Black House (Talisman Book 2)

A fine examination of the nature of evil, and why it seems to congregate in certain places and in certain people. A sequel to the novel "The Talisman," this is a piece that relates to King's Dark Tower series, the Jupiter of his novels, connecting them - and corrupting them. Jack Sawyer is older, wiser, and his memories of the Teritories are coming back at the same time that a serial killer terrorizes western Wisconsin. This is a brilliant collaboration, weighted and uplifted by the two decades of experience that King and Straub have accumulated since "The Talisman." Sadly, Straub has not had the same popular success that King has in the States, but this book will hopefully alleviate that problem. King and Straub are both at the top of their games, with King continuing the level of brilliance he achieved in "Bag of Bones." Quite simply, a must read for anyone.

I'll preface my review by stating that I'm a huge fan of The Talisman and have read it several times over the years. I suppose that's why Black House was such a disappointment to me.
I eagerly awaited this book's release, excited about being reunited with some of my favorite literary characters. However, it ultimately left me feeling very dissatisfied.
The book begins incredibly slowly, in a sort of Dickensian set-up that takes several pages and honestly just felt confusing to me. Setting descriptions go on and on until the reader is unable to actually picture any of the locations mentioned. Finally, characters are introduced and we are brought at last back to Jack Sawyer. He is now a retired homicide detective living in a small town. We learn that Jack has been finding robin feathers and eggs lying around his home.
This is where the book really started to bother me. It turns out that the feathers and eggs are a sign from Speedy Parker, which seemed truly contrived to me. It's never explained why Speedy left these various bird-related items; Jack can't figure out what they're for and Speedy simply calls him on the telephone later in the book. As a literary device, the idea seems rather banal.
Additionally, this book is unnecessarily gory. Granted, The Talisman contained its fair share of gore, but it never seemed egregious to me the way that the violence and gore in this book did. The characters were unbelievable and forgettable, and in some cases (The Thunder Five) even struck me as ridiculous. The book continued to irk me throughout for various reasons, and I was so enraged by the cheap, tacked-on ending that I almost threw the book across the room.
I won't give away the ending for those who intend to read the book, but I will say that it was by far one of the most contrived, dissatisfying "endings" that I've ever read. It's obvious that there was a deadline coming up and something was thrown together at the last minute. Situations are resolved in a hurried, slapdash fashion, key plot points go completely unresolved, things happen to characters that make no sense whatsoever and are never fully explained. Very frustrating.
Incidentally, I also found the constant allusions to the Dark Tower series to be distracting and pointless. They were never fully fleshed out, and they were yet another part of the story that simply trailed off into nowhere.
The ending was obviously a set up for a third book, but I can honestly say that if another comes out, I will simply read The Talisman again. This book was really quite a poorly executed reunion with the beloved characters from The Talisman. I'm sorry that something that could have been so good turned out to be so bad.

Black House was my 16th King novel and I have read several of Peter Straub's (KOKO being my favorite), but none have been as disappointing as Black House. Of course I read Talisman which I thought was a fantastic, magical read, but the follow-up lacked substance and was bloated with unnecessary description and information, which seems to be King's latest trend. I certainly agree with other reviewers in the fact that we get way too much French Landing and not enough Black House. When we finally encounter the actual Black House, the end of the novel is near and it seems like King and Straub simply wanted to get the story over as quickly as possible. The ending is unimaginative and abrupt considering that it took over 550 pages to get to that moment. For any other writers, this would be a great story, but for King and Straub it is mediocre at best. Want my advise? Stick with the early novels!!!

