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- Song of Susannah
(The Dark Tower Book 6)
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- Author: Stephen King
- Reviewer: Judith Woolcock Colombo
- Publisher: Scribner
- Format: Adult, Fiction, Hardcover, 432 Pages, 2004, $30
- ISBN: 1880418592
- Rating: * * * * Quills
- www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1880418592/scriquil
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- One of the things that writers, such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Octavia Butler and Stephen King, have proven is that if you write a good series and create a world that is enticing with characters that an audience can identify with, readers will look forward to the next installment. In his "The Dark Tower" series, Stephen King created such a world, a magical place where the gunslingers Ronald, Eddie, Susannah and Jake travel through doors to different earths and different whens all in an effort to reach The Dark Tower and save the earths.
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- Song of Susannah, the sixth book in the series, although not as good as its predecessor, is well written and held my attention. It begins where Wolves of The Calla left off. Susannah Dean, under the influence of Mia, the demon-mother who possesses her, has used one of the magical doors to travel to the when of 1999 New York City. Ronald, the leader of the gunslingers, Eddie Susannah's husband, Jake, Father Callahan and Jake's pet, the billy-bumbler, all enlist the help of the Manni, a mystical brotherhood who travel between whens, to go after Susannah.
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- Trapped in 1999 New York, Susannah tries to delay the birth of Mia's son and to leave behind as many messages as she can for her rescuers. In the mean time, Mia leads Susannah towards the Dixie Pig and the henchmen of the Crimson King.
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- Although all the gunslingers intended to follow Susannah, only Father Callahan, Jake and billy-bumbler Oy are transported to 1999 New York City. There they quickly follow clues left for them to track Susannah down and rescue her. Meanwhile, Ronald and Eddie end up in 1977 Maine in search of bookstore owner Calvin Tower. Before they reach Tower, they engage in a gun battle with the mobster Enrico Balazar and his gang, who are also looking for Tower. After their business with Calvin Tower is completed, Eddie and Ronald have an interesting encounter with the author Stephen King, who is at first scared speechless when one of his creations turns up on his doorstep.
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- Song of Susannah was interesting and, at times, exciting. Despite its length, it was an easy read. I thought that Susannah came into her own in this book. (It's about time.) She is finally learning to come to terms with her split personality and to use the different personas that inhabit her to her advantage. I also found Mia, mother of one and daughter of none, a sympathetic if pitiable character. The characters of Eddie and Jake are also more developed than before. They have become gunslingers in their own right.
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- Although this book is well worth reading, I did find Stephen King's role in the story disconcerting. By placing himself in the novel as the creator, he destroyed the suspension of belief we all enter into willingly when reading a fantasy novel. We all know that King wrote the series, but to have him in the story as the progenitor of the world robs the characters of their integrity. We are hard-pressed to see them as anything else but puppets. However, King has one more chance to rectify this in the final book of “The Dark Tower” series.
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