Ce troisième roman court écrit conjointement par Stephen King et Richard Chizmar clôture à merveille les aventures de Gwendy avec la boîte à boutons. Reprenant vingt ans après la fin du deuxième livre, les auteurs parviennent à tisser une histoire intéressante, alternant flash-back et présent quasiment à chaque chaque nouveau chapitre. De nombreuses références sont faites à des personnages et à des faits présents dans d'autres livres, à travers notamment la ville de Derry, siège du roman Ça, ainsi que par la présence d'hommes habillés de manteaux jaunes semblables à ceux vus dans le roman court Crapules de bas étage en manteau jaune. Tout cela donne espoir et envie que Stephen King revienne au clown de Ça ainsi que dans l'univers de la Tour sombre pour un ou plusieurs romans conséquents. ( )

Cuando tenía doce años, Gwendy Peterson conoció a Richard Farris, un tipo misterioso que le pidió que cuidara de una extraña caja. Aunque no lo parecía, el artilugio escondía un enorme secreto: tocar cualquiera de los siete botones de colores que contenía podía causar una destrucción sin igual. Ahora, Gwendy es una afamada novelista y su carrera política está empezando a despegar. Parece que lo tiene todo a su alcance, pero entonces el insólito objeto vuelve a su vida. Las fuerzas del mal se han apoderado por completo de la caja de botones y recae sobre Gwendy la responsabilidad de alejarlas de ella. ¿Su última misión? Salvar al mundo. Y puede que a todos los mundos. ( )

OMG, what a beautiful end to an amazing story. King and Chizmar make for a great team and this wound up the Button Box saga perfectly. ( )

This is book 3 in the Gwendy trilogy and I haven't bothered to get hold of book 2. The local library only stocks books 1 and 3 and I don't want to pay for the intermediate book having read so many negative reviews. I don't think it prevented me from following the story as there were enough recaps to handle that.

By now Gwendy is in her 60s and a Democrat politician: a senator. I don't claim to know a lot about American politics but it shows capability and dedication for her to have reached this position and it's explained in the story that she has followed this path to help ordinary people rather than for the status of the position. She has also become a best-selling author of raunchy novels during a hiatus in her career. She runs for office again when she is persuaded that she is the only hope against an obnoxious man who is a follower of (now ex-) President Trump.

But the button box comes back into her life, brought by Richard Farris who is obviously very ill and terminally so. He sets her a serious mission: to dispose of the box in the only place where evil forces can't get hold of it, because they and their proxies are after it to destroy not just Earth but the Tower on which all the universes depend. (Dark Tower series references are scattered throughout the book, plus references to 'IT'.) Recent guardians, even if good people, have been suborned and the box has played on their minds to trick them into pressing the buttons that will bring about destruction, even the ultimate destruction represented by the black button.

A little more information about Farris than before is given: he stole the box from those evil forces. He definitely is not Randall Flagg: I can't see Flagg weeping or showing other similar human traits. So his sharing of initials with the Walking Dude from The Stand is odd. He seems a tragic character in this, and Gwendy becomes one also because her guardianship of the box seems to trigger off Alzheimer's and it then becomes a race against time for her to stay functional enough to fulfil her mission.

I found this less convincing than book one of the series. The relocation to a space station is rather a stretch, as is the one-dimensional evil rich man that the space company is forced to tolerate. The anti-Trump politics aren't an issue for me, but I think it would have been more effectively handled if done indirectly. His role could have been taken by Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone, a similar politician King wrote about, especially since the book already has echoes of several of his other works. I recently read 'Slow Horses' by Mick Herron, in which that approach was taken: it was obviously a portrayal of a real-life UK politician without calling him by the real person's name and caused a 'ah ha' moment for me. Whereas the approach taken here is to bludgeon the reader over the head with it.

Things became more surreal as the book went on: a sentient scorpion that zooms about in zero gravity? The ending is fairly ludicrous though there's a touching element of Gwendy remembering her parents. Though the scene that suddenly segued into her mother's point of view rather broke the suspension of disbelief. All in all I would rate this as an OK 2 stars. ( )

It was hard to say goodbye to Gwendy and this trilogy. This one had me in tears at the end.
Gwendy is now in her 60s and she is on a trip to outer space. Gwendy is now a senator and on her trip to space, she is confronted with a decision. There are some evil ones that are trying to get the button box and want to release its powers. Gwendy has to decide how to handle this, and to keep the box out of the hands of those who want to harm the world in the pursuit of power.
This one has the most "horror" element of the books in the trilogy. But, Gwendy and her plight had me rooting for her, and I was touched by the ending. ( )