I have been appalled by the negative comments I have read concerning Black House. Black House is truely a masterpiece preluding another masterpiece. You complaine that the third person narritive detracts from the story but I say that it is that very reason that makes Black House stand out triumphant. Can you write convincingly in the third person? King and Straub seem to be able to. I do not feel that that style of writing detracts in any way from the story. In fact, I think it is a nice change of pace from the norm.
I got this book as an audio book and found myself parking for hours on end just so that I could keep listening and not have to turn it off. It's ties to the dark tower are both informative and necessary (a point that most reviewers seem to have forgotten from The Talisman when Jack got the fabled object and felt himself held amongst the spindle of the entire universe, a great tower).
Last of all, those of you that are King fans should sit back and compare this book a little more closely to the universe that King has been creating since 1975. It all ties in. Anyone who chooses not to read this book based on the negative reviews will miss out on not only a great story but a guide through the final King books that we should see over this next decade.
Those of you who rated this book badly, shame on you. You need to examine your loyalties and your understanding of the King universe again.

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?

Reading Peter Straub is tedious. I have to wade through the prose like I'm standing waist deep in custard because he's so verbose. I thought this book was horrible, the same way I felt about Talisman. Straub takes King's carefully built world (mid, endworld) and uses them as cheap cardboard props in what feels like a made-for-tv movie or a high school play. I only read this because it was supposed to have some information in it about the Dark Tower series. It did, but I was very disappointed. When I read the Dark Tower series, I get this idea that there is a lot going on behind the scenes, and that the parts make sense and fit together. Straub's treatment of the breakers and endworld is very superficial, like he's just grabbing plot devices out of a grab bag and slapping them in with little thought for how they fit into the whole idea. Straub can't seem to get anything right. He refers to the bad guy as a breaker and then refers to the breakers in the rest of the book as something else. He doesn't know squat about firearms, referring to a service revolver as an automatic. There are just too many logical errors in this book for me to be able to suspend disbelief and enjoy it. He spends pages describing everything in intricate detail and then when you get to the climax he just sort of glosses over it with a broad brush, leaving you feeling empty. When you get into the mental institution he takes time to describe every turn you take getting to the actual ward D, but when the guys invade the black house at the end he doesn't go into any detail at all. It was terribly annoying - very similar to the cheezy way he ended Talisman. You'll notice I refer to Straub as the writer on this. Sure, it says King on the cover, and there are a couple of parts that feel like he wrote it, but mostly this is Peter Straub's voice. The difference between the two is very obvious. The whole book feels like it was written for teenagers or children, not adults - like an after-school special. I'm giving it one star because I can't give it no stars.

Well here you are.
King and Straub deftly intertwine the Land of Roland and the Dark Tower, The Breakers in Hearts in Atlantis, and Jack Sawyer's Territories.
This book took me a long time to read because I didn't want it to ever end, and when it did - well there were so many emotions inside of me I had to go lie down.
Twenty years after his first adventure throught the Territories, Jack, now 35 and a retired LA homicide detective, finds himself in the idyllic town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He has made friends and is happy just to exist, away from the brutality of LA. Unfortunately he is pressed into service when a serial killer preying on the town's children begins to taunt him with parts and letters.
The Territories, dismissed by Jack as the delusional figments of a young boy struggling to deal with his monther's cancer, make themselves known in a big way, and Jack is afraid that he is losing his mind. It's only when he meets a woman, the mother of a missing boy, that he discovers that not only are the Territories real, but he is not alone in his fight to stop the Crimson King.

reading over some of these reviews, it seems apparent that several of these reviewers did a few things wrong in picking this book up. first, this is NOT the kind of horror novel that made Stephen King famous. It's somewhere between horror and fantasy. Second, some of these people seem to have absolutely no Dark Tower background, making much of the story incomprehensible to them. Do Not read this book if you don't have the background. it'll do nothing but confuse and anger you. Third, and worst of all, there seem to have been a few people who didn't even read The Talisman, making the reading of this book 110% pointless. Now, if you've got the background (the four Dark Tower books, The Talisman and Hearts in Atlantis), this book is worth three times what you'll pay for it. Once you get through the first 40-50 pages of the book (i will admit, the writing style gets a little tedious), it's full of great, believable characters, buttloads of suspense, a great story, and a few answers to some of those troubling Dark Tower questions. when i finished this book, i put it down with a sense of satisfaction i don't get very often from books. all in all, one of my 10 favorites of all time, and highly recommended. assuming you've got the background for it. otherwise, don't bother, and DON'T write one-star reviews, dragging down the overall.

