Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Song of Susannah by Stephen King starting on June 1, 2025.


Happy Reading!

Thanks!

The Appetizers (Preparatory Stand-Alones) [Planning Thread]
・Insomnia (1994) 4.2 (June 1) [link]
・’Salem’s Lot (1975) 4.1 (July 1) [link]
・The Eyes of the Dragon (1987) 2.2 (Aug 1) [link]
・The Stand (1978/1990) 2.1 (Sept 1) [link]
・Everything's Eventual (2002) Skip "Sisters of Eluria" 4.5 (Oct 13) [link]
・Hearts in Atlantis (1999) 4.6 (Nov 4) [link]

The Main Course: The Dark Tower
1. The Gunslinger (Jan 1) [link]
2. The Drawing of the Three (Feb 1) [link]
3. The Waste Lands (Mar 1) [link]
4. Wizard and Glass (Apr 1) [link]
Short: The Little Sisters of Eluria (In Everything's Eventual)
5. Wolves of the Calla (May 1) [link]
6. Song of Susannah (Jun 1)
Recommended Follow Ups: None, straight to #7

7. The Dark Tower (Jul 1) [link]

Dessert? Unscheduled
3.5 The Wind Through the Keyhole
Graphic Novels: The Gunslinger Born
And various other connected Kingverse novels, such as The Talisman or It

Read over half of this, and it's been largely a disappointment, after enjoying book 5 more than usual...

I can barely tell you what's been happening... alot of meandering as usual, really... and random connections to old stuff, I guess...

Mostly looking forward to book 7 because it's the end, and has to build towards an actual ending and the eponymous Tower we've been trying to reach for 6 books...

Kinda see why some people talk about the self-fulfillment/hubris, of Stephen King putting himself in the story... (view spoiler)[especially when the plot talks about writers writing stories pushing on the fabric of reality and creating/plumbing other dimensions (hide spoiler)]

Wasn't expecting 1hr of Stephen King's diary entries from writing from 1975ish to 1999ish...

Finished... still not impressed... sadly...

I know some people recommend re-reading someday, but I might just call my Stephen King experiment 90% complete after next month, unless I really want to read something else of his that's standalone...

I'm once again waiting for my hold to come through on Libby.

I'm not surprised...

I read this today, and while I liked this more than some previous entries, there's still a lot of cringe that reminds me both that a) King is a horror writer and b) he's a guy who grew up in a time period when casual violence and objectification of women was Tuesday.

I actually thought the (view spoiler)[self-insertion was kind of interesting and meta, though yeah, with a healthy does of self-gratification. I like how it added an extra level--almost a fourth wall--how much of any of this was real? Could more be real than we think? Less? Did King actually hallucinate a meeting with Roland, that catapulted him into writing the Dark Tower, and eventually led to his sobriety? I don't think the diary entries at the end were real... or at least, severely edited to fit the narrative--focusing on the Dark Tower and always ending with how much drugs or alcohol King was doing at the time... and how it affected his life and creativity... and with hints of thoughts that turned into major books...

I feel like the title of this book was a bit misleading. Susannah wasn't really in it that much... it was kind of about her without being of her, if that makes any sense. She was mostly a damsel in distress. Which was kind of disappointing. More was Jake and Callahan, Roland, all trying to find a way to get to her... (hide spoiler)]

siren song, luring the men towards her...

Good point about the "Author's Note"...

Also reminds me of Karen Marie Moning, who insists she read the Fever series in a dream, and just copied it into real life...

Of course, then she went and wrote like 5-10 extra books...

Darkfever

Ooh, interesting interpretation of the "song"...

I've heard of the Fever books... on the scale of Guild Hunter to Dresden where do they fall?

Um... I'd say 1-2 are Dresden, 3-5 are Guild Hunter?...

There's a lot of sexual tension in the first 2 books... Then Halloween happens... Which is a pivotal moment in the series... Then the only way to fix the MC is lots and lots of sex... Then the dynamic changes and the plot returns but the characters are a couple now for the most part?...

That's my memory anyway, been awhile...

Hm.... not sure if that's enough Dresden to balance out the Guild Hunter...

Fever spoiler summation talk... (view spoiler)[ Fever is a series about a random girl that visits Dublin, to solve her sister's murder, and stumbles into a world of magic and Fae, and people trying to kill her... She's also a special snowflake with unique powers waiting to be unlocked...

By the end of book 2 a lot of shit has happened, and the MC girl is kidnapped and raped by the Fae princes and left a shell of a person... The opening of book 3 is the male MC of the series healing/fixing her with his magic dick and immersion therapy?... Altho later on in book 5, I think she admits to being healed sooner and having to decide to return normality, instead of just pretending to be the sex shell because it would have been easier...

At the same time (Halloween), this ritual is completed and a magic apocalypse happens... By the time Mac is functional again it's 6 months later, and 2/3rds of Earths population is dead...

The rest of the series is figuring out the rest of the secrets, finding the magic book behind it all, and traveling between multiple dimensions... Im forgetting like 90%... Its a series I finished once and never really plan to reread or continue with books 6-14 or whatever came after the initial contained 5 book plot... (hide spoiler)]

Ick... yeah, I think I'll pass on that one... I'm finding my patience for stories with rape or magical dicks gets lower and lower with each book that feature them.

I didn't even get into the REALLY problematic stuff in the series, which start past book 2-3, when Dani O'Malley is introduced... a 14 year old girl with powers of her own, that becomes a series MC in half the books past book 5, and who is basically groomed for a relationship by another questionable Fae character before she's even 18...

I hear ya on rape and magical dicks, tho... I really rode into the trope terminology in my descriptions :D

(view spoiler)[the male MC of the original 5 book series is some weird mostly unexplained shapeshifting immortal thing that wakes up in another dimension if killed, and has to make his way back to Earth... one of a pack of 5 similar creatures... it's mostly a random additional detail of the series to allow for a presumed death at the end of book 4, I think, if I recall correctly... (hide spoiler)]

Shame, 'cuz the worldbuilding sounds interesting... I'd probably BR it if I had space in my schedule and the books were free... but I'd complain my way through it all...

I read this last week and I enjoyed it but it was not my favorite so far. I like it when they are all together! Also that ending sucked but I think he had his shit together by this release and the next was not super delayed. I kind of liked the way he integrated himself in the story :) Next one is a chonker :(

At this point were well past the death scare car accident and he wanted to be sure to finish the series in case anything else like that ever happened... That's what I always heard about the quick release of books 5-7 anyway...

Started.

Timelord Iain wrote: "At this point were well past the death scare car accident and he wanted to be sure to finish the series in case anything else like that ever happened... That's what I always heard about the quick r..."

That makes sense... I'm not familiar with King's personal history, outside of hearing that he'd talked about doing a lot of drugs and this fictionalized (?) version, so something must've scared him off them...

Stephen King really was hit by a car while walking on the side of the road, in 1999... Lucky to survive... Not sure if true that he was announced dead by a local newspaper, but I found at least one story online that claims that ... Misunderstanding of information gleaned when he was in critical condition...

Not sure when he quit drugs .. I would assume wife/family pushed him to get clean at some point if not before ..

Yikes...

Best part of the story is that while he was in the ICU, his wife had a lawyer buy the vehicle at a police impound auction, to avoid crazy fans enshrining it, and then Stephen King and his wife slowly incinerated it out of existence, as a form of catharsis :D

I don't know what chapter/stanza I'm in now, but I am very curious to know if King's cameo was influenced by his novel The Dark Half (which I loved when I read it as a teen).

Didn't he get hit by a van? I do remember that happening though, he was pretty seriously injured.

Yea... Car/van/vehicle

That's gotta be some pretty hot fire, to incinerate van parts...

Yeah, he was hit by van if memory serves me right, read about it in his book about writing few years ago. I'm slow with reading Song of Susannah... Even if this one actually seems much faster for me in comparison with others. It's the weather here in the UK I can't stay with book in hand for sufficient time to enjoy reading... Feeling tired and sticky...

Finished. 3.5 stars. Better then others from series, but defo not my fave fantasy bit.

I am almost done... I was very intrigued by the King cameo ... Felt very Kurt Vonnegut and Woody Allen like...

The rest of the book is OK... Just OK so far.... I still want more from King...