Rating: 
Summary: King Is Back!
Review: In this novel, King returns to his classic style of storytelling: an epic tale, a band of great heroes, a powerful child, parallel worlds and enormous stakes. The added bonus is that it returns us to the world of the Dark Tower saga, adding another important piece to that super-epic tale. In fact, I find it hard to believe that Straub wrote more than the first 20 pages or so, since the style is so clearly vintage King. Billed as a sequel to The Talisman, Black House doesn't really continue that story so much as pick up the thread of its main character, Jack Sawyer's, life as an adult. King aficianados will relish this novel as a full-force return to the type of stories that King tells best.
Rating: 
Summary: Two mediocrities better than one?
Review: Well,the King of schlock is back for another installment of self-repetition and lame references to his other books.The ever so boring Peter Straub(except for Ghost Story)is on board for this not so thrilling thriller.I guess King is doing the old boy a favor.Short but sweet:King is totally out of ideas.Nothing he has written in the last 5 or 6 years has the least spark of originality.He is now on autopilot,relentlessly pursuing more royalty checks while regurgitating by bits and pieces every book he has ever written.I've read every book of Stephen King,but this piece of garbage is the final insult.
Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: Not only was the experimental narrative style a challenge to embrace, but the book was long-winded and bogged down in detail. I loved the Talisman, but Black House just does not measure up as a sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow start, then better, and then better, until... wow.
Review: I enjoyed this book immensely. It was well written, it had an absorbing plot and the character development was fantastic. When the authors reminisce near the book's end about all of the people (friends and otherwise) that we met along the story's path, it feels like a rundown of old friends -- certainly a telltale sign of good writing.For me, however, the first fifty pages of the book nearly turned me off completely. I say this so that nobody makes the mistake of giving up early, as I almost did! The style of writing, which utilizes the present tense, is so different from what I was used to that it felt distracting and, well, just not right--at least at first. I'm guessing that the authors used this style in an attempt to make us feel more like we were part of the story, but whenever it got too thick with the "let's go..." and the "what do we see here?" commentary, it seemed to have the opposite effect. It stopped me from being completely drawn into the book, which made me set it down far more often than I otherwise would have, and which made it much more difficult for me to pick up again. It took me two weeks to read those first fifty pages. Perhaps I became acclimated to the writing style, or maybe the book simply got, well, better, but I was pulled more and more into the tale after making it through those first pages. The book felt analogous to a ride on an old passenger train: almost painfully slow to start, next moving a bit quicker, suddenly beginning to pick up serious speed and then, finally, sailing along effortlessly, transporting us with ease. The book kept getting better and better right up until the end. I'm a huge Dark Tower fan, in that the first four books were what finally prompted me to start reading for pleasure again, so I was incredibly excited to get the opportunity to read more about the Tower in "Black House". At the same time, when the first references were made to Gunslingers, End-World and the Tower, it struck me almost as though they were "hacked" into the story at the last minute by King. That feeling quickly faded, however, as the two authors did a masterful job of blending the stories together. The book could have stood alone without any of the Tower's storyline, but as a Dark Tower junkie, I have to admit that I was happy to get a small fix from this novel. Those who read "The Talisman" will NOT be disappointed by this book. Time has matured Jack Sawyer, and it has matured both authors, making the result a book that is a captivating read on all fronts. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Bleak Book
Review: Get ready to spend your time turning page after endless page in search of something exciting. King and Straub wallow in corn of another dimension here and I found myself rolling my eyes in disbelief as I tried to stay the course and get to the end of this one. I was so looking forward to revisiting the fun I had reading The Talisman and was disappointed at every turn (the territories don't become a major part of the book until a full two thirds into the book). I had to hurdle so many corny, self important passages that I found myself exhausted by the end of this book. Beware!
Rating:
Summary: the king of pop culture and the use of straub
Review: have you ever noticed how much pop culture references king can pack into a book? luckily we have straub to hold him back a little. it's supposed to be a sequal to the talisman, but the two aren't really connected. you get to meet some new great characters and some new annoying one. the most irritating is the narrator, who is an entitiy in this book. the whole first section, some hundred plus pages, is a waste of paper. it would be a great (though endless) camera shot. but this isn't a movie. it's a book. the end is a bit of a letdown. i hate it when an author creates miracles just to save the good guys and take care of the bad guys. but the middle is entertaining. we should just really wait for king to finish his dark tower series (i do wonder how straub feels at being used as a device for king's dark tower series). really, was there a point to straub here at all?
Rating:
Summary: Blobs of Obscurity
Review: I'm a King fan. Although I've read him, I am not much of a Straub fan. Yet I did read and enjoy Talisman. The problem is that I should have re-read Talisman before attempting to read Black House. Black House's references to Talisman stuff did not click with me. For a good deal of the time I was confused while trying--desparately I might add cuz I wanted to enjoy this book--to recall the earlier book and its details. Not only was I having trouble with the Talismanic (hee-hee) references, with every Straub-written passage I found myself wandering in word mush as I usually do with that author's writing. Where King is crisp and communicative, Straub seems to put obscurity above clarity. Such is probably a Straub writing device which leaves readers floundering about thereby contributing to whatever horror he is trying to depict. Alas, it got in the way of me enjoying this book; a book I was looking forward to. Oh well...
Rating:
Summary: A rarity - a better sequel
Review: I have read - and loved - every single Stephen King book, with the exception of the Dark Tower series, which I found incomprehensibly silly. Traditionally, I did not like Peter Straub's writing, because it was meandering. To me, "The Talisman" combined the worst excesses of both writers - too silly, and too long - and I could barely get through it. What a pleasure, then, to discover that its sequel was an engaging, tightly written story, that demonstrates the maturing in style of both authors. Like Straub's recent "Mr. X", and King's "Hearts in Atlantis", "Black House" has a much more focused narrative, and more believable characters. For the person who leans more toward traditional supernatural horror, and away from novels that border on sci-fi/fantasy, I can't recommend this book more highly.
Rating:
Summary: Black House is blah
Review: AW steve and pete, I so loved talisman I read it four times. Looked forward
to this but what a disappointment. No point to it unless you guys were
getting back at your Hollywood hatees. I think this book should be called
the novel that should never have been written and didn't know when to
end. No at all scary, no subtley, no moral nothing. come on guys, you know
you could do better. you have. You guys are a couple of MY authors,
please entertain me again.
Rating:
Summary: A Step Up
Review: In this followup to "The Talisman"; King and Straub have outdone themselves. It is a vast improvement over their initial offering. The story was captivating and well written. I sense some of the tension these two great authors must have delt with....and it worked to their advantage. They are an excellant combination and I hope to read more from them.
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