Black House

Rating:
Summary: Good sequel to Talisman
Review: I thought this book was great, it took me a while to get into it, but its all good. The way it was written made it a longer read for me in some cases, its written with a 3rd person perspective, and although its interesting, at times can get a little stupid. Overall the story was great and I thought it was a good book.

Rating:
Summary: A bit long winded, but fun!
Review: It had been so long since this duo's original book The Talisman, that I had forgotten most of it. But not to worry, if you too forgot or never read it, you can still enjoy this book. A bit long winded in places, but still a good read!

Rating:
Summary: Creepy
Review: I ve read most of Stephen King's books .He amazes me.He is a master in character development .One of the few writers alive who manage to make the reader really care (or hate) his characters .
This story follows his favorite standard : A small ,rural town where everything looks peachy at first ,and then the Nightmare comes.It is a story that evolves from the "normal" horror of your-normal-psycho-cannibal to the supernatural horror .Masterfully written,and utterly creepy .I havent read the Talisman yet so I wasnt prejudiced for or against this book.I read it as a stand alone novel and was truly amazed.I have written in most of my reviews that to my oppinion,half of a books reading value can be estimated on how much of it you read when you first pick it up.I read almost half of it (it was a Saturday morning and I had nothing else to do) and was utterly dissapointed that I had to put it down and go out with some friends.A must read ..(and I had a very vivid nightmare that night with "bleeding foodsies" ...)

Rating:
Summary: Mildly disappointing
Review: I am a fan of both Stephen King and Peter Straub, although I have found both authors to sometimes be hit (Bag of Bones, Ghost Story) or miss (Gerald's Game, Julia). Both authors have a vibrant and vivid literary style, although King can become tangental at times, and I have been known to skip past entire paragraphs at time to attempt to get back to the storyline. Their writing styles made a nice blend in The Talisman. I read that book in my early teens and found it to be an exciting and wonderous read, difficult to put down. I was surprised to see that Black House was designed to be a sequel (The Talisman didn't seem to easily set up for one) but was eager to give it a look.

The Black House is, in fact, a so much a sequel that I suspect it would be difficult to understand without having read the Talisman first. Again, I read the Talisman many years ago and it was difficult for me to remember all of the references made to that book in Black House, which assumes that you are as on top of things as King and Straub are. Black House also ties into King's Dark Tower series, which is one of the most unfortunate things about this book. The Dark Tower series, while it has its fans, is fairly speculative science fiction, and its influence here ruin some of the wonderous nature of the original Talisman, and involve further references that only a devoted Dark Tower reader would understand.

In fact Black House seems to be a fairly King dominated book, and it is hard to find Straub's influences anywhere. Since Straub is the more disciplined writer, this is unfortunate, as Black House tends to wander, lose focus, and indulge in tangental writing at times.

King is an excellent writer of horror but aside from the charming Eyes of the Dragon, he is a mediocre writer of science fiction/fantasy at best. Black House is influenced by the worst elements of the Dark Tower series, including a tendency to make up rules on the spot. Got a crazy woman to molify, didn't you know special lillies will do the trick? Need a magic spell, well we just happen to have one, etc. The result is that it is hard to get a feel for the world that King/Straub are trying to include us in. The nods to the old 70's band King Crimson are cute, but ultimately don't add much to the novel.

In short, Black House isn't so bad that you'll stop reading. But neither will you miss your favorite TV show because you're halfway through a chapter. I would take it out from your local library. Okay to read for free, but not worth $$$.

Rating:
Summary: Black House was excellent
Review: Black House by Steven King was an excellent read. the third person view throughout the novel was difficult to follow at first, but you get used to it.
In the peaceful town of French Landing, something has gone horribly wrong. a serial killer is on the loose, and evil lerks behind every corner. Three victims have died to the "Fisherman" and how many more are to come?
Retired detective Jack Sawyer is summoned to the rescue. Jack has a feeling that this situation has been linked with other worlds. Jack knows he is going to have to face this mess one on one. After getting word of an evil Black House that is supposivly cursed, Jack thinks he found the link. Will Jack Sawyer be able to concor the evilness, or will "it" and the Fisherman kill again?

Rating:
Summary: No classic like The Talisman was
Review: "Black House" is the second collaboration of King and Straub, and a sequel of sorts to their earlier "The Talisman". I say `of sorts' because this book fits in better with King's "Dark Tower" books than it does with the universe of "The Talisman" (Even if, of course, every reality ever conceived belongs to King's Dark Tower, which stands at the centre of every World like a multidimensional Yggdrasil.)

In "The Talisman", Jack, a boy of twelve, went on a quest to save his mother by recovering the Talisman, a powerful globe of light. In Black House, we meet the boy again, now in his early thirties.
This time, the adventure seeks him out, as the village he recently moved into contains a dark doorway to another world, and a serial killer with supernatural allies roams the streets hunting for children.
The scope of the story slowly expands from small-town trouble to a premise worthy of Roland Of Gilead and his Ka-tet we know so well from "The Dark Tower", until it's no longer an independent novel. For readers of "The Dark Tower" this is an exhilarating thrill. You'll finally learn what Breakers really are (as well as learn Ted Brautigan's true function in the scheme of things, a character you're sure to know from "Hearts In Atlantis") You'll learn that Jack is a "The Talisman"-version of a gunslinger, and that his guardian from that earlier book is as well: they're coppicemen.
However, if you haven't read those book, and have little interest in reading them, the above paragraph is a long string of jargon that is probably only puzzling you.

Will you also be puzzled by the book? Honestly, I don't think you will be puzzled. You will however, wonder what narrative function makes the scope of the story so big, with a separate reality so full of detail- much more detail than is required for the storyline of "Black House". Dark Towers, Beams, Red Kings, Breakers, Big Combinations, Gunslingers, Coppicemen, End-World Monos... It's all part of the mythology Stephen King is building novel by novel. "Black House" is another chapter of that great mythology, just as most other Stephen King novels were. "Black House" merely is more entwined with the central canon than for example "Carry" and "'Salem's Lot" - even if Carrie was a Breaker and Father Callahan who so defiled and defeated left `Salem's Lot by Greyhound returns in the 5th Dark Tower novel.

Nevertheless, "The Talisman" was a classic on its own right and "Black House" isn't. For that, the story depends too much on the central canon of King's mythology. So if you judge this book by linking it to "The Talisman", it scores three stars from my point of view. On the other hand, if you judge "Black House" by King's "Dark Tower" it scores four stars, discerning its role therein.

Since it's meant to be a sequel, featuring the same lead character, I choose to compare it with "The Talisman" and grant it three stars.

Bram Janssen,
The Netherlands

Rating:
Summary: Great grammer, great language but a reader's nightmare.
Review: Black House is unfortunately bundled as a horror serial killer novel when in fact it is closer to fantasy in the same vein as Clive Barker, not to mention it is a sequel that does not quite work as a standalone book. Those of you who enjoyed the Dark Tower series or prequel to this one, The Talisman, will probably return to fond memories. Those who are looking from a clean slate perspective will only throw it down in boredom. Black House IS for die-hard fantasy King fans only. I got it because I liked `Eyes of the Dragon' but sadly I was mistaken as to its nature. This is not really what I expected. It was not really a King book I should have started reading.

Black House presents itself as testament to the fact that horror literature can be written well. Black House is as grammatically perfect as you can get with well written passages, realistic dialogue and fine descriptions. It is all honours A+ writing that is polished to a `T' for maximum presentation of that fine English language that you, the reader, deserve from two big names like King and Straub. However Black House is tremendously overlong and wrought with descriptions that seem to last for days. For instance the first 100 pages of this novel deals with nothing more than setting up the basic structure of many lanes, landmarks, people and places only to barely bring 1% of what is mentioned to life throughout the remainder of this super-sized horror book. Breaking into the introduction of the lead protagonist occurs close to the 200 page mark. At this stage most of us are halfway through a normal sized novel and this one has not even begun... not that we don't mind big set-ups for chunky books, but Black House does not sum it up very well, unlike horror classics such as The Stand which have the same super-sized start-up. This initiation seems more like page filler - great English, but still just filler material. The book centres on a child killer called The Fisherman, who eats parts of his victims and leaves taunting messages to the police and the victim's parents. The cast however are never fully explored within the 300 odd-so setup pages. For some reason Black House talks a lot but says very little. I found it lacking character substance and instead delivering on character predicament, leaving holes as to what makes some characters tick and why they are different from others. Everybody seemed the same. In page 200 we learn who the killer is. At page 300 Henry, a blind DJ, with a huge character setup, is told that he will be useful in identifying a caller's voice. Henry eventually gets round to it at page 650, but by then the previous 200 pages involving bikers and hell angels preventing people from entering a child murder crime scene, building up relationships with the police officers, becomes naught as the lead protagonist has found that the Serial Killer is able to travel to his victim's via a portal that leads to another dimension. And our protagonist can go to this dimension and hunt the killer to rescue a kidnapped child. From then until page 820 it is all wizards, reincarnation and magic.

I guess the reason why I was disappointed was in the book's packaging. I expected a horror story more akin to the synopsis on the back cover and instead got very long fan boy entry in the Dark Tower / Talisman series. I also felt that Clive Barker does this better and that King has had much better fantasy books in this same genre. Sadly Black House is a real misfire in terms of what it could have been.

Rating:
Summary: nice sequel
Review: I agree with some of the 0ther reviewers in that the odd writing style of having us (third person) viewing the events is a little hard to follow,but once the book finally kicks in and drops this wierd viewpoint, it is a classic story of jack sawyer.I liked how the authors tied in the last 20 years, and i liked alot of the new characters,and the way the plot developed, i miss the wolfs though.Not a bad way to end the talisman saga....

Rating:
Summary: The return of the King
Review: With this novel (albeit a collaboration), Stephen King returns no-holds-barred to his classic style of storytelling after his near-fatal accident. Black House is an epic tale featuring a band of ordinary heroes, a powerful child, parallel worlds and enormous stakes. The added bonus is that the novel returns us to the world of The Dark Tower saga, fitting another important piece to that super-epic jigsaw puzzle. In fact, I had difficulty finding any influence of Peter Straub beyond the first 20 pages or so, since the writing style is so clearly vintage King. Billed as a sequence to The Talisman, Black House doesn't continue that story so much as pick up the thread of its main character's (Jack Sawyer) life as an adult. King aficianados will relish this novel as a full-force return to the type of story he tells best.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and not what I expected
Review: I did not read the Talisman, and I have not read anything in the Dark Towers series. But, I love Stephen King and always have. I have not read as much of his newer stuff as the older novels, (Cujo, The Stand, etc.), but I was really disappointed with this one, possibly because of the Straub collaberation, who knows?

The bottom line is this - it has never taken me this long to read a Stephen King novel, ever. It's not that it's bad, but it doesn't hold my attention very well. It's also a very gory novel, so be prepared for that.