Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Photo: from its Goodreads page

More a morality tale / fairy tale than novel (or novella), and a lot more Chizmar than King, but still an okay read that goes by fast. Since it's more of a fairy story, the characterizations are purposely light, the action is more to learn from than to entertain, and it's all supposed to be a slight breeze. To expect more is to be disappointed.

The ending didn't work for me, as it's more explanation than resolution. Richard Farris (AKA, Randall Flagg) will disappoint, as he seems like someone kinder than we know him to be. Here, he's more like the old man from Hearts in Atlantis than the badass from The Stand and The Dark Tower. He should've been called someone else here, with different initials. He's really a different character. In this way, he's more of a disappointment than is the talky, explanatory ending itself, but the book is so slight that you really won't mind. Like all morality tales, the ending is explained too much and is too completely wrapped up. I would've rather had something extra left over to think about, but that won't happen here. Is it more Gwendy, the box, or just life itself? You'll be told, which is a bummer. Should've been left more open-ended.

And, lastly, you won't see anything Dark Tower-ish here. Mr. R.F. and the box are just extras stepping out. You won't be able to place them within the Dark Tower's milieu, so don't try. There's no leftover strand, or beam, and those worlds don't influence this one in this book. If you want a standalone book that has tendrils and whispers of The Dark Tower, check out King's The Wind Through the Keyhole, which was quite a bit better, and released to very little fanfare. That one is a Dark Tower rejected section or chapter if I've ever seen one.

So you'll have to take this book on its own purposely slight merits, and judge them by those. I think it's pretty clear to see where King starts off and Chizmar takes over. This would've been darker, more ponderous and a lot less slight if King had written a bigger chunk of it. My guess is that King started it, maybe the first two or three chapters, and included the kite scene and maybe a hat scene or two, but let Chizmar take it. My guess is he figured The Wind Through the Keyhole was one Dark Tower standalone enough, and he didn't need another one. I'm guessing Chizmar stayed as far away from The Tower as he could. Perhaps he was asked to.

This one was more of a curiousity for me. I don't consider it part of the King canon and I won't be buying one for my entire First Edition Stephen King book collection. My copy was from the library, where it will return tomorrow. So if you want a quick little book / morality tale that's maybe 20% King, max, give this one a shot. It's not bad, but it's not King. If you have other King books that you need to get to, you're probably better off doing that.