Why is Wolves considered bad?

[chrisfilm]

I know books 5-7 in the series are very polarizing, and that there is a large group that flat out hate them. I just finished Wolves and I thought it was great; I just don't see it. Without spoiling books 6 or 7, why do some people consider this the start of the downfall of the series?

[bryantburnette]

I remember being mildly disappointed with it when it first came out, and the reason was that it felt a bit like a detour, whereas I was hoping for it to represent more progress toward the Tower. But that had more to do with my expectations than with the book itself, which is a way of saying I was at fault, not the book.

Despite that, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and still do. Great stuff.

[blunthead]

I know books 5-7 in the series are very polarizing, and that there is a large group that flat out hate them. I just finished Wolves and I thought it was great; I just don't see it. Without spoiling books 6 or 7, why do some people consider this the start of the downfall of the series?I may not have heard the specific complaint to which you refer, until now. It doesn't ring a bell. I've heard some say Wizard and Glass is their favorite of the DT series, for many it's The Drawing of the Three, for next to nobody it's The Gunslinger, for many it's The Dark Tower: VII, except the ending. Lately I seem to have heard folks saying Wolves is their favorite, but maybe that's only because it's mine and my need to hear from them causes me to.

What I'm beginning to really love about Stephen King is, among other things, his ability to draw feelings out of his readers. He's a feeling jerker. My sister finished DT, so I gave her a pile of sK. I said Misery's great. She started it but had to put it down, not because she got to a hard to read part, she reads way too fast for that to have been it. I know she was afraid of the feelings. I think she may have chosen Meyer instead (please don't hate her, she's a good person, just misguided sometimes).

Finally, my point is I think the wide variety of favorites among sK's Constant Readers shows the depth and height and breadth he reaches, and it's not just because he's willing to go for the gore if he has to. It's because he loves and respects his readers, and he's humble. He realizes he needs us, obviously not for a living; instead, I think he needs readers to continue accepting him. An artist needs that.

[Shasta]

It's not my favorite but I don't think it's BAD. In a series that took that long to write, it's inevitable that the books have different tones and styles. And people have different tastes.

[Shasta]

I may not have heard the specific complaint to which you refer, until now. It doesn't ring a bell. I've heard some say Wizard and Glass is their favorite of the DT series, for many it's The Drawing of the Three, for next to nobody it's The Gunslinger, for many it's The Dark Tower: VII, except the ending. .

The Gunlinger is 100% my favorite.

[bryantburnette]

for next to nobody it's The Gunslinger

Looks like I'm standing next to nobody, then...

[bryantburnette]

The Gunlinger is 100% my favorite.

Hey, lookit that! I'm not standing next to nobody, I'm standing next to Shasta!

[blunthead]

Hey, lookit that! I'm not standing next to nobody, I'm standing next to Shasta!I stand corrected next to...I forget. :tongue:

[Shasta]

Hey, lookit that! I'm not standing next to nobody, I'm standing next to Shasta!

Yay! I have a friend in nobody-land!!

[unclelouie]

Nah, you aren't standing alone, friend.... your ol Uncle Louie is right beside ya!

I am about half way finished with Wolves, and I love it. Prior to Wolves, I considered Wizard my absolute favorite, but Im thinking Wolves is right on up there too. I don't know why anyone who loves the DT series to hate Wolves. I mean, I didnt particularly enjoy Waste Lands, but I wouldnt say I hate it at all.

I enjoy Wolves for many reasons. We are getting closer.... ever so closer to the Tower. In the previous 4 books the Tower seemed so far away, but now it seems closer.... I feel the pull... its getting stronger. I also happen to love the character of Father Callahan, and enjoyed his backstory very much on how he got to Mid World, and how he slummed around the hidden highways and NYC in Todash. Some minor things I love about it.... Andy the robot (I know there is something more to him that we dont know about at first)... there's the mystery of The Wolves (who are they.... what did they do with the poor kids?)... and of course, the roont ones... they tickle me..

[AchtungBaby]

I love Wolves...

[gniknehpets]

I'm the one standing alone. I'm not that fond of The Gunslinger... I'm ducking, ducking, ducking!!! Now I'm running, running, running...

[GNTLGNT]

...for BB, Shasta and Frank....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FxX5JHvAiM

[GNTLGNT]

why do some people consider this the start of the downfall of the series?

....I'm not of that camp, so can't intelligently say why(not that I say much intelligently, or intelligibly for that matter-anyway)...

[91rewoT]

It's not my favorite but I don't think it's BAD. In a series that took that long to write, it's inevitable that the books have different tones and styles. And people have different tastes.

Agreed! And in spite of or maybe because of the different tones and styles, The Dark Tower is one tastey story!

[Shoesalesman]

Wolves is a pretty good read thus far. I'm into it about 600+ pages now.

