…he always felt
sick afterwards.
Wolves of the Calla is #5 in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world and occasional portals between the old and new, but characters do not refer to different “worlds” but different “whens”.
Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, and to set something right that has somehow gone horribly wrong in the world that moved on.
The precise meaning or mission of gunslingers is revealed gradually through this series. From volume 5:
He [Eddie] knew from Roland’s stories (and from having seen him in action a couple of times) that the gunslingers of Gilead had been much more than peace officers. They had also been messengers, accountants, sometimes spies, once in a while even executioners. More than anything else, however, they had been diplomats.
Roland himself explains more succinctly:
Fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves is our job.
In volume #1, Roland was alone. In volume #2, he picks up two companions from a different when: 20th-century America. He encounters Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In volume #3, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. Volume #4 Wizard and Glass was a flashback and Roland’s backstory.
Volume #5 returns to the quest, but only briefly. The gunslingers are forced to detour when they encounter a farming community harassed by evil and dangerous beings. According to their code, the Gunslingers must render aid and succor. The Calla is the farming community of Calla Bryn Sturgis, and the enemy is the Wolves: not actual wolves but seeming humans behind wolf masks.
The odds seem impossible, and there is a traitor in their midst, but Roland is undeterred.
As always, he was never so happy to be alive as when he was preparing to deal death. Five minutes of blood and stupidity.
…he always felt sick afterwards.
Besides the looming battle, an important sub-text is present. Susannah is in a delicate condition: she doesn’t show because the “chap” within her is an unnatural and evil being that will likely destroy her once released. At the critical moment of battle his arrival seems imminent, but Susannah forces it to wait by force of will. Shortly after the fight, she leaves her fellow Gunslingers and travels to a different when…the story of the next volume, Song of Susannah.
I’ve spoken of the four companions or the four Gunslingers: Roland of Gilead, Eddie Dean, his wife Susannah, and a boy Jake Chambers. There is one more companion I’ve not mentioned thus far: Oy, a doglike creature called a Billy Bumbler from Roland’s when. Oy becomes Jake's fiercely loyal companion. Billy Bumblers mimic human speech, but Oy demonstrates particular intelligence. His speech often conveys meaning beyond just mimicry.
I think a new gunslinger is joining the quest. The gunslingers encounter Father Callahan in Calla Bryn Sturgis. He is from 20th-century America but has taken up ministering to the folk of the Calla. This volume involves some traveling between different whens, and Callahan discovers a book of fiction by Stephen King from the 20th century. Callahan is disturbed to find that Salem’s Lot tells his story, causing him to question his own existence.
Thus far, I’ve rated each volume of the series individually and I will stick with that until the end, but I’m forming an opinion for the whole as well. This volume can probably stand on its own better than the others, though there is a maddening cliffhanger: what is to become of Susannah? But again, on its own, Wolves of the Calla is very exciting, very satisfying, and at the same time piquing my interest for more.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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