in “stanzas” which culminate in the most “meta” plot twist in the series when the author himself shows up as a character. This seems to have been King’s intention, but it comes at a crucial point in the overall narrative when adjusting the style halts the story’s momentum. None of the Dark Tower novels are “bad,” but Song of Susannah is so different from the other books that it sticks out like a sore thumb. When Susannah, possessed by an entity called Mia, takes the black ball and goes through by herself, their plans are suddenly upended. A nearby cave holds strong magic, and with the help of a black orb known as Black Thirteen (one of many multi-colored magic balls crafted millennia before by the great wizard Maerlyn), Roland and his band can get themselves closer to the Dark Tower. Roland and his ka-tet have successfully defended the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis against cloaked, hooded, child-snatching creatures they call the Wolves. Song of Susannah picks up seconds after the end of Book 5, Wolves of the Calla.
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