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King's epical Dark
Tower hastens to a close, and its penultimate volume is one
of the speediest. The gunslingers of Mid-World and other
alternate Earths have defeated The Wolves of the Calla
(2003) but lost one of their number. Susannah Dean, nee
Odetta Holmes, lacking her lower legs after a minion of the
Satan of Mid-World, the Crimson King, pushed her in front of
a subway train, and whose personality is sometimes split
between black bourgeoise Odetta and viciously paranoiac
Detta Walker, has been taken over by the spirit Mia to be
the body in which Mia will gestate a boy who will eventually
kill head gunslinger Roland. The child is to be born in New
York in 1999, which is where Susannah-Mia repairs through
one of the doors between worlds. The other gunslingers
pursue through the same door, but only 11-year-old Jake
Chambers, accompanied by former 'Salems' Lot priest Don
Callahan, get to New York. Roland and Susannah's husband,
Eddie Dean, tumble into an ambush in New England in 1977.
Each chapter--called a stanza and ending with two songlike
quatrains--advances one subset of gunslingers' progress.
King keeps us on tenterhooks throughout--and leaves us
there. Before quite departing, he tacks on a clever coda
about the gradual creation of the Dark Tower--but in which
world? The series concludes with The Dark Tower in
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Publisher's Weekly
There's something about a crippled, black, schizophrenic,
civil rights activist-turned-gunslinger whose body has been
hijacked by a white, pregnant demon from a parallel world
that keeps a seven-volume story bracingly strong as it veers
toward its Armageddon-like conclusion. When Susannah Dean is
transported via a magic door on the outskirts of Calla Bryn
Sturgis (the scene of much of The Dark Tower V: Wolves of
the Calla) to New York City in the summer of 1999, the
"demon-mother" who possesses her, Mia, has only one thing on
her mind. She must give birth to her "chap" at a
predetermined location in Manhattan's East 60s, as
instructed by the henchmen-or "Low Men"-of the evil Crimson
King. Pressed for time, Father Callahan, preteen Jake and
talking pet "billy-bumbler" Oy follow Susannah and Mia's
trail in an effort to prevent an act that would quicken the
destruction of the Dark Tower and, in turn, of all worlds.
Meanwhile, gunslingers Roland and Eddie travel to 1977 Maine
in search of bookstore owner Calvin Tower, who is being
hunted down by mobster Enrico Balazar and his gang, who
first appeared in Eddie's version of New York in The Drawing
of the Three Avid readers of the series will either be
completely enthralled or extremely irritated when, in a
gutsy move, the author weaves his own character into this
unpredictable saga, but either way there's no denying the
ingenuity with which King paints a candid picture of
himself. The sixth installment of this magnum opus stops
short with the biggest cliffhanger of King's career, but
readers at the edge of their seats need only wait a few
short months (Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower) to find out
how-and if-King's fictional universe will come to an end. 10
full-color illus. not seen by PW.
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