The Wolves of the Calla is the fifth volume in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. We meet up with Roland and his "ka-tet" (those held together by destiny) as they arrive at Calla Bryn Sturgis, a small farming town that is plagued by regular raids by the "Wolves" out of Thunderclap, the nightmare land that begins across the river. Roland and his friends decide to stop in the Calla long enough to defend it from the upcoming raid.

This book is where the Dark Tower series starts to slow. This is the first book that I didn't race through, the first that I had to make an effort to finish. The previous books were pretty much non-stop action, while Wolves is basically 850 pages of waiting around, a 10 minute battle and then another 60 pages of aftermath.

It's not that it isn't good. If, like me, you're in it to complete the series, then you must like it enough to battle on. It has some great touches, such as Andy the Messenger Robot who wanders around town like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz but is altogether more sinister. Some of the characters are interesting, but most of the townsfolk at least pretty much blend into one, and I thought their screen time was spread too thin to get to know them very well. We also bump into Donald Callahan, last seen in 'Salem's Lot, who becomes a major character. While this might interest a lot of King fans, I actually thought that novel was pretty rubbish so didn't really care much.

The sections of the book based in Mid-World are pretty good, but there is an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing from New York, a lot of which seems to be setting up the next two novels but made for pretty boring reading. And the hundred-odd pages of Callahan's back-story, mostly told by the priest himself rather than as a separate story (like Wizard and Glass) is dull. I'm not really interested in vampires but it seems obvious that King wanted to meld all his previous works into one. It's very readable in true King style, but it's very much in the vein of his garrulous later works rather than the tighter books of his earlier days.

Overall, if you are a fan of the Dark Tower you'll probably enjoy this one, but if you read this one first it will probably put you off the rest of the series. Too long, not enough happens, way too much unnecessary baggage.

Copyright 2012 by Chris Ward
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