Stephen King Saga: Wizard and Glass

Wizard and Glass continues the Dark Tower series, leading directly from where The Waste Lands ended. However, the bulk of the book is Roland’s backstory, during one of his early years as a gunslinger and telling the tale of when he fell in love. We get a good idea of why Roland tends toward the stoic, as well as why he is haunted by the Tower.

I commented on GoodReads that I was nervous about starting this volume, because it seemed that people who like it like it, but people who hate it REALLY hate it. I think much of the hate comes from waiting years and years for a new installment in the series to be given … a backstory. Reviewers say that they’re disappointed in having no real progress toward the Tower (although I’d argue that we have to learn the history before moving on to the future). To me, it’s easy to draw parallels between the readers’ singlemindedness in reaching the Tower and Roland’s singlemindedness to do the same. Do we become the characters we read?

I live in Kansas, so I was thrilled when Topeka and the Kansas Turnpike made an appearance. We learn that in this version of Kansas, the superflu from The Stand has decimated the population. We also learn that the superflu did not happen in Eddie and Jake’s New York City, so we’re looking at three different worlds here: Mid-World, superflu world, and “regular” world (as regular as it gets in a Stephen King novel, anyway). Naturally, a Kansas setting leads to Wizard of Oz references …

Randall Flagg makes an appearance, which is always fun. Some reviewers have pointed out that Flagg in this book seems watered down from The Stand. I think that the reason he seems watered down is because there are even greater evils in the Dark Tower series. Flagg is the biggest villain we could imagine in the normal-ish world of The Stand, but compared to villains in Mid-World, he’s pretty tame.

Next on the list — Salem’s Lot. Probably because I know that at any time I could pick up every single Dark Tower volume and read them straight through, I have no issues deviating from the path to the Tower. I’m excited to get to a classically scary novel from King, although it will have to wait until I get through a few non-King books sitting on my shelf.

Further Reading:

• A Read of the Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass

Stephen King Saga: The Waste Lands

I remember picking this book up in my early teens, when I was in the midst of my Stephen King fandom, with no knowledge of The Dark Tower series. I knew this book was part of a series, but my teenage confidence led me to believe that I could read this one and then, if I liked it, I could backtrack and read the others.

Nope. It didn’t take me long to abandon it in favor of lighter fare, like Needful Things or something.

Fast-forward about 15 or 16 years and here we are. I’ve now read the volumes in the series in the proper order, and I’m much better prepared to take on this interesting journey into Mid-World. Jake, who appeared in The Gunslinger, returns to the ka-tet, as does a billy-bumbler named Oy. Roland and his motley crew must travel through some questionable areas and get past a few disturbing characters to get closer to the Dark Tower. We also meet Blaine, arguably one of the greatest villains in locomotive form ever to appear in literature. I truly enjoyed the conversations with Blaine, this left-behind, artificially-intelligent monorail with an evil streak.

I had vivid memories of the illustrations from my prior attempt — Charlie the Choo Choo is pretty darn creepy. I love the train angle because my hometown mascot is a train, although not named Charlie. Also, my daughter has discovered Thomas the Tank Engine and I can’t help but wonder when Thomas and Edward are going to snap and drive a group of screaming children off a cliff.

The appearance of Mir, or Shardik, the giant bear is pretty intense – and mysterious, when our ka-tet discovers that it is a mechanical production from North Central Positronics. The bear is apparently one of the Twelve Guardians, who stand watch at the portals leading in and out of the world. Are the other guardians machines in disguise as well? Hopefully we find out as we continue traveling toward the tower.

I love the idea of people being brought together for a common destiny. It was this quality that I enjoyed most about “Lost” – that a group of random people are meant to be together because each can play a part in accomplishing something. Each person has a reason to be in the group, and they complement each other in some way.

I also love the idea that many tiny coincidences have a greater meaning. I strive to watch out for these coincidences in case my life is really a great mystery or an epic film and I need to connect everything together in order to survive. Because that could happen.

Our heroes travel along the Beam, which connects portals on each side of the world. The Beam is essentially magnetism, gravity in a sense. It binds together space, size, and dimension. Blades of grass curl along the Beam, and if you look closely you can actually see the connection.