Stephen King and Peter Straub need to get a grip on their successful selves and realize that sometimes editors can make a book much better.
"The Talisman" is a heck of a story, with exciting scenes, fascinating well-drawn characters, and lots of suspense and terror. I loved the story, but I hated the smarmy, ridiculous omniscient narration. It was intrusive and added absolutely nothing to the book's excellence or pace. In fact, I wonder how many pages could have been cut if an editor had deleted all of the floating narration.
Always annoying, always too clever by half, the self-conscious narration interrupted some of the best scenes. The worst effect, though, was that the narration absolutely ruined the ending by telling the readers exactly what was going to happen next. Talk about your literary capital crimes!
Seems rather obvious that we'll get another sequel. I look forward to knowing Jack Sawyer again and traveling in the Territories with him, but I hope that King and Straub will let their editor do what's necessary to make the next book sparkle and flow, without all the trite editorializing. C'mon, guys, you know how to tell a great story; tell it, and let the story speak for itself.

Ok, it does start a bit slow, as several reviewers complain, but it's a beautiful book, full of wonder and triumph, horror and creeps. It refers back often to The Talisman, which I enjoyed very much, but I did not have to re-read The Talisman to enjoy this book. Though I had forgotten much about Talisman, remembering only the broad outlines, Black House jogged my memory and seemed to flow very well from it. The best part of Black House is its connection to the Dark Tower series, and maybe this means that Stephen King will finally bring that series to a conclusion. Or at least write the next chapter. For someone as prolific as King, the delays between books are surprising. And confusing--who can remember what's happened years before? Come on, already, Stephen. But read Black House--who cares if everything isn't explained? That's the point of fantasy and wonder.

RATING: 4.8/5

Jack Sawyer - the loveable young hero from Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman - is all grown up. Ultimately the story of Black House, however, is not all about Jack which, in my opinion, makes this a much more successful piece of storytelling (though I'm sure most fans of The Talisman will disagree).

We find ourselves in the middle of a murder case in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin; a murderer - affectionately labeled "The Fisherman" by scummy news reporter Wendell Green - is killing and eating children and writing nasty letters to their parents. Jack "Hollywood" Sawyer, now a retired coppiceman, is being swayed to join the case by his friends Henry - a blind radio show host with multiple eccentric personalities - and Dale, the town's chief of police. We see this story unfold from multiple perspectives; we are, at times, with Jack, Henry, Dale, or Fred Marshall - a loving and caring father with a boy named Tyler (you might be able to guess what happens to him in the story) whom we also accompany from time to time, Judy Marshall - Tyler's seemingly psychotic mother, Wendell Green, some of The Fisherman's victim's parents, the murderer himself, a bird named Gorg, and others.

That last one - Gorg the bird - is perhaps the most jarring, the one that might turn most people off from this book (at least those familiar with the authors' other work and with The Talisman). The way in which this story is told is quite strange at times; King and Straub constantly break the fourth wall by referring to us as an audience (and our view of what's happening in the story) directly. We fly, with the authors, high above French Landing as Gorg, observing bits and pieces of town life and the people there going about their daily lives. When we aren't following Gorg, we are being shown (as if through some magical two-way mirror) the story playing out in its entirety right before us. The authors use this to their advantage several times later in the story to build suspense and tension; they show us something unknown to the character(s) we're watching - something only we as an audience can see - and force us to witness it with our eyes wide open, unable to interfere or do anything to stop it. They are letting us in on the joke, one might say.

I thoroughly enjoy this. Most people won't, but I do. I found it hard to follow at first, but I really got into it after a bit. The way it's written, you can feel the banter between King and Straub oozing out of the pages- the interplay of styles and ways of describing things is very fun to read and, since we're already watching the story from behind the fourth wall (which is now a two-way mirror, of course), adds to the telling of the story as a whole. We are at the authors' mercy, and they love it.

