Rating: 
Summary: Need a fix between DT4 and DT5?
Review: Well here you are.King and Straub deftly intertwine the Land of Roland and the Dark Tower, The Breakers in Hearts in Atlantis, and Jack Sawyer's Territories. This book took me a long time to read because I didn't want it to ever end, and when it did - well there were so many emotions inside of me I had to go lie down. Twenty years after his first adventure throught the Territories, Jack, now 35 and a retired LA homicide detective, finds himself in the idyllic town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He has made friends and is happy just to exist, away from the brutality of LA. Unfortunately he is pressed into service when a serial killer preying on the town's children begins to taunt him with parts and letters. The Territories, dismissed by Jack as the delusional figments of a young boy struggling to deal with his monther's cancer, make themselves known in a big way, and Jack is afraid that he is losing his mind. It's only when he meets a woman, the mother of a missing boy, that he discovers that not only are the Territories real, but he is not alone in his fight to stop the Crimson King.
Rating: 
Summary: Would have been better at half the size
Review: Are editors scared of telling authors like King or Straub to cut down the fat on some of their books? I guess it must be next to impossible to tell a best-selling writer that he might be doing something wrong. After all, they have the sale figures with which to back their defence. But I do think someone really needs to tell King that less is more. 'Black House' has the makings of a great book hiding in there somewhere - but there's too many half finished ideas getting in the way. (Dickens got away with it in 'Bleak House' but unfortunately neither King nor Straub is close to Dickens.) The middle third of this book is excellent. The first third, however, drags (although in a not uninteresting way); the final third (after Jack's visit to Judy/Sophie in the psych ward and the Territories) is terribly disappointing - as if both writers had given up and just wanted to get the damn thing out of the way. I had reached the 'unputdownable stage' at this point but then the steam just ran out of the story. And what is this attempt by King to tie up every one of his novels into some kind of over-arching meta-narrative? (Dark tower, etc.) A few science fiction writers seem plagued with the same need (Asmiov and Heinlein to name but two). Is it some sort of desire to play God in a solipistic universe? If it is then that way madness lies - just try to read some of Robert Heinlein's final terribly inward-looking, self referential dross. Read this book but then try 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski and (ignoring the pretentiousness factor) then tell me which one features a really scary house.
Rating:
Summary: Authorian Legends
Review: Basically, a good book badly written. I am a huge King fan, though I don't know much of Straub's work. I also think that the Dark Tower story is the most intriguing thing I've ever read. It's because of this story's proximity to the Dark Tower material that I gave it even three stars, though I think that connection can be way too heavy-handed at times. I had a really hard time getting into this book because of how it begins - no grounding, no character, just an author or two force-feeding me and leading my around by the nose. Even the foreshadowing near the end is executed with all the subtlety of a cudgel, and it ends up being all bark and no bite anyway. The middle of the book is wonderful. The characters are interesting, the situations are innovative and realistic, and the plot unfolds beautifully. Read this book for the story. Read this book to fill in your understanding of King's ever-widening cosmology. But when it's done, put it down and let it be. There is tedium in the writing that I've never before experienced in King's work, and hope not to again.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many words !
Review: When Mozart presented his latest symphony to the king, the king asked the palace musician for his opinion. The palace musician replied,"There are too many notes, Your Majesty." And so I feel like the palace musician... who am I to tell 'the master' that he's used too many words. I am but a humble reader. Yet too many words there are... the first 200 pages just don't achieve lift-off. It's like King and Straub carried on writing while they waited for inspiration. After page 200, we're lifted to the same glorious heights as we were in Talisman, though more gently and, seemingly, with less danger to our heroes. Maybe there should have been more gooey deaths, but the threat never seemed as deep and dark as in Talisman. In Black House's favor, the Territories are now less of a magical mystery tour and more of a cynical mirror image of this world. More so than in Talisman. At least us readers have been treated like adults. The up-to-date Jack Sawyer has lost his childhood innocence, and King and Straub have brought him wisely to maturity. You can't help feeling that this is exactly how Jack Sawyer would have grown up. Certainly it has helped the writers avoid the bad sequel trap. (And, talking of sequels, we were well set up for the next one, eh?) King and Straub have matured their initial concept alarmingly well. Though the surface story is a little weak in places it is easy to forgive because of the strength of the character portrayals and the expressions of thought. On the other hand, I still say there were too many words!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing... with a qualification...