[Robert Gray]

My favorite is still the Drawing of the Three, although I love them all.

[carrie's younger brother]

Wolves... is my favorite.

[xforce11]

Wolves and Wizard are both favorites for me. But hey I like most all of them.

[blunthead]

Wolves... is my favorite.Mine, too. Who says it's bad? Each DT novel is different from the last and so conceivably appeals somewhat differently to differing versions of CR.

[Cowboy]

I loved Wolves but Gunslinger is still the best. I liked the detour that Wolves took. We learned some new things about the characters and opened up a whole bunch of questions.

[sam peebles]

All right, I'll take the bait, although I think I've spoken about this before.

Wolves is my least favorite of the Dark Tower series. It's the follow-up to what might be my favorite, Wizard and Glass, so maybe I was set up to be disappointed no matter what.

I still remember reading the first sixty pages of Wolves on a floppy-disc my friend had brought to school before the book was published. I read it that night, and was uber-excited. It was awesome. A fantastic beginning, hinting at an awesome climax when the ka-tet would confront these "wolves".

Turns out it was a shaggy dog story. The wolves were not some awesome new enemy the gunslingers must face, but instead robots made of tinfoil that could be downed by a weaponized plate. Yeah, a plate. As in...something you eat off of. And it's been several years since I last read it (I've actually read it twice, thinking maybe I was wrong in my first evaluation), but if memory serves me, in this climactic showdown only one person is actually killed (I could be wrong about that, but I'm thinking of Jake's pal there, the one whose father was a traitor).

The Dark Tower always had little cross-overs to our own pop culture (the cop seeing Roland in Drawing of the Three and is reminded of the Terminator, the Green Palace and ruby slippers from Oz, etc.), but in this book it was overkill. The wolves use explosive snitches and lightsabers, and are copies of Dr. Doom. Andy is described as resembling C-3PO. I'm sure there are many more that don't come to mind. The point is, this was too much for me to handle, and pulled me out of the story.

It's revealed that Susannah has another personality emerging, Mia, the mother. This felt repetitive to me, something I thought we'd resolved at the end of Drawing.

Too many archaic Thee's and Thou's. I don't recall Roland every talking this way previously, even in flashbacks to In-World, to Gilead, even when he uses the high speech. Why is he talking like this now? And why does he seem to be crying all the time, or on the brink of crying? I understand the need for development, and the fact that he's bonding more deeply with the ka-tet, opening up to people, but this robs him of much that made him such a badass character in the first place. Since when did we replace those blue bombardier eyes with blue teary eyes?

The introduction of Father Callahan. This was cool, I could dig this. But at the end we find a copy of 'Salem's Lot. This completely ripped me out of the world King had so expertly crafted. This is basically breaking the third wall (for example, when an actor in a movie addresses the camera and viewer directly). It's not that I mind linking all the books together (I loved the Stand links that had already been inserted), it's that the actual book physically manifests itself, with all details pertaining to a character inside, and written by the very author (this only gets worse and worse for me as the series progresses, with the eventual introduction of Mr. King himself.). No, I didn't dig this at all. It was a constant reminder that I was reading a book, it robbed me of the imersion factor of experiencing the world I'd come to love. King has placed little easter eggs before in books, little nods and references to himself and his works, and I greatly enjoyed these, it was like an inside-joke. But they were never integral to the plot, they were just one-line shout-outs.

Anyway, just my two cents, but that's the way I feel. Currently I'm reading Wind Through the Keyhole, started last night and am only about fifty pages into it, but I'm definitely digging it so far.

[guido tkp]

wow, sam...quite spot on !!

so...for the record...i consider DT2, 3 & 4 to be among the very best writing king has ever done..with 2-3-4 being at the pinnacle, bested only by SL and, possibly, the mist

and, also for the record...i find 5, 6, and 7 to among the very worst...eclipsed only by 'the tommyknockers' and 'insomnia'

and there is a great distance, in my mind, between those 5 books and all the rest...a wide, deep gap

king has said that often times when he writes, he sets down and gets whisked away, ...dt 2, 3 and 4 feel like they were written magically..they breath an effervescent glow of words/thought/ideas/happenings that float along on a storytelling arc that is unrivaled

dt 5. 6 and 7 feel like a guy who, having just had a scary run-in with fate, feels he ought to crank out the last chapter before the big one hits...all that passion: gone...all that sheer inventiveness: gone...all the wonder and mystery of what might lie ahead: gone

they feel like a guy who keeps looking up from the typewriter to check his outline on the wall so that he doen't lose track of just 'getting there'

when the lead up to dt4 was going, king often would mention that he wanted to start out his story back in the past...but that the publisher (and maybe others) thought he should finish up the tale of blaine...but he kept maintaining that that was not in the cards...that is not what the book was about...not the tale his heart could tell yet...he wouldn't go there

and he went there...and it felt tacked on..it felt, for the first time, unreal...

