Wizard and glass is the fourth novel in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, this book tells the story for the first time of Roland the last gunslinger and how he gained that title. Stephen King is the author of a lot of famous novels such as the Tommyknockers, Misery etc and his novels tend to have a horror or gothic edge. However, the Dark Tower series of novels depict the journey of the last gunslinger Roland of Gilead to the Dark Tower. The books are set in a series of world either pure fantasy, alternate America's or America of the past, Roland is slowly travelling to the Dark Tower but on the way he has found a set of characters who will aid or hinder him in his task. This is the fourth novel and in the previous novels we have slowly travelled with Roland through the wastelands of his home world into a past America to pick up colleagues and through those journeys we have learnt an awful lot about Eddie, Susannah, and Jake but nearly nothing about the main character Roland.

This book changes all that, in truth it is a novel within a novel, the previous novel ended with the four on a train to Topeka but not the Topeka of modern America but a strange city where there appears to have been some kind of virus which has killed off part of the populace or left the others mutated. The train has a malevolent computer who had challenged the group to a game of riddles and if the computer wasn't beaten then they would be killed. Of course they evade the problem and after arriving into Topeka Roland is persuaded to tell his back story and what a back story we are told!

This book is in truth three books in one, an adventure with the four on a train, a huge novella within a novel and the finale where the story picks up again in Topeka as the group progress towards the Dark Tower again. The three are in no way equal in length with the two end of the books taking up 200 and 50 pages respectively and the huge novella running in at around 600 pages. The story of Roland of Gilead and his conversion from a type of cowboy and boy being the key word there into the last Gunslinger is told in loving detail. We begin with Roland (now called Will) meeting a girl called Susan Delgardo as he enters town, they become smitten but the girl has been promised to the aging mayor of the town on the annual Reaping night. Roland and Susan are now combined and the actions of one will influence the other, Susan had been prepared for the role of the mayor's concubine by the witch of the novel's title who can see into the future and people's ultimate desires by using a glass.

Roland, Susan and there two friends must fight the evil witch, the mayor, the local landowners and the populace to gain Susan's freedom and avoid the disaster which will unfurl on Reaping night if Susan sleeps with the mayor. Roland must choose between the tower and the girl and the events of Reaping night change his world forever.

This book will cause consternation for some readers especially those who love a linear telling of a story; here we have a book interrupted for around 600 pages by telling the past of the main character. When we return to Eddie, Jake and the current Roland it's hard to remember what had been happening in their previous few days but the need to tell Roland's past so makes up for this annoyance that the book works brilliantly. Here we have Roland's tale, all 600 pages not rushed, not told in little chapter segments so many other authors would have used to tell his back story as the journey to the Dark Tower progressed but told in full in one and in a complete manner. Roland is changed from the hard eyed gunslinger into a scared thoughtful 15 year old boy who is in love for the first time, of course the love for Susan will ultimately make him the gunslinger but how it happens is told in minute detail and the book and the series of books are all the stronger for the information.

Wizard and glass is a major read, almost 900 pages long it is dense descripting text and it took this reader about a month to read from cover to cover and I read fast (I read the third hunger games on a journey on a train to London and back from Sheffield) but is worth the effort, gloriously portrayed, deliciously exacting in description and really gives a sense of living in a strange town where mutant horses are occasionally born and witchcraft commonplace. We find out about Roland's guns, his friends, his needs and his desires and we are told in fine details his fall from happy cowboy to gunslinger with a hard gaze and the fastest draw in town.
This is classic Stephen King not dictated by the needs of the book market happy to write the book the story required rather than hedge his bets. I loved this novel and can't wait for the fifth novel but might have to read something a little less intense in between before tackling the next.