Review: I have to say I loved this book. We're not introduced to the protagonist (Jack Sawyer, whom you may remember from _The_Talisman_) until around page 70 or so, and the writing style was a little odd (instead of third person or first person singular, the book is written mostly in a first person plural, and it's present tense, which was a little strange at first). I don't want to give too much of the story away in this review, but I do want to admonish potential readers of this book to wait until they've done a bit more Stephen King reading. My absolute favorite books in the world are the Dark Tower series (expected to be finished in early 2003), and this book plays heavily on them. Also, if you've not read _The_Talisman_, I strongly recommend reading that first. I'm not saying that reading this will be awful without reading all of that (it is a lot of prerequisite reading!), in fact, it'll probably be fantastic! However, in order to be able to truly appreciate this book's references to, among other things, the beams, the breakers, the (subtle reference in the beginning to the) Agincourt, etc., the five books I mentioned (_The_Talisman_, _The_Gunslinger_, _The_Drawing_Of_the_Three_, and _Wizard_and_Glass_ [also, _Hearts_in_Atlantis_'s first novella, if you're really a glutton for reading]) are in order. I guess I ought to give some summary of the book at this point: Jack Sawyer, a boy when last seen in _The_Talisman_, has grown up, made a name for himself as a police detective, and abruptly retired to live a simple life in Wisconsin. Unluckily for him and the rest of the town in which he lives, there is a serial kidnapper/murderer on the prowl. The storyline takes readers into the minds of the murderer, the cops, the victims' families, and several others (notably a lovable blind man with exceptional perception, class, and charm) relatively smoothly and convincingly. As with the earlier King/Straub collaboration, the prose is fantastic, and, while relatively sophisticated, easy to read. One final point to make: "opopanox" is a medicinal herb, but is not used in that way in this book, in case you wonder as you read it. Happy reading.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but the Talisman was better...
Review: I have waited for years for a collaboration from these 2 again.....well it was a little disappointing. I expected more magic and less real world horror. The real world is a scary enough place as it is and what they incorporated into this book was serial killer images with very little "flipping over" into the parallel universe. Granted, they left the door open for perhaps a 3rd book, but overall I feel that Stephen King is slipping. Peter Straub I don't read much of anyway. But Steve's last few books have been overrated and underread (by me at least). I still have "DreamCatcher" on my shelf and I just can't seem to get through it. I remember the days when I would read a Stephen King book from cover to cover, sometimes in one sitting, even if it meant staying up all night like a crackhead...
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I wanted it to be
Review: I've been a King fan for a long time, and I loved "The Talisman" -- a really good yarn on its own, with great observations about life thrown in. I looked forward to "Black House," and it also has its good points, but it is badly hobbled by two authors who know better. On the plus side, Jack Sawyer grows up well, and is still able to carry his burdens. The Territories age equally well when we are there, and are enough to make a reader homesick. Some of the supporting characters are interesting -- the sherriff, Beezer St. Pierre, etc -- and the theme of an adult rediscovering his childhood imagination is terrific. It's a generally good tale, and has enough strong points that I'm reading it a second time. On the minus side, the majority of the supporting characters aren't particularly believable. Henry Leyden just never comes to life (from his first appearance, I kept expecting him to be the Fisherman, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because otherwise, he just didn't seem to have much of an interesting place). Wendell Green is merely an irritation. The Fisherman himself is not a very intriguing monster, and Jack lacks the kind of driving personal motivation that made the quest for the Talisman so poignant. The hackneyed love-at-first sight with Judy/Sophie is so unlikely that it doesn't even register, partly because it is introduced so abruptly and partly because Judy doesn't really do anything to make her seem to warrant Jack's adoration -- either in the present or in the past. There's no equal to a character like Wolf, or the marvelously stodgy Richard Sloat (whose own inner journey provided a good counterpoint to Jack's in "Talisman"). But mostly, what brings the book down is the wretchedly affected style. Both of these authors know better than to get in the way of their story by pulling a "Look, Ma, see how nice I'm writing!" gimmick out of their shared hat. "Black House" is a fairly straightforward story, and burying it under the floating camera (oh, all right, I know, it's supposed to be a bird) just cuts it off at the knees.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: This book is the sequel to The Talisman, which is one of my all-time favorite books (and which I have a signed copy of). Although I haven't been very fond of much of King's writing in the last several years (pretty much went downhill after The Stand, IMO) I had lowered my expectations to the point where I was certain I would at least find this enjoyable. I was STILL dissapointed. There is a writing technique used which I find very annoying (I'm sure there's some technical literary term for it) where you are taken through the story by an all-seeing narrator. This style is used in Black House and I didn't like it here either. It is very difficult to suspend disbelief, since you are constantly reminded, by the narrator, that this is a book, a story, and is not actually happening. Then there's the story itself, which plods along and at times goes off on such formulaic King rants that it feels like he's just cutting and pasting from other novels (be reminded, King is one of my favorite authors and I've read everything he's written). It does not incorporate much of the most ejoyable parts of The Talisman, which were the excursions and wonders of the parallel-world "The Territories" -- these are hardly utilized at all in Back House. Instead it pulls in more of the Dark Tower stuff, which I consider another big mistake. Top it off with a pathetically predictable ending and you have a real bomb, I'm sorry to say.
Rating:
Summary: The Black House of the Dark Tower
Review: Highly recommend to all the Dark Tower fans. My only criticism
is Straub's contribution. It is painfully obvious where King
ends and Straub begins.
Rating:
Summary: THE BOOK THAT BROUGHT IT ALL TOGETHER
Review: i am a true stephen king fan. i have read nearly all of his books. Black house is not a book to miss. black house is the sequal the tallisman, but if your looking for books that belong with the the dark tower series this is it. of course if your not a devoted stephen king fan you wouldn't understand. all of stephen kings book connect in one way or another and black house is very important for the dark tower series. also insomnia and hearts in atlantas.
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