it, in fact, sucked...good thing the main story, the one he said was the only one he had any intention of telling, was so very, very good..it kinda made up for the lameness at the beginning and the end

imho...the blaine stuff in dt 4is as bad as dt5, 6 and 7...

sam is quite right...too much perfunctualness'...too much retread like it means something...too much same-old-same-old, dried on characterization, rather than exuberant character developement that 1, 2, 3, and 4 had on every page

with 1, 2, 3, and 4...you never knoew what what happen next...with 5,6 and 7...you'd have to be a dolt not to have it all figure out well inadvance

and the injection of king and his works into all this ?

just as sam said...brought me right out of the DT reality of great writing and into the mundane world of WTF???

DT 1, 2, 3, and 4 were written by someone who loved to write and was out to tell a most astonishing tale, indeed

DT5, 6 and 7 were written by someone who just wanted to get it over with

one of these days,...i hope to go back and reread 'em all...but i know i'll come up on the last three with more than a little trepidation deep in my heart..

but if i do...i hope i perservere and find something magical within those three that i just flatout missed the first time...but i do not hold out that much hope

every king book i've reread ? i felt the same way about the second time

no reason to expect that the magic was there and i just missed it

[Shoesalesman]

Finally finished it a few days ago. It was good. The story flowed well, kept me interested. The ending (what occured with the Wolves and to Suz) was no surprise, but then again I don't think it needed to be. Makes me want to pick up Song to find out what's going to happen next.

[ZMeister]

Wolves was my least favorite of the series but I still enjoyed it. I liked Father Callahan being introduced into the story.
The part that stands out as being stinky is how Roland kept motioning his hand when someone was talking, like "Go on, go on.." He did that a lot. I got the idea Stephen King was getting impatient with the process and it showed up in Roland who seemed pretty bored in Wolves.

But what the hell: We can't all be Tolkien.

On Stephen King writing himself into his own story: :hahahahaha:
What utter nerve! What gall! The very cheek! I almost didn't read the series further once I became aware he'd written himself into the story. I saw it as the arrogant self-indulgence of someone who was just successful enough to get away with it.

In the end I just tossed all those criticisms over my shoulder, said "What the heck, I wanna know what's up with Roland, Eddie, Jake and Oy." Suzanna I didn't really give a flip about at that point. By the time her 'chap' was becoming more imminent, I was irritated by her. After Detta Walker, how could Suzanna be anything but weak sauce? Sho! Maybe Detta was cliche, but she had far more character and grit.

I was a bit more than disgruntled by how the Crimson King met his demise. Really? REALLY?? ¬__¬ The ultimate ending of the series, although grievous, seemed almost...appropriate and fitting somehow. I read it and thought, "Holy crap! Roland is Christian Rosenkreutz with a slightly hipper rap!" [Chemycal Wedding of Christian Rosekreutz]

You know, over the years I have often suspected that Stephen King harbors a sort of resentment and contempt for the average reader and is maybe a tad sadistic. Maybe he writes the real endings, stuffs them in a box and rubs his hands and gloats over them in the wee hours while the rest of us languish, in want of more sincere endings to stories like Insomnia or The Dark Tower.

Ultimately I can forgive crappy, corny endings because it's the characters I come back for again and again.

The Dark Tower is still a great grail story none-the-less and I ended up getting a real kick out of SK writing himself into the story. If only all of us had the luxury of writing ourselves as a catalyst in our own stories [and get paid for it!]I still maintain that SK is a good writer who's written several great stories, some of them quite literary, imo.

All-in-all, the writer-reader connection is one of mutual consent where all parties concerned ultimately get what they deserve. But I sometimes ask myself, "How might SK have written this without being under the yoke of deadlines, agents, publishers, readers...

[guido tkp]

on your spoiler...i don't know, ZM...i've always thought that the write-in was just...grasping at straws...it certainly didn't seem to be evident in 1-4...i always thought it was a shortcut thru stephens woods...a way to bring together quickly that which he suddenly thought might need a quick resolution...

if so...then it is lazy...if not, then, for me at least, it was not handled well at all..and further drove me from what was once a sparklingly great narrative

on his endings...y'know..some work well for me (the mist, slames lot, the dead zone)..some don't (DT, it, duma key) ...the one thing in common for all the ones that didn't is that they all 'feel' rushed...more like he pondered amd podered at where to go...what to do...and just threw up his hands and grasped at the first straw

but you're quite right...a 'bad' ending never spoiled a great read...

[TheInterloper]

I thought wolves was the second most western book in the series. I thought it was okay, not the best " Susannah Delgado and Roland deschains romance has to be the best" say thankee...