This book is not for everyone. Not for every Stephen King or Peter Straub fan, nor for every Talisman fan. I like that this book is not just about Jack Sawyer. It's not a quest book like its predecessor. I love that it's a study of a small town trapped in the middle of a crisis - one that very few have the privilege (or burden) of knowing is a part of a much more severe situation (yes, this book is basically a branch off of King's Dark Tower series). I love how each and every character is fleshed out; by the end, I felt very strong emotions (good and bad) for every single one of them. They all have depth and, in watching them the way we did, we learn a great deal about who they are as people. There is, however, a very substantial amount of description; sometimes it can be tedious, other times thoroughly enjoyable. The way the story's told is weird. It's hard to get into initially. But it grabs you and makes you care about what you're reading (or seeing, if you prefer, through that mirror).

This book is admittedly not for everyone, but I loved it.

Two of the finest "Masters of Macabre" team up in this delightfully frightening and weird tale of a house that isn't, but is, a town that might be, and a man named Jack Sawyer - who has been there before. Welcome back to the Territories, familiar readers will rejoice that our hero, Jack Sawyer has returned as a grown up coppiceman, already retired, whose services just happen to be the only ones that can stop a serial child killer (and eater!) from destroying every last child in this little town. There are sections in this book that if they don't scare you, they will most certainly gross you out, which is typical King - fantastic! Readers do not have to have read "The Talisman" to appreciate this bizarre stretch of imagination that Stephen King and Peter Straub have put together. Just make sure you have a long night ahead, you will not wish to put this down!

It's been about 20 years since I read (and thoroughly enjoyed) "The Talisman", and I always wished that the authors would do a sequel. Now my wish has been granted (sort of), and I have enjoyed this new book by two well-known authors of the genre. The story line is quite well done, and the characters, even the relatively minor ones, are well drawn. The plot, once it gets into gear, moves along briskly, and you get caught up in the excitement of it all. Once again, we see a connection between this book and Mr. King's Dark Tower series, and at least he keeps the plot lines consistent. My only complaint about this book (and it's a big one) is that it's just too darn wordy! An editor with some clout could have seriously reduced the size of this book without compromising the story in any way. Sometimes less is more, and that would apply to this book.

I can not and will not give this book 5 stars just because this is by the infamous Stephen King and Peter Straub. Once again it is a big fat wordy book. It is written from a strange point of view, like you are a bird, flying over a town observing things and going invisibly into open windows of houses. It takes the first 75 pages to get use to this strange stand point. I have no idea why they would choose to write this way because tryng to be "creative", actually becomes aggravating.
It is good and sick horror stemming once again from the Good versus Evil storyline from the Talisman. Once again we have Travelin Jack as the main character and once again the two authors insist on killing off one of your favorite characters.
The ending in the "Black House" once agains gets very very bizarre and certainly can not be predictable. I suppose if you have read the Talisman and you have waited this long for the "god pounding" sequel....read it.

This sequel to The Talisman plays to the strengths of both writers. King's fantastic and horrific visuals are well complimented by Straub's style and finesse. The book is an intriguing mystery, with a definite sense of menace. Old friends and foes from The Talisman make their presence known and even the Dark Tower makes an oblique appearance. (Mainstream King fans may have missed King's epic fantasy series based on Childe Roland. It won't interfere with your enjoyment of this one, but it is definitely worth checking out.) Great characters like the radio savant Henry Leyden make the reader's acquaintance, and the occasional mistake (The beer brewing, college educated, biker gang for example) are easily forgiven. The story still doesn't feel complete, however. Hopefully the writers have a final tale to tell of Jack Sawyer and the Territories. (Now I'm going to have to read Bleak House, a Dickens that I haven't gotten to yet, and see how it compares.)