I’m excited for the group to reach Topeka – I want to see what Kansas looks like in this other dimension.

Connections:

• “Light out for the territories” – The Talisman
• Cadillac DeVille – is that what wolfs drove in The Talisman?
• “All was well, all was well, and all manner of things were well” – from The Talisman?
• The Mansion? From The Talisman?
• La Merk Foundry
• Is Blaine related to Christine? To those in Maximum Overdrive/Trucks?
• Richard Fannin, aka Randall Flagg, appears to TickTock and references Trashcan Man (are he and Tick Tock twinners?)

Further reading:

• The Wastelands at The Dark Tower Wiki
• Rereading Stephen King: The Waste Lands
• The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
• Shardik by Richard Adams

Lastly, Stephen King always has great music references in his books — but where can you fit ZZ Top into a post-apocalyptic world where people have reverted to public executions in the town square? Why, in the city of Lud, of course.

Stephen King Saga: The Talisman

I took a two-month hiatus between reading The Eyes of the Dragon and The Talisman, mainly because I had a rash of parenting books come in at the library and I wanted to be ahead of the game when it came to the toddler in my house. Picking up The Talisman, even though I’d never read it (or a Peter Straub novel at all), felt like curling up with a bowl full of comfort food.

I knew little about the book other than what I’d read in just a cursory Googling — that King and Straub alternated writing chapters and their editors allegedly couldn’t even tell their writing apart, that there were connections between this novel and the Dark Tower series, and that I was in for a hell of a story.

One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written,The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother’s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin. . . .

This book had a hold of me over the couple of weeks it took to read it (don’t judge, I’m a busy working mom … I used to have so.much.reading.time), and I really enjoyed the journey. Because that is definitely what this book describes — an epic journey across time and space … and a mysterious place called the Territories. Many of the parallels drawn are to Twain’s writing, the most obvious tie being Jack’s last name. However, I felt a very strong nod to Alice in Wonderland when the Territories were introduced. When Jack started eating some blackberries, I got concerned that something would happen to him — everyone knows you’re not supposed to eat things when you go to other-wordly fantasy realms. “Going west” is mentioned, as it is in The Gunslinger and even The Stand, although for slightly different reasons. A mirror that Jack had even fell down a sewer grate — is this a connection to It? The western area of the Territories are the Blasted Lands, perhaps related to the Waste Lands in the Dark Tower series.

After finishing The Talisman, I was more than ready to continue on my own journey into The Waste Lands, Dark Tower #3.

Further reading:

• Rereading Stephen King: The Talisman
• People Weekly article (1985)
• We’re apparently still waiting for a film adaptation

 

Review: Mindful Discipline: A Loving Approach to Setting Limits and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

Mindful Discipline: A Loving Approach to Setting Limits and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by Shauna Shapiro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Grounded in mindfulness and neuroscience, this pioneering book redefines discipline and outlines the five essential elements necessary for children to thrive: unconditional love, space for children to be themselves, mentorship, healthy boundaries, and mis-takes that create learning and growth opportunities. In this book, you will also discover parenting practices such as setting limits with love, working with difficult emotions, and forgiveness and compassion meditations that place discipline within a context of mindfulness. 

I learned that I’m actually more mindful than I knew. I worked as a paraeducator in a special ed classroom for a year and learned the skills of patience, compassion, and understanding before I became a parent. I think that experience has been indispensable now that I’m dealing with a toddler at home. A lot of what the authors call mindfulness in this book involve listening to your child, understanding the root issue, being patient, and being present in the moment.

I do need to work on being present in the moment. Luckily, this book offers many mindfulness exercises to help you do so. The authors’ writing style is approachable and makes mindfulness seem possible for everyone. It’s also broken into small sections so it’s easy to grab some reading time during naps or just between running after your kiddo.

The book did reaffirm that I am doing a lot of things right; however, the book also provides hands-on tips for areas that need improvement.

View all my reviews

Best, Worst, Longest

Thrift Eye, a fashion and sometimes book blogger, has begun featuring guest posts about people’s best, last, and longest reads. No, I haven’t been featured (yet … amirite?), but I wanted to reflect on the books I’ve read so far this year and do this quick recap for the last six months.

You’ll all be pretty up to date on my last book, so I decided to change it to the worst book. That’s always fun, right?

The best book that I read so far this year is not a Stephen King title: it’s a parenting book. There’s a juxtaposition for you. Toddler Rules by Jo Frost of Supernanny fame included fantastic tips about how to work with your toddler (many a time have I said “Work with me!” to my little one) as well as reassurance that it’ll be ok. Read more here
(and check out my crafty/foodie/parenting goodness while you’re there).

 

The worst book so far is also not a King title, but a book about a highly traumatic situation written from the perspective of a young girl. The Bear sounded like it was going to be great, in a really dark, car-crash-can’t-look-away sense. I enjoyed Room, so child narrators are not a deal-breaker. I just didn’t get this one. I didn’t post a review of this one, so check out Goodreads.

 

 

If you looked at all the books I’ve read so far this year sitting on a shelf, it would be pretty stinkin’ obvious which one is the longest. The Stand comes in waves: intense emotion, interspersed with accounts of traveling, dream sequences, and what essentially are city council meetings. And it takes over 1000 pages to get to a notoriously so-so ending. Read more here.

 

Stephen King Saga: Eyes of the Dragon

This may have been the King novel I was least looking forward to reading, prior to beginning the Saga (except for IT, only because when I initially read it in my early teens, I got so freaked out that I had to stop about 3/4 of the way through and never picked it up again, so we’ll see what happens when I get to that point). My main reasoning was because I knew it was more fantasy than King normally writes, and I’d heard it billed as “more of a kids’ book”. I shouldn’t have been dissuaded for so long though — heck, a lot of books are more of kids’ books when compared to King.

In my defense, I’m not the only person who had this reaction. In fact, I learned that it was this departure, and King fans’ reaction to it, that led King to write the novel Misery, about an author who tries to escape from his usual genre and has to face the consequences.

After beginning the Dark Tower series, though, I was more intrigued about Eyes of the Dragon. It tells the story of Delain, where a magician named Flagg holds the real power and takes advantage of King Roland and, later, his son Thomas. The style and substance here is different from the King I’m used to; however, it was worth a read for the potential insights into the Dark Tower.

A few questions I’m left with …

King mentions that there was a great blizzard, the “greatest save one”. Is this the greatest the Storm of the Century? Something I’ll read about later?

It’s stated that gunpowder is rare in Delain. Does technology develop so that gunpowder is no longer needed, and this gives rise to gunslingers?

If killing a king or killing your father is the second foulest murder you can do, what is the first?

One thing is for sure. Just when I start to think I’m taking this all a little too seriously, I am reassured that there are even more hardcore Kingologists out there.

Further reading …

• Syfy possibly developing some adaptation of Eyes of the Dragon
• Rereading Stephen King: The Eyes of the Dragon
• Goodreads reviews

Stephen King Saga: The Stand

The Stand was one of King’s novels that I read when I was younger, either in high school or early college. Yes, it was epic — the book is around 1100 pages, so you know there’s a lot of story to get through. Even so, I felt that it moved along at a good clip. This is another book where there was a revised edition published later, basically King’s director’s cut of the manuscript. I’ve only read the revised version, and I do think it’s worth reading it.

It’s in The Stand that Randall Flagg really gets involved in the King universe, following (or not?) a raging flu-like virus that takes out some 90% of the population. We also get a mention of The Shop, a mysterious organization that appears in several other King works. This is also a book not to read at the height of flu season, like I did. You start to get just a tad paranoid.

So yes, a truly evil entity is at work in The Stand, but it also explores a more gray version of good and bad. Is Harold Lauder inherently bad? I would argue no, but he is vulnerable and easily influenced by Flagg, as is Lloyd. Is Nick inherently good? I don’t think that’s the case either, but he is perhaps stronger and able to see past those things that enticed Harold the most.

I was maybe looking too hard for references to the Dark Tower when reading this one — my notes include references to the very beginning when the virus first is released into the open: “reservation’s north tower“. There was also a moment in The Stand when a prison inmate sees a mirage that includes a castle with trolls and horses. Is this connected to Delain, Roland’s world? The Territories in The Talisman?

There’s a passable miniseries out there starring Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald, among other familiar faces. I especially enjoyed the opening sequence featuring “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

As a Kansan, I love the references to locations in Kansas: Hammer Crossing, Polliston, Pratt.

And a quote: “Outside, all the lights of the world were going out.”

• Goodreads
• Rereading Stephen King

Stephen King Saga: The Drawing of the Three

The Drawing of the Three is the second book in the Dark Tower series, and I was eager to get started after wrapping up The Gunslinger.

Roland, our gunslinger from volume I, seeks out the people who are to make up his ka-tet, his group that is bound by destiny. We meet Eddie and Detta Walker/Odetta Holmes and Jack Mort. The number 19 shows up again. We encounter lobstrosities on the beach.

One thing that I noticed was how King gives hints about what is to come. Rarely (so far) is there a clue that is given that is not addressed later in the book. There are many authors who lay out red herrings or write something that seems like it will become important later on but then never revisits it, but King ties things up pretty well. This gives me confidence that the series as a whole will tie in well together, although I’ve heard that some of the later books from DT are not quite up to par with the earlier ones. We’ll see!

I enjoyed the doors, the gateways between Roland’s world and ours, albeit different times. I sometimes have issues visualizing images while I’m reading — the words carry me through the story more often than mental images in my head. However, King has a way of painting pictures with his words, for better or for worse, depending on what he is describing.

One of the most important connections to the King universe: we meet Randall Flagg. Flagg may or may not be a demon, but he frequently takes the form of a man and shows up in many a King story, leaving death and destruction in his wake. We’ll see him again soon.

And a great quote: “Fault always lies in the same place … with him weak enough to lay blame.”

• Goodreads
• Rereading Stephen King

Stephen King Saga: The Gunslinger

Allow me to introduce the Stephen King Saga, in which I undertake the daunting task of reading through King’s Dark Tower series and related works (as set forth here) and then continuing with the rest of his fiction in chronological order (complete list here). I actually began this task in January, and I’ve taken a few … interludes here and there, so I’m going to start out by writing posts for the books I have already read and space them accordingly. FYI, I am currently reading The Talisman, #5 on the list. Posts will be caught up soon.

King is so typically known as a horror writer, but so many of his books fall comfortably within the realm of fantasy. The Gunslinger is one of them, with a healthy dose of Western as well. Back when I was reading King pretty regularly, in high school and college, I picked up The Gunslinger and couldn’t get into it. I was more used to the King I’d found in Pet Sematary and The Shining. This second time around, though, I was hooked.

The Gunslinger introduces you to a realm where your ka is your destiny and where nothing is as it seems. A man may be a sorcerer and take many names. The world that we live in is called “the world next door” and traces of it show up in the gunslinger’s domain. It’s such a good introduction to the world — I admit, I often get lost with fantasy and have a difficult time stretching my mind to fit something so removed from my own experience. However, The Gunslinger is a great setup that gives you just enough to be intrigued (I’ve read that the original version of the novel was maybe not this way, so I am very interested to compare the two versions when it’s time).

I know that the Dark Tower series is connected to many of King’s other works, and I’m excited to discover those connections as I read. I have a few theories about where everything is headed, although that’s very difficult to tell when you’ve read only the first book in the series.

I’ll close with a quote from the foreword to the revised edition: “When one quests for the Dark Tower, time is a matter of no concern at all.” This reassures me that even if this saga takes long past 2014 to complete, I will have undergone a great quest. Or gone a little crazy, that’s always possible too.

Further reading on The Gunslinger:

• Rereading Stephen King
• The Pegster Reads
• 1989 interview with King in Castle Rock News

Dewey Challenge: 2013 Statistics

Here are my stats for 2013:

To complete – 882

Completed – 22 (2.49%)

Classifications

• 000: 0
• 100: 0
• 200: 1
• 300: 4
• 400: 0
• 500: 2
• 600: 3
• 700: 7
• 800: 2
• 900: 3