[ZMeister]

on his endings...y'know..some work well for me (the mist, slames lot, the dead zone)..some don't (DT, it, duma key) ...the one thing in common for all the ones that didn't is that they all 'feel' rushed...more like he pondered amd podered at where to go...what to do...and just threw up his hands and grasped at the first straw

but you're quite right...a 'bad' ending never spoiled a great read...

Yeah, he does seem to be a great fan of the 'Deus ex Machina' Some endings remind me of endings like in the Matrix trilogy. Whaaaaa??? Rickin racken, frikken frackin!!! Got me again, SK!! :ah:

[tenngolfer]

Everyone has their own taste, I found the Gunslinger tough, but really enjoyed the rest of the series, including Wolves.

[guido tkp]

i get that :biggrin2: ...it can be perturbing to read such a massively wonderous tome...only to get.........that

1000 pages of greatness...and 10 or 20 of...oh well

[ZMeister]

Everyone has their own taste, I found the Gunslinger tough, but really enjoyed the rest of the series, including Wolves.

I honestly scratch my head at why people find The Gunslinger so tough to get through. It really hooked me into the series and I gotta say I loved the part where Walter/Marten/Flagg/Whoever tells him about the relation between time, reality and size. Are we all living in a universe made of the gunk under Gans fingernails? When he cleans them, will we all disappear? Bring it oooon! Can't happen soon enough, I say! :hahahahaha: Also, did anyone notice the link between how Marten brought the weed-eater back to life and [SPOILER]what Marten did when Roland was presumably 'dead?' Ahh, mega, super, ultra, deluxe secret squirrel tactics!


"He darkles, he tincts."

I love that word: tincts. I need an excuse to use it...somehow... :a05:

[themedic]

Just finished reading Wolves while on vacation in Mexico..so being I have the whole DT series on my e-reader I jumped righ into Song of Susannah..for me I did enjoy wizard and glass..loved The Gunslinger it hooked me..Drawing of the three stumbled me may times..didn' like that one....The Wastelands was good I enjoyed that one..now for Susannah

[The Nameless]

It is strange, although I am far behind most sk readers in terms of what they have read, the 10 or so that I have read seem to to either conform to what people like - my fave is IT, or be the polar opposite - I really didn't find the shining to be all that great, found it a decent story, but not a favourite. I als so called "lesser stories" like the langoliers and girl who loved tom Gordon.

As far as the dt series is going, I went into gunslinger with much caution, aware of its reputation, but came out thinking "what was all the fuss about?" I found it easy to read and really enjoyed it. Drawing of the 3 - which I have read a lot of people saying they did not like that one as it is too silly - is my favourite so far, I love it. Wastelands was an absolute chore for the first half, as they seemed to do nothing until they got to lud, my worst so far. W&g, started great, looked like we were making progress, then came the 600 page back story. This was a problem with me, not the book. I wanted to carry on down the path of the beam, and considered skipping it - what an idiot I would have been, turned out to be great. As for wolves, which I finished half an hour ago, a bad book? I have never heard such nonsense. I loved it.

I tend to enjoy them more after a break between books though, so I may hang back a bit first, read something like the body, or even a non sk book - I have Ronnie woods autobiography waiting to be read. Then jump into this crazy Blade runner-ish idea of the author's fictional setting being at the heart of the characters 'real world' - if that makes any sense.

[AchtungBaby]

It is strange, although I am far behind most sk readers in terms of what they have read, the 10 or so that I have read seem to to either conform to what people like - my fave is IT, or be the polar opposite - I really didn't find the shining to be all that great, found it a decent story, but not a favourite. I als so called "lesser stories" like the langoliers and girl who loved tom Gordon.

As far as the dt series is going, I went into gunslinger with much caution, aware of its reputation, but came out thinking "what was all the fuss about?" I found it easy to read and really enjoyed it. Drawing of the 3 - which I have read a lot of people saying they did not like that one as it is too silly - is my favourite so far, I love it. Wastelands was an absolute chore for the first half, as they seemed to do nothing until they got to lud, my worst so far. W&g, started great, looked like we were making progress, then came the 600 page back story. This was a problem with me, not the book. I wanted to carry on down the path of the beam, and considered skipping it - what an idiot I would have been, turned out to be great. As for wolves, which I finished half an hour ago, a bad book? I have never heard such nonsense. I loved it.

I tend to enjoy them more after a break between books though, so I may hang back a bit first, read something like the body, or even a non sk book - I have Ronnie woods autobiography waiting to be read. Then jump into this crazy Blade runner-ish idea of the author's fictional setting being at the heart of the characters 'real world' - if that makes any sense.
I've always thought DOT3 was the most popular...around here, anyway...

Yeah, take a break for a while because once you start SoS you'll be turning the pages as fast as you can and hurdling toward the end of book VII. Trust me-been there, done that. It's a helluva ride! Enjoy it!!!