Nerds That Geek Book Review - 'The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Love, simply put, is incredible. It always manages to lift us up when it happens. The days somehow become brighter and the air smells sweeter as we find ourselves focused on that special someone. In fact, there comes a point with those we love where it seems as though they completely consume our thoughts. It's a wonderful feeling, but it is not without its consequences, especially when a love is simply not meant to be. When it consumes us and we cannot have them, it can force us to lose focus and make mistakes in our day to day lives and it is that kind of dangerous love that is the focus of the fourth chapter in The Dark Tower series, Wizard and Glass. 

Roland and his ka-tet have escaped the city of Lud aboard Blaine the Mono, to arrive at the end of the line; Topeka, Kansas. As the group settles down for the night after their exhausting adventures in Lud, they spot a strange dimensional anomaly known as a Thinny, a rip in space and time; curious about the event Roland decides to tell the tale of the first time he ran into such an event, shortly after he earned his guns and was sent out on a mission after discovering his mother's affair with the wizard Martin. On this mission, he found himself entranced by a beautiful woman named Susan Delgado that he immediately falls in love with, in fact she consumes Roland putting he and the mission in danger. But in the end the mission is accomplished, and an ancient wizard's glass orb is recovered, but not before the orb shows Roland some of his future and that fact that his commitment to the mission alone has cost Susan her life. 

The next morning the group sets out once again to follow the path of the Beam and they continue to find strange clues of a Superflu that has ravaged the world, in fact everything around them is truly amiss and it only gets worse when they encounter an Emerald palace where the Man in Black, also known as the wizard Martin from Roland's youth, reveals himself to truly be a man known as Randall Flagg and he taunts the group before he escapes, leaving behind a gift, the Wizard Glass from so long ago and it shows the group the dangers of traveling with Roland Deschain, but it does not deter the group and they agree to finish their quest to find The Dark Tower. 

This was a jam-packed novel and with good reason, it reveals so much about Roland, in ominous fashion. If anything, we learn in this book that Roland cannot stray from the course. Not love, friendship or anything can pull this man from his duty and it has cost so many that have known him their lives, and from the looks of the glass orb, his ka-tet may suffer the same fate and that discovery is yet another tragedy in a book full of them. In fact, the most tragic part of the book is Roland and Susan's love. It's the first time we have ever seen Roland express such emotions and show the need to be loved by someone else and to see how it breaks him down and puts his friends in danger makes for a fantastic story, but when Roland snaps out of it and leaves his love behind to eventually die in flames on a pyre, well it's a heavy moment for certain and one that undoubtedly cements Roland's dedication to duty over everything else.
 
This novel also surprises by suddenly combining several of King's worlds all into the same story. After all Randall Flagg was the enigmatic and disgusting villain from The Stand and to learn he has been the nightmare monster that Roland has been dealing with his entire life is nothing short of spectacular. However, despite all of these incredible twists and turns, the kind that one would expect an author to jump at to resolve, it would be many years before the tale would continue since Wizard and Glass came out in 1997 and the next book in the series would not arrive until 2003 and the wait would be completely worth it since at long last, these incredible surprises would finally find resolution and more importantly…it seemed that the Tower and the end were finally in sight.

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