The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Well The Dark Tower series continues to defy a reader's expectations with Wizard and Glass. After actual progress in the quest to the Dark Tower is finally made in The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass gives us a flashback that takes up about ninety percent of the book. And since the book is 1000+ pages that's a pretty long flashback. It isn't that I mind the digression... since that seems to be the theme of the series, or the length of the book either... it is just that the story presented just doesn't require this many pages. Maybe since the previous novels all featured Roland going on adventures in several different locations, having him stuck in one location for so long makes this one really drag. The first 100 pages and the last 300 pages are all full of the usual thrills... but the 600 pages in between really could have been condensed down. How many times do really need to read about Susan arguing with her aunt? Or the bad guys talking about how much they hate Roland? B