First of all, I want to clear up some misconceptions about Peter Straub, as he's a <expletive deleted> good author. The reason why everyone thinks he contributed nothing to this novel is that his writing style and King's are EXTRAORDINARILY similar. His (Straub's) own personal trademark is that he does INTENSE character development, making the characters seem like people you could walk up to one day on the street and shake hands with. True, this makes his stories plod a bit (sometimes a lot), but it's essential to them. In this novel, Armand "Beezer" St. Pierre, the intellectual bikeganger, is one of those characters who've undergone "Straubization", as is the ultra-slimy Wendell Green. And there is a reference to another Straub book in here: Don Wanderly (the protagonist from "Ghost Story") is mentioned (though in passing).
Secondly, I'm a huge Dark Tower fanatic, so I'm glad to see that the Crimson King, the never-seen bad guy of the series, is finally identified and that his motives are finally made clear (for those of you who've read the book, don't you sense a twist of "Lord of the Rings" in that motive?). I'm also glad that the function of the Breakers is finally explained, and that we are informed of the Roland Gang's progress through End-World. I also realy liked the character of Mr. Munshun (or Lord Malshun, or the Monday Man), the thoroughly despicable Charles "Burny" Burnside, the blind almost-philosopher Henry Leyden, and (of course) Jack Sawyer. Although the ending was a tiny bit depessing and the introduction was tedious, it was still a great read by two authors who had matured greatly since their last collaboration.

I had put off reading Black House for more than a month. The reason being is that I knew that I would want to devour it in one sitting, which I did not have time to do. Finally, I just gave in and picked it up. This was more like a DT preview than a sequel to the Talisman, but it works. I was a little put off by the narration of the novel, but once you get used to that, the book reads fairly easy. Once again, we have our hero, Jack, now a retired LA homicide detective, living in the midwest. He gets sucked into another homicide case, particularly nasty 'cause the killer has fashioned himself after Albert Fish, a child serial killer. You find out the killer's identity fairly quickly, but the story is not about the killer, in a way. It's about the black house and evilness. All in all, a good read!
Thanks for reading!
~Pandora

Black House: A Novel I have read & re~read Black House by audio, & it gets better with each reading. The way we start off with Frank Muller as the reader, through the air observing everything is out of this world. What a unique but lovely feeling. You will be drawn in from the beginning. The whole story is fascinating, gripping, & although it is a crime novel, it is also a great fantasy novel as well. I hope that someday I will see this audiobook made into a movie. there is no reader like Frank Muller. He gives each character proper distinction with his many different voices. You will not want to turn this audiobook off, & you will be sorry that it has to end! Black House is a novel that is ahead of its time!

