Spoil Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower for me!

Cafe Society
1

I bought and read the first four Dark Tower books and was very impressed. The story telling was top notch, and I was very engrossed in the story. I also bought the fifth Dark Tower book, Wolves of the Calla…although I must admit that it took some effort to finish the entire book. I started reading *Song of Susannah *, but I probably only made it about one hundred pages in before I lost all interest.

So, would someone please be so kind as to spoil the rest of *Song of Susannah * and also *The Dark Tower * for me?

Did the group ever make it to the Dark Tower? What was the relationship between the Dark Tower and our own world? Did Roland’s worsening arthritis prevent him from finishing his quest? What happened at the end - was the world saved? Who lived? Who died?

Thanks a lot!

2

Everybody (and everything) friggin’ dies. Even the cute talking dog. If I remember correctly, a “different version” of Eddie and Susannah end up back in New York, but I don’t think they can recall their adventures. Roland defeats the Crimson King with a character introduced five pages earlier who can make drawings so realistic he can alter reality. Roland climbs the Tower only to restart his journey from the beginning. King’s message is it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters.

Song of Susannah was a bit of a drag for me too, but book 7 really does make up for it.

3

Don’t forget the plug to read yet another of King’s books in Book 7 of DT.

4

I don’t remember that. Which book? Insomnia?

5

Since you didn’t finish SofS …

quite a bit take place in Susannahs mind as she and Mia fight for control of her body. Mia has some kind of deal worked out with Walter to become human. This is also where King inputs himself into the story as the Ka-Tet discover copy of Salem’s Lot and realize he’s (King) connected to the Dark Tower.

Not Exactly.

[spoiler]Eddie, Jake and Oy are killed; Susannah elects not to finish the quest. She enters a door drawn by the character mentioned in the above spoiler where she finds a different version of Eddie and Jake who are brothers.
In case you’re interested. Eddie is killed at the end of a gunfight by a character who gets off a lucky shot as he’s dying. Jake dies saving King from the van that put him in the hospital. Oy dies saving Roland.

[/spoiler]

6

It’s been a while since I finished the series, but I’ll have a go at it. Some of this is out of order, and a lot of detail is left out, but anyway…

Susannah, who as you will rememeber was pregnant at the end of Wolves of the Calla (and possessed by a woman named Mia), goes to have her baby. The baby is, for all intents and purposes, the Antichrist, or some such; he’s capital E eeeevil. They call him Mordred, which, OK, whatever.

Shit happens. Father Callahan and Jake ultimately rescue Susannah (Father Callahan is killed, but redeemed, in the process). The gang goes to a place where Breakers - psychics, I guess - including Ted Brautigan from Hearts in Atlantis and Dinky Earnshaw from Everything’s Eventual - have been put to work by the forces of Badness breaking the beams that support the Dark Tower. If they are successful, it is implied, very bad shit will be forthcoming. Roland and company free the Breakers in a bloody gunfight, which they win; at the last moment, however, one of the bad guys looks up from his puddle of blood and fires a dying shot at Eddie, which kills him (Eddie).

OK, so then Susannah does… something, I can’t remember what… whilst Roland and Jake travel to our world. There they meet Stephen King - yeah, seriously, Stephen King - who has apparently created all of them. He’s due to be killed by a runaway truck, which will have disastrous consequences for the world he created (ie, Roland’s world). Jake takes his place and dies; Oy dies somewhat thereafter.

Roland and Susannah continue their trek. More shit happens, some of it interesting and some of it blatant filler. They eventually draw a little boy from the real world, a boy (he was in King’s Insomnia, but only briefly, has the power to affect reality by drawing pictures. Before they reach the Tower, Susannah leaves - she has a chance to bail back to her own world (the boy draws her a door) and takes it.

Roland and the boy arrive at the field of roses outside the Tower. The Crimson King is there, lobbing bombs at them from the balcony of the Tower, but the magic boy erases his existence by drawing and then erasing a picture of him. Roland goes alone into the tower.

We find that Eddie, Susannah, and Jake are all reunited in some alternate version of New York, this time as husband, wife, and son.

Roland climbs the tower, steps through the door at the top, and steps into the Wasteland from the first page of The Gunslinger. He doesn’t remember anything of his quest. And then, the man in black fled west across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

7

Oh, and Jake and Eddie are made into brothers at the end, not father-and-son. And they get a dog that acts oddly like a billy bumbler.

8

There’s on difference, at the end he’s how carrying the Horn of Eld, which in the previous iteration he had lost. It’s implied that he’s somehow grown from his experiences and maybe this time around he’ll achieve the Tower.