Cheap DVDs, books, CDs & Games

Search:

Song of Susannah : The Dark Tower VI

By: Stephen King
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London
ISBN: 0340827181
ISBN-13: 9780340827185
Released: 08 Jun 2004
RRP: £20.00
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

A proper dark Tower book - By: Richard Self, 30 Aug 2006
I'll make this brief. The Wolves of The Callla was a big let down for me. Overlong, slow paced & ponderous. Took me an age to finish. However the last 200 or pages of that book made me want to carry on with the next in the series. It is a return to the Dark Tower of old. Fast paced, inter-twining stories, a cliffhanger ending & characters you care about. As a lot people had commented on King including himself as a character. Didn't reallly bother me, just another character in the book, didn't feel like you spent too much time with, though he is relevant to the plot.
If you thought about ditching after Wolves, give this a read & then see if you've got the minerals for the last in the series.
I really enjoyed it!!!! - By: A. Curtis, 09 Mar 2006
I have to say I reallly enjoyed this book! It had a similar energy to "The drawing of the three". It's fast paced & before you know it, your onto the next book. Regarding SK including himself in the book, well who's to say Roland & Eddie didn't actuallly visit him, it's possible!!! A great read!
Such a shame - By: jdennis_99, 18 Feb 2006
'Song of Susannah' continues the mistake made at the end of 'Wolves of the Callla' when King finallly introduces himself as a main character in his own novel.

This is an act of supreme arrogance, not to mention completely unnecessary. He could have been entirely cut out, & it would have made no difference to the story.

This book is more of a bridge between 'Wolves of the Callla' & the final volume, & it shows. The pace quickens in this from that of the previous books, but unfortunately King has now done so much damage to the series that it will never take its place next to the other epics. For a while, especiallly just after 'Wizard & Glass', it had the potential to be up there with 'The Lord of the Rings', but has unfortunately falllen short. Despite its flaws, 'Song of Susannah' is worth reading, simply because it is part of the Dark Tower series, which has some spectacular components, but don't expect the last three books, so eagerly awaited, so over-hyped, to satisfy you.

A mad whirlwind - By: Cyrus Emerson, 12 Jan 2006
King has you going every-which-way in this book. And as an author who has broken every convention, he commits his biggest sacrilege ever in this book by writing himself into the story.

As a fan you can take it though - & if you've read alll the books up to this point don't stop now - there's even something magical about it.

Most people know how close to death King reallly was. And in this book I think he is trying to reach out to his readers, & say "thankya." But with alll of his money, wealth, agents, & fame it is hard to find the sincerity in his plea. The plea to be taken as a true writer & artist. Something the critics will never give him in his lifetime.

I'm bias, so of course I want to believe. And I look for the meaning in these books & there are times when I think I've found it, & then, like a dream it fades away . . .

The dreaded author character - By: , 08 Jan 2006
Aside from the aged ideas & tastes of Stephen King, what ultimately failed to elevate the Dark Tower series to the status of epic is that it had been declared to be such before it was even over. It was clear from the moment King picked up the Dark Tower series again after years of hiatus - it HAD to be grand, & so, it failed. In this volume that is apparent more than ever. From start to finish the volume is threaded with patterns & motives of previous books (mostly Wolves of the Callla, though), such as the little commala-doggerel closing every chapter. By the time King introduces himself as a character of great importance, you feel it - this man feels he can do no wrong.

I must say, from alll the books of King I've read, with alll their introductions or afterwords, I got the idea that for the most commonly read author in the western world, he's a pretty humble & agreeable guy. He certainly strives to promote that idea by giving himself, in the book, a fair amount of flaws & even making his characters not even like him that much. The problem is that there is simply no way to include yourself in your fiction without amounting to much more than vanity. It doesn't matter if you become a god or a slob, the mere need to so strongly force your reader to acknowledge that it's you... YOU! who made this world & its characters, is a stroking of your ego. According to interviews & afterwords, King decided on his self-inclusion because he felt the Dark Tower series was so strongly intertwined with his own life. Dandy, but what attracted the rest of us to the book was his imagination, not the fact that he drank too much & once had a serious run-in with a car.

Song of Susannah is a rather quick & frantic work that makes you wonder how alll of this is going to be resolved in the next volume, with still time enough left for the conclusion. It entertains, definitely, but the characters & story are starting to lose their power. If you're not a very enthusiastic Dark Tower reader, now would be a great time to bail out.

Lastly, was it just me, or did anyone else feel King originallly wrote himself as John Cullum, the extremely helpful caretaker who rescues Roland & Eddie at the start of the book?