In "Talisman", a young boy named Jack Sawyer journeyed to parallel earths in a quest for the mystical Talisman that will save his mother from certain death. (Sawyer's mother, an aging B-movie queen in our world, is an actual queen named Laura Deloessian on a storybook earth called "the territories") "Black House" returns us the character, now an older, financially secure and famous retired homicide detective inexplicably relocated to a picturesque but quiet Wisconsin town called "French Landing". (The move seems incredible given how the narrators spend so much of the books opening painting a detailed but unfavorable impression of it). Sawyer's completely forgotten about his past adventures, finding enough dark evil in our mundane world. In "House", the quiet life of French Landing is shattered when the town's children become targeted by an horrific serial killer dubbed "The Fisherman". Despite help from the state police and vigilante aspects of the town's police, the Fisherman runs amok. Sawyer is reluctantly brought into the case. Unlike "Talisman" (whose magic still blesses Sawyer) "House" spends much time building up the characters who populate the town ("Talisman" was more of a road-novel), both friendly and otherwise. We meet the flustered police chief; a blind DJ with more alter-egos than a room full of superheroes; a housewife who shares Sawyer's affinity for alternate worlds; the corrupt manager of a rest home; a seemingly senescent resident of the home; an obnoxious local reporter/creep and a gang of hyper intelligent bikers - but Sawyer is the story's focus. As he delves into the case, Sawyer's memories of the Territories slowly and painfully re-awaken, and he learns of a tie between the Fisherman murders and an imprisoned cross-dimensional monster who threatens to escape his multi-versal cell, and also discovers that the children themselves possess a latent power making them very desirable to the dark lord.
This was an incredibly disappointing novel - I don't care how many the store.com reviewers loved it. In every way this book insults your intelligence and commits the most cardinal sin of all for a horror novel: it's not remotely scary. Instead of being scary characters, King/Straub's are just very unpleasant - there's little definition to the human serial killer, once he's unceremoniously revealed as such - we learn more about his hygiene than his connection to the otherworldly evil terrorizing French Landing. Rather than scare us, the narrative works up our own prejudices. As you'd suspect, the human killer is only a vessel for a more powerful force that, once actually confronted by our heroes, goes down without much of a fight. Until Jack and his loyal followers get around to braving the "Black House" - a sort of nexus between the many parallel worlds - King/Straub focus our attentions on an outrageous creep of a reporter named Wendell Green who spares no indignity to grab the story or picture of the century. (Green could have been a great plot device, but the authors relegate him to cheap comic relied - every time the creep gets on the verge of one-upping our hero, Jack turns the tables on him; rather than somebody who could become an instrument for the evil forces against Sawyer in our world, or at least implicate him for the Fisherman's crimes, Green is just the sort of convenient character kept around so we can feel comfy about dissing him) Green is only one of the more obvious characters in this story that reveal how the authors have very definate ideas about who we're supposed to like, and not much interest in developing their characters (if you don't believe, skim to a page in which the town's nameless rabble converge on the scene of the Fisherman's latest victim, claiming their right to have a "keepsake" of the killer's reign of terror. The authors do toss in some sympathetic characters, but doesn't do much to develop them either. Though this is at least partly a Stephen King novel, much of the language seems less like his trademark terrifyingly funny prose than the treacly lines of Robert James Waller (Sawyer, like the hero of "Bridges of Madison County" is himself a character with a disdain for our world, and his creators can do no more to craft their romanticized other-world than show us how lame our own is). Even the narrator - an unseen personage who tells us where to look - is a none-too clever cheat: The authors create a separate character with its own point-of-view because they can't otherwise do the same for any of the book's other characters.
The biggest cheat is how the book skims over the story we want to read - Jack discovering what the evil is, and journeying to its world to battle it. Instead, Jack learns of the Evil from Parkus, a friend of Jack's from their days in the Talisman, and now an fellow law enforcer (or "coppicemen") in the Territories. The "Black House" is unsurprisingly more of a challenge than anything you've seen on HGTV, but Jack and his band navigate it with surprising ease. Because it's obvious that the authors couldn't work up much of a story with our leads, most of the book seems designed as a huge stalling tactic, designed to keep our heroes from attempting to enter the Black House that sits at the crossroads of many worlds - and ending the story. The book ends on a complete cop-out - what the author's probably envisioned as a twist, but the rest of us would have seen from the first page (but doubted if only because it would have been incredibly trite). Instead of "Black House", pick up "The Shining" or "Tommyknockers".

This is going to be my 30th or 40th Stephen King story. I've read them all and I've Loved most of them. But this one was so unnecessarily bleak and sadistic it's just an excersize in masochism. Read the talisman again and just pretend its a standalone story because that was wonderful. Don't read this one.

King once again shows his uncanny ability to say very little with a whole lot of words. This novel is VERY much like King and very little like Straub. All the Kingism's are there: psuedo-poetic (though intellectually insulting) descriptions of setting, strong feeling of narcisism throughout, and brief tie-ins to other popular literature. I like a lot of King's work; even with these shortcomings, he can still spin a good tale. With Straub's partnership, The Talisman was one of his finest works.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with Black House. King and Straub provide us with an excellent array of original characters (and some not so original ones) and create an incredible tapistry on which to weave a story. Except the authors refuse to begin that story until half-way through the book! I'm not saying that the chapters of brooding and exposition are not well-writen, but they seem out-of-character for the rest of the story.
This book is a great read for fans of the Dark Tower series; it ties up some loose ends and puts the tale of Roland and Company in perspective. I really do like the Dark Tower set, but I am afraid Black House does not live up to its tradition of truely original fantasy.

