Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
At long last, the fifth book of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. I got hooked on this series in high school, and was forced to wait until after I graduated from college to read the fourth book, and after graduating from law school to read this one. It was well worth the wait, for King has not only released what is, thus far, shaping up to be an excellent installment in this series, but also, he finally decided to take the time to simply finish the series. The sixth and seventh, and final, books will be released this spring and next fall, respectively.
The Dark Tower is definitely King's grandest work. As it turns out, many of his other books tie into this series as well, some in subtle ways, and some in not-so-subtle ways.
The latest installment finds our heroes, Roland, the last of the Gunslingers of Gilead, a sort of aristocratic/ruling class in his world, and several of his new gunslingers, expatriates from "our" world, taking a detour from their search for the Dark Tower to help the folks in a small farming community known as Calla Bryn Sturgis. Once every twenty or so years, mysterious, evil beings known as "the Wolves" descend upon the Calla, and take one child out of every set of twin children (twins seem to be the rule in the Calla, as opposed to an exception in our world) for several months at a time, sending them back "roont," which means that the children become mentally stunted, and grow to abnormally large sizes, finally dying a terrible, premature death several years later.
While I'm still working my way through this novel, I find that the storytelling is magnificent, and there is a lot more character development (even beyond that in the fourth book). If you're new to the Dark Tower series, check back soon, as I may post a primer as to which of King's works to read to get the whole story (novels like The Stand and 'Salem's Lot, which would seem to stand on their own, actually play a significant role in the Dark Tower series). If you've read the other books and haven't gotten around to this one, then definitely get to it. It has been worth the wait, and unlike with the other installments, the wait for the next two will be quite reasonable.
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