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Title: Black House by Stephen King, Peter Straub, Frank Muller ISBN: 0739300105 Publisher: Bantam Books-Audio Pub. Date: 15 September, 2001 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 15 List Price(USD): $54.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.47
Rating: 5
Summary: A home run with this one
Comment: The Talisman was the first book by King and Straub that I ever read. I have been a fan of both since that time. Reading Black House was like a stroll down memory lane. Old characters brought back (at least mentioned in some cases) was like visiting old friends that you haven't heard from in a while.
I thought the tie in with the Gunslinger seriers (Dark Tower) was a brainstorm. That Straub bought into the premise is a wonder.
Jack, now middleaged, is called from retirement to help solve brutal murders of children. Gradually he is drawn into crimes so gruesome that they stretch credibility. Of course, after the twin towers were laid low, can anything be doubted.
New characters, Henry, Beezer (an educated and lovable brute) Sophie, and others.
As expected, the territories play a major role in this new story, but not to the extent as in the Talisman. This is typical King/Struab...tight story, believable characters, suspensful storytelling. Don't listen to the nay sayers. Buy (or borrow from your public library) the book, read it and make up your own mind.
Rating: 4
Summary: Writer's experiment in style?
Comment: This King/Straub collaboration reads differently than a typical Stephen King novel. Some of the first half of the book does not flow well and you are drawn to writing style as much as the plot. (Wondering, which one wrote this chapter? And noticing at times that Stephen forgot to take his own advice in his recent book, On Writing. Such as slipping in needless adverbs, and some prose that doesn't advance the story much.)
The subject matter of Black House is disturbing, which made the story emotionally difficult to read at first and I almost didn't make it past the first 100 pages or so. In the story, the "Fisherman" is responsible for the gruesome deaths of several children. For me, this is going too far, even if the book is in the horror genre.
That being said, as the plot evolves, the suspense builds and there are many "real" characters. (Not that you would read a King/Straub book for realism, anyway.) You can definitely feel the pain and fear of the parents, and the different ways they react to the violence in their town. There are some interesting connections to the Dark Tower books - so a lot of this plot feels like a bridge to some future sequel that more firmly ties Talisman and Dark Tower.
I found the second half of the book to be more of the classic page-turner that I expect from these world class authors.
Rating: 2
Summary: disappointing
Comment: I absolutely loved The Talisman and The Dark Tower series so I was incredibly pleased when I received The Black House as a gift. I couldn't wait to see what King and Straub had come up with this time.
Having just finished it, I have to say that I was incredibly disapointed and that only two such big authors could have gotten away with publishing a book that required so much editing. Overall the story was majorly unbalanced -- the first 100 pages were just pure description and meeting characters. I have nothing again description, but come on! Any other book I would have put down long before this one finally started to pick up. I hated that "floating camera" narrator -- it was extremely irritating and distracting and robbed many scenes of their punch by hinting at future events. The final showdown at the end of the book was strangely anticlimatic and very underdeveloped. Much too easy for all the buildup that went into it.
Normally when I get a new Stephen King book I read it in a matter of days but this one didn't tempt me to stay up all night as others have. It took me a couple of weeks to slog through it.
Save your money and get it from the library if you must read it -- that's where my copy is going.
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Title: The Talisman by Stephen King, Peter Straub ISBN: 0345444884 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 31 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Everything's Eventual : 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King ISBN: 0743235150 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 19 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: From a Buick 8 : A Novel by Stephen King ISBN: 0743211375 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 24 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Dreamcatcher by Stephen King ISBN: 0743467523 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: One Door Away from Heaven by Dean R. Koontz ISBN: 0553582755 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 29 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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