This book is a pretty poor effort for King (and Straub, I guess). It has very little to do with The Talisman, and for some reason more to do with Dark Tower, despite the fact that it was marketed as a Talisman sequel.
The story & storytelling are both pretty weak here. Stephen King readers will recognize in this book the following story devices that King uses time and TIME again:
* Inanimate objects that gain magical qualities
* Psychic connections between distant characters
* Strange, yet helpful, behavior from animals
As always, none of these things are ever explained. I for one am getting very tired of these ridiculous plot devices. The fact that King uses them so much suggests that his imagination has peaked.
The first 70 pages or so are very boring prose that could (and should) have been condensed. The story is very slow to reach the climax, which itself is disappointing. Along the way are a lot of ridiculous occurances that make you want to laugh, even though the writing wasn't intended to be comical. Oddly enough, several book critics gave Black House good reviews, when they probably should have ripped it to shreds.
My advice - wait for the paperback. If you haven't read The Talisman, read it before Black House because it, conversely, is a very good book.

The first 3 chapters are dedicated to character development to a degree that has become tedious. Just when the action started picking up, we get a description of a sock hop at a retirement home that is taking boring the pants off me. The parts so far that have any action are so similar to desperation or the regulators that I almost forgot I was listening to the second Talisman book (audiobook).

This is killing me. I'm not sure I'll make it thru much more.

This is not a verified the store purchase bc my husband bought this book a long time ago, but I finally got around to reading it and I love it! I love the characters. I don’t want to give any spoilers but there is one character that has to be one of my all time favortites ever in novel. I recommend this book to everyone.

I never thought that Stephen King could write anything better than his Green Mile. I thought it was the peak of his career. Well, how wrong I was. A combination of King and Straub proved to be unbeatable. The Black House takes the cake. This book is full of everything. Good story, very intense, excellent characters, great writing. What else would you want? I want more. I could not put it down and it was huge. Is this the largest book written by either of these guys? Unreal... There is no limit to their fantasy. I think they have the nuclear charged brains. I am not going to tell what the book is about. Even if I wanted, I could not. I am not King or Straub. I am only me and I cannot write or even conceive anything like that. The Black House moved both of these great writers very high on my list of great writers. Congratulations, Stephen and Peter for a very well done job.

Next to the Dark Tower series, The Talisman is my favorite Stephen King project to date. It was a magical fairy tale about a boy who had to travel to a distant land in a quest for a relic that would save his mother's life, and to save two co-existing worlds.
While Black House is a strong story displaying the matured writing abilities of both authors, it lacks and magic and focus of the first novel. The characters aren't quite as memorable, the tale isn't quite as gripping, and the style of writing (while good) makes the reader feel more distant from Jack. In the first novel, you were with him on his quest. In this novel, the reader simply observes his adventure, which isn't quite a quest because it also lacks the focus and goal of the first novel (until the last 150 pages, at least).
Beyond my complaints, I did enjoy this book, it just wasn't as compelling as the first. If it weren't for the Dark Tower elements of the book, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. I'm very impressed that Mr. Straub agreed to let this novel be a side story for the Dark Tower series. But then again, isn't that true of every King novel, whether he tells you or not?
One star- For tying the Territories to Mid-World
One star- For the quality of writing
One star- For a decent story

Admittedly, this novel doesn't emmerse you in the fantasy like the first (The Talisman). The mesh of King and Straub's writing styles isn't as seamless and at times the action seems forced. Jack (the main character of both novels) has achieved maturity in the "real world" that leaves him unable to fully embrace the Territories as children are able to embrace the unexplained.
No doubt, regardless of these flaws, this is a wonderful book, introducing many interesting new concepts (Queen of the Bees) and very suspenseful action. The reader is alternately moved from laughter to tears. But also, some elements made me acutely uncomfortable. All in all, the effect is morbidly mesmerizing.
The ending of this novel promises future installments, hinting that it will be tied into Stephen King's Gunslinger series (with other references to this series throughout the book). This leads me to believe that King will take full control of this storyline in any further sequels. As an avid King fan, I will (of course) snap these up with enthusiasm. But I would be lying if I said I held as much anticipation at the end of this book as I did with The Talisman.

Why would Straub want to have anything to do with King's "DT" universe? I'm a little stunned at that.
Oh...the book....
...is very good. Style is much changed between "Talisman" and "Black House". First 80 pages or so of the book is narrated like a screen play, introducing you to the characters, places, events very much like a DePalma tracking shot. Flitting around on wings of a bird from place to place until we get to Jack Sawyer, the protagonist of the previous novel. Jack himself has changed a bit since we last saw him...
For "DT" fans, this book is a treasure trove of Crimson King / Dark Tower references (hey, was Jack taking the Talisman from the Black Hotel the event that caused the destablization of the Dark Tower to begin with? hmmm....). For the uninitiated, it can be a bit tiring to hear about "the path of the beam", aballah's "Breakers", and other Dark Tower references without having context. It's almost as if most of the plot is invisible to you.
Don't get me wrong - even without knowing a thing about the Dark Tower series and the 14-15 books that fall into the Dark Tower universe, you'll still have a heck of a time reading this novel. I'm just a little sketical at the pervasiveness of King's persistant universe, taking over pretty much all of his fiction...
...and now Straub's too?
=)

This book is different, creative, and incdrible in every way. Right from the start we know it's going to be different; the voice the authors use reveals this before we're ever into the story.
King and Straub work extremely well together and this book reveals their genius and shows WHY they are the best in the field. I predict both King and Straub will be read hundreds of years from now, as both can clearly tell a tale just as well as Dickens or Shakespeare, and few authors (if any) have accomplished what King has in their careers.
The connections to King's Dark Tower saga (AN INCREDIBLE WORK, READ THEM ALL) are clever as well.
BUY THIS BOOK NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE SO! Even if you have never read The Talisman, this book is INCREDIBLE and stands alone very easily.

I am a long time fan of both the authors, and I was highly aticipating this book for a long time. Stephen King and Peter Straub did not let me down! It was a little slow going at first, as the story opened up. But quickly the authors had ahold of me and there was no letting go! While you don't have to read "The Talisman" first to understand and enjoy this book, I recommend that you do, as there are many references to the territories. Also, Dark Tower fans, there are references to the Dark Tower, the beams, gunslingers, and the Crimson King. One can't help but wonder if Jack Sawyer will show up in the upcoming Dark Tower books! This was a much better read then I've had in a long time....MUCH thanks to both of the authors for a job WELL DONE!

Depends on who you are. If you are a fan of The Talisman, perhaps yes. If you are a Peter Straub fan perhaps not, for despite all appearances to the contrary, Black House is a Stephen King book, much more so than The Talisman.
The book exists in SK's universe, where the Crimson King lives and breathes, and threatens the existence of all, and Jack Sawyer's incredible journey is but a blink of his red eye. Black House has two major roles to fill in the SK cosmos. First and foremost it reunites us with the great Jack Sawyer, all grown up with even more places to go. Secondly, and to some of us, more importantly, Black House serves as SK's apology to his near rabid Dark Tower fans who have anxiously awaited the resolution of The Wastelands (for most of us, Wizard and Glass just didn't cut it).
Many of SK's books advertise that there are "other worlds than these," hovering so close that sometimes they collide, and readers catch a glimpse into another reality, where we see a young woman handcuffed to a bed or poster desperately seeking a lost pet named Ted. In Black House however, we get direct references to Roland and his crew, not to mention the Dark Tower. Those not familiar with Roland might feel disoriented and a bit confused, much like our hero when Parkus speaks of the last of the gunslingers: "I have no clue what you're talking about...I did, sort of, but you lost me about two turns back." By linking Jack to a world where "all things serve the Beam," SK does our warrior a great disservice-for while Jack is a natural hero, ultimately he is only a "coppiceman," not a gunslinger, and his job, as important and necessary as it is, is not THE job. Multiple references to Roland, remind us that he and his gunslingers are the true heroes, and