Originally published in 2003 as a
Limited Edition by Donald M. Grant, Publisher
Mass Market Hardcover by Grant,
distributed by Scribner, 2003
'03 Paperback, Pocket
'03 Mass Market Paperback, Pocket
11/03 Audio Book, Simon &
Schuster
1/05 Paperback Reissue, Scribner
2/06 Mass Market Paperback, Pocket
Wolves of the Calla
From The Flap:
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the
forests of Mid-World, the almost timeless landscape that seems
to stretch from the wreckage of civility that defined Roland's
youth to the crimson chaos that seems the future's only promise.
Readers of Stephen King's epic series know Roland well, or as
well as this enigmatic hero can be known. They also know the
companions who have been drawn to his quest for the DarkTower:
Eddie Dean and his wife, Susannah; Jake Chambers, the boy who
has come twice through the doorway of death into Roland's world;
and Oy, the Billy-Bumbler. In this long-awaited fifth novel in
the saga, their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn
Sturgis, a tranquil valley community of farmers and ranchers on
Mid-World's borderlands. Beyond the town, the rocky ground rises
toward the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a
terrible affliction that is slowly stealing the community's
soul. One of the town's residents is Pere Callahan, a ruined
priest who, like Susannah, Eddie, and Jake, passed through one
of the portals that lead both into and out of Roland's world. As
Father Callahan tells the ka-tet the astonishing story of what
happened following his shamed departure from Maine in 1977, his
connection to the Dark Tower becomes clear, as does the danger
facing a single red rose in a vacant lot off Second Avenue in
midtown Manhattan. For Calla Bryn Sturgis, danger gathers in the
east like a storm cloud. The Wolves of Thunderclap and their
unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to risk
all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to, and they
can give the Calla-folken both courage and cunning. Their guns,
however, will not be enough.
Synopsis:
After escaping the perilous wreckage of Blaine the insane Mono
and eluding the evil clutches of the vindictive sorcerer Randall
Flagg, Roland and his ka-tet find themselves back on the
southeasterly path of the Beam. Here, in the borderlands that
lie between Mid-World and End-World, Roland and his friends are
approached by a frightened band of representatives from the
nearby town of Calla Bryn Sturgis. In less than a month, the
Calla will be attacked by the Wolves-those masked riders that
gallop out of Thunderclap once a generation to steal the town's
children. The Calla folken need the kind of help that only
gunslingers can give, and if the tet agrees to help, the town's
priest-Father Callahan, once of 'Salem's Lot, Maine-promises to
give them Black Thirteen, the most potent and treacherous of
Maerlyn's magic balls. He used it to enter Mid-World, and now it
sleeps fitfully beneath the floorboards of his church.
Meanwhile, in the New York of 1977, the Sombra Corporation plots
to destroy the lot at Second Avenue and Forty-Sixth Street. How
can Roland and his friends both save the rose and fight the
Wolves? Only by using the magic of Black Thirteen, but how can
anyone trust this sinister and treacherous object which is, in
actuality, the eye of the Crimson King himself? Time is running
out on all levels of the Tower, but unless our ka-tet can defeat
the minions of Thunderclap both in our world and in Mid-World,
they will never reach that great lynchpin of the time/space
continuum which, even now, begins to totter . . .
Audio Book Excerpt: