Read: Wizard and Glass–“Susan” chapters 4 & 5
I’m impressed with how well King’s handling the sudden mushrooming of his cast from a core of four people who are nothing alike, their pet, and the occasional sociopath they have to kill to an entire village-worth of Deadwood refugees speaking in faux-archaic patois. I kept a pretty good handle on who each person was, what they looked like, and what their motivation was in relation to the other characters. And any time it seemed this drama of Mid-World manners might get tedious, King throws in some world-building details about Farson’s forces or the gunslingers’ Arthurian roots, and bam, interesting again.
Still, it feels like we’re killing time before the obviously inevitable bloody showdown between Roland and his buddies and the Big Coffin Hunters, and before whatever nasty post-coital hypnotic suggestion planted in Susan’s head kicks in after she loses her virginity to Roland instead of Mayor Thorin. I mean, these things are clearly going to happen, right? Why dilly-dally?
Finally, King sure is flattering Roland by asserting that when he and the hotsy-totsy Susan meet, it’s she who feels compelled to rub one out while reminiscing about the meeting.