Wolves of the Calla
Wolves of the Calla is the fifth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
Wolves
The Wolves ride out of Thunderclap once every generation. They raid the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis in search of twin children, who are the norm rather than the exception there. The Wolves quickly find nearly all of them, even those that have been carefully and creatively hidden to evade them. They take one of each pair and leave everyone else unmolested, as long as they aren't challenged. Years later, the children taken by the wolves come back "roont"--feebleminded and gigantic. The citizens of the Calla have taken this as simply a part of life, over which they have no control. Those who try to stop the Wolves face grisly ends at the hands of their lightsticks and sneetches. As far as anyone can remember, no one has been able to seriously injure any of the Wolves, save one. In less than a month, the Wolves will ride in again. This time, some of the parents in the Calla want to fight back, with the help of the gunslingers who have just arrived in town.
Stephen King has acknowleged multiple sources of influence for this story, including Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, it's stepchild The Magnificent Seven, Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy, and other works by Howard Hawkes and John Sturges, among others.
"Lightsticks" appear to be working versions of the Lightsabers of Star Wars. "Sneetches" are diabolical conglomerations of the Golden Snitch and bludgers of the Harry Potter books and the knife-wielding silver orb of the Phantasm movies.
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