Rating: 
Summary: A chilling page turner...another Great Saul!!
Review: Let me just start by saying that I LOVE John Saul!! And this series was great! It kept me turning, page after page and I could not put it down. Here I am, just finishing and still recovering from lack of sleep for all the time I put in to finishing this book!! I was nervous and chilled as well as angry at times and I even found a few humerous parts. And I love the way our dear Mr. Saul would throw characters from his other books in there. This book is basically about the past of the Insane Asylum and the horrible things that went on and the evil doctor that ran the place. Now, years later, they want to conserve it and a mystery gifts start popping up...as well as a little added evil.
Rating: 
Summary: 3.5 star rating
Review: My Rating System:
1 star = abysmal; some books deserve to be forgotten
2 star = poor; a total waste of time
3 star = good; worth the effort
4 star = very good; what writing should be
5 star = fantastic; must own it and share it with othersSTORY: From back cover...From the top of Blackstone's highest hill the old Blackstone Asylum casts its shadow over the village. Built in the 1890's, the Asylum has stood vacant for decades. But now, the wrecker's ball is about to strike, smashing into stone-and unleashing a terrible evil, an unholy fear long locked with the walls. Soon, strange gifts will begin to appear on the doorsteps of Blackstone's finest citizens. MY FEEDBACK:
Overall, whenever I read or listen to a John Saul book it is entertaining but not great. There is always some unknown ingredient missing to take the story to the next stage. But with Lee Meriwether portraying the voices in this story, I got the creeps. This was truly a tale of evil and not Saul's normal fixation with only children. I'm still trying to figure out if I like the ending or not because I felt some things were left unexplained. Maybe this was purposely done by the author. Regardless, overall it was an engaging story that left me feeling disturbed at the potential reality of such evil. I liked it!
Rating:
Summary: Mentally Chilling like a movie could never do visually.
Review: My review is of the Blackstone-Chronicles CD-ROM adaptation. The stories the inhabitants of Asylum tell you about Blackstone are so chilling. A movie has yet to have done this for me. I never heard of the books, but the CD-ROM has introduced me to them and to John Saul. Now I cannot wait to read the book in the complete form.
Rating:
Summary: never read
Review: oh, come on. We all know that saul is better than king. king gets boring every time i try to read his books, but saul keeps me coming back for more. and i'm pretty sure that i would love this book. i only got past page fifteen in the green mile, and once again king continues to be a total disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty cheesy...
Review: Ok... i guess i should have known better before i even picked up this series (i've read a couple of Saul's books before and was pretty disappointed). The premise, however, sounded very interesting and i liked the idea of a serial novel. Unfortunately the premise is alot better than the actual story. Within the first 50 pages i pretty much had the whole story figured out but continued reading anyway, hoping i was wrong (i wasn't). Im still not sure why this was made a serial novel (other than to make money)... each book was totally self contained and can be read in any sequence. Unfortunately, each book was also the same as all the others (exactly the same plot only the gifts and victims differed). I was hoping that in the 6th installement there would be some kind of suprise ending, but, unfortunately the story just ended. The only reason im giving this series 2 stars instead on 1 is because i live in NH (he gets one star for atmosphere). If you want to pick up a great serial novel i highly recommend King's 'Green Mile' (it's everything this series isn't)
Rating:
Summary: BC good, finale not so.
Review: One hates to give repeated bad reviews of a particular author because after a while one resents any future work without having read it. So let us get to it. At first I was entranced by the rich atmosphere and strong historical background to the asylum. It was properly eerie and densely packed with all the right elements of pathos and horror. Yet it started petering out, and to an entirely unsatisfying conclusion, towards the end. Better use could have been given to this hidden priest, yet the conclusion by the author of who had dropped off each cursed object was not credible nor clever. This book was also something that repeated the threadbare premise of The Cursed Object(s), a premise that should not have been resurrected so soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I Crazy, Or Is It Just Me?
Review: The affluent little town of Blackstone appears to be under some kind of curse. For decades, the asylum on the hill was the town's most notable feature, and most everyone alive today either had family members who worked for it or were hospitalized in it. Now, it's being converted into mall space. That is, if it doesn't kill everyone involved in getting rid of it, first - because the town's movers and shakers are being left unique gifts, each of which brings a horrific accident or suicide along with it. And those gifts are being sent by someone at the asylum - which has stood empty for many years. This was originally a serialized novel in six parts, and compiling the whole into one volume would better have been served by removing the necessary redundancies that format required to keep new readers up to date on the action of preceding chapters, but it's less annoying than it easily could have been. It's packaged like a supernatural horror story - and to a certain extent, it is - but it's really an epic murder mystery, spanning generations. It has some of the flavor of The Omen movies and the Friday the 13th T.V. series, with its "cursed objects" and portentous sins-of-the-father dooms visited on the sons, but these are more the bouquet of the wine than the vintage itself. Jaded readers will figure out the mystery well before the final revelation, but it's still cleverly done and a worthy read. After Saul's first novel twenty-five years ago, Suffer the Children, I vowed I'd never read him again - that book was an endless parade of sadisms against children, with no socially redeeming value that I could discern - but happily a friend prevailed upon me to undertake The Blackstone Chronicles, which largely redeems the author in my eyes. It has some grisly moments, yes - it is a horror story, after all - but at least any nastiness in its pages has a rhyme and reason behind it, and even a sick kind of poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Am I Crazy, Or Is It Just Me?
Review: The affluent little town of Blackstone appears to be under some kind of curse. For decades, the asylum on the hill was the town's most notable feature, and most everyone alive today either had family members who worked for it or were hospitalized in it. Now, it's being converted into mall space. That is, if it doesn't kill everyone involved in getting rid of it, first - because the town's movers and shakers are being left unique gifts, each of which brings a horrific accident or suicide along with it. And those gifts are being sent by someone at the asylum - which has stood empty for many years. This was originally a serialized novel in six parts, and compiling the whole into one volume would better have been served by removing the necessary redundancies that format required to keep new readers up to date on the action of preceding chapters, but it's less annoying than it easily could have been. It's packaged like a supernatural horror story - and to a certain extent, it is - but it's really an epic murder mystery, spanning generations. It has some of the flavor of The Omen movies and the Friday the 13th T.V. series, with its "cursed objects" and portentous sins-of-the-father dooms visited on the sons, but these are more the bouquet of the wine than the vintage itself. Jaded readers will figure out the mystery well before the final revelation, but it's still cleverly done and a worthy read. After Saul's first novel twenty-five years ago, Suffer the Children, I vowed I'd never read him again - that book was an endless parade of sadisms against children, with no socially redeeming value that I could discern - but happily a friend prevailed upon me to undertake The Blackstone Chronicles, which largely redeems the author in my eyes. It has some grisly moments, yes - it is a horror story, after all - but at least any nastiness in its pages has a rhyme and reason behind it, and even a sick kind of poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable
Review: The Chronicles start out very slow and end very stupid. Don't get me wrong, I love to predict the end of a series of six books before I've finished the first. If you want a page turner-stay up all night- John Saul book,try some of his earlier books.
Rating:
Summary: very captivating...
Review: This book certainly kept me reading, interested for more, and certainly in suspense, much more so than certain efforts by certain other authors in this genre. The author uses excellent language to convey a sense of sheer terror, which is all the more unsettling because it is real, or at least has the potential to be. Saul has derived his horror from something so normal.
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