Continuing the trek towards the end of Stephen King's Dark Tower cycle, the fifth book in the series--Wolves of the Calla--stops off for a lengthy stay in Calla Bryn Sturgis, a town under siege (or, more accurately, about to be under siege) by a force of mysterious "Wolves", half-men, half-monsters who are intent on kidnapping the townfolks children. It's up to Roland and his ka-tet of gunslingers to save the town's children.

It's here in Book Five that the true vision of King's epic begins to unfold. Up until now, the quest for the Dark Tower has been just that; an adventure tale, full of memorable characters and hard-hitting action. With Wolves of the Calla, things begin to turn inwards as King starts to toy with the aspects of fiction, popular culture, and his own body of work that truly make this series a career-defining epic. Of course, if you go back I'm quite certain you'd see plenty of foreshadowing for some of the self-reflective themes that really take root in this book--the melding of the multiple worlds, the curious coincidences that were never coincidence at all, etc.

Whether King had all of these themes in mind from the very beginning, or just happened upon them as happily designed accidents along the 20 year journey of writing the Dark Tower series, I have no idea. But as the series becomes more and more about ideas and less and less about the plot--and let's face it, the plot of Wolves is so straightforward as to almost be laughable--the story is now truly beginning to pick up steam. With two books to go, here's hoping that momentum keeps up all the way to the end.

Next on the old reading list: Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver