Horror Book Reviews
More Details...Price: $15.95 |
Title: Black House |
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Review of Black House
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15 cassettes/approx. 23 hours
The long-awaited sequel to the #1 bestseller The Talisman, to be published on September 15, 2001, the twentieth anniversary of the day The Talisman begins.
Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother and her Territories "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistant hamlet of Tamarick, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken those memories.
When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malign force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams, if that is what they are, of robins' eggs and red feathers? It's almost as if someone is trying to tell him something. As that message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he must find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted track of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.
Product Description
- In the seemingly paradisal Wisconsin town of French Landing, small distortions disturb the beauty: a talking crow, an old man obeying strange internal marching orders, a house that is both there and not quite there. And roaming the town is a terrible fiend nicknamed the Fisherman, who is abducting and murdering small children and eating their flesh. The sheriff desperately wants the help of a retired Los Angeles cop, who once collared another serial killer in a neighboring town.
Of course, this is no ordinary policeman, but Jack Sawyer, hero of Stephen King and Peter Straub's 1984 fantasy The Talisman. At the end of that book, the 13-year-old Jack had completed a grueling journey through an alternate realm called the Territories, found a mysterious talisman, killed a terrible enemy, and saved the life of his mother and her counterpart in the Territories. Now in his 30s, Jack remembers nothing of the Talisman, but he also hasn't entirely forgotten:
When these faces rise or those voices mutter, he has until now told himself the old lie, that once there was a frightened boy who caught his mother's neurotic terror like a cold and made up a story, a grand fantasy with good old Mom-saving Jack Sawyer at its center. None of it was real, and it was forgotten by the time he was sixteen. By then he was calm. Just as he's calm now, running across his north field like a lunatic, leaving that dark track and those clouds of startled moths behind him, but doing it calmly.
Jack is abruptly pulled into the case--and back into the Territories--by the Fisherman himself, who sends Jack a child's shoe, foot still attached. As Jack flips back and forth between French Landing and the Territories, aided by his 20-years-forgotten friend Speedy Parker and a host of other oddballs (including a blind disk jockey, the beautiful mother of one of the missing children, and a motorcycle gang calling itself the "Hegelian Scum"), he tracks both the Fisherman and a much bigger fish: the abbalah, the Crimson King who seeks to destroy the axle of worlds.While The Talisman was a straightforward myth in 1980s packaging, Black House is richer and more complex, a fantasy wrapped in a horror story inside a mystery, sporting a clever tangle of references to Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, jazz, baseball, and King's own Dark Tower saga. Talisman fans will find the sure-footed Jack has worn well--as has the King/Straub writing style, which is much improved with the passage of two decades. --Barrie Trinkle
Amazon.com
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Comments for Black House
- Posted on 2008-04-03
In amongst the dirt there contains some wonderful visuals
I am no better off. The profane language was unnecessary and much of the graphic visualizations could have been eliminated creating a much more compact story. With that said, there would not be much left. I felt like I was reading two stories, as if each writers technique stood out on its own----it was unbalanced. I was disappointed that so much time was spent in this world and not the other created world. It is a shame, because in amongst the dirt there contains some wonderful visualizations and details.
The story is narrated to us as if we are flying over that small town in Western Wisconsin on the back of a great bird. Wisconsinites will enjoy the many references to its attributes, especially baseball (where King has a strong interest). In the novel "The Talisman", by the same authors, Jack Sawyer is just a boy. In "Black House" they continue the story of Jack Sawyer, now a retired police officer, where he is brought in to investigate and help find the kidnapper and killer of children. The kidnapper is controlled by a force from another world and this black house is the gateway to it. It is not necessary to read "The Talisman", but it would help answer questions, and it was also better.
Wish you well
Scott
Score: 2
- Posted on 2008-02-09
In my top five novels of all time...
I have read a lot of books in my time, but none of them have engaged me as deeply as this one. King and Straub weave a tale so intricately and descriptively, it feels like I have actually been to French Landing and lived through these events. I have reread this story more than any other. It has staying power. Jack is back, and it ain't just about Twinners anymore! A must-read for anyone into the Dark Tower series.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-01-30
What a let down!!!
I had such a hard time getting thru this book!!! I loved the talisman, and I was excited to find out that there was a 2nd book. Black house was such a BORE!!!! I found myself skimming page after page. I cannot stand when an author goes so much into detail that they have to have these 2 page inner monologs(sp)~ Don't get me wrong I love detail but this was way to much.
I love the whole "Territories" premise. The characters in Black House were not as interesting as in the Talisman... It was good to see ol traveling Jack again, but it was also annoying how long it took him to get involved in helping find the Fisherman.. I think people will be dissapointed with Black house~
Eventhough I was dissapointed with Black house I would definetly read any pre-quals or sequals~
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-01-18
kinda dull
If you are fan of The Talisman, as I certainly am, you will be dissapointed by this sequel. Thats not to say that Black House doesn't have its redeeming qualities, but the good moments of action are few and far between: out of the 660 pages of Black House, only about 40 actually occur in the territories. The characters are interesting and, like many critics have pointed out (almost as if they were searching for something positive to say about the book), the setting is very rich and intricately detailed...but c'mon, is that why you bought a book by Stephen King? I didn't. I thought it would be something like The Talisman, but unfortunately it is far removed from the things that made that book great to read. Pseudo-supernatural at best, except for the last 70 pages (which are quite good), I would look somewhere else for a good read. That is,unless you want to see well rounded characters sitting in a rich setting in rural Wisconsin doing what rural people do: sit around and talk about local soc-hops and backfence gossip. I don't know about everybody else, but when I read Stephen King or Peter Straub, I want to be entertained with action, horror, suspense, etc., not the humdrum day-to-day marrerisms of a small town.
Score: 2 - Posted on 2008-01-07
just as good as the talisman
I enjoyed reading this book alot.Jack is one of my faveorite characters.I just love how King ties in his dark tower series to almost all of his books.King is a masterful story tell and this is one awsome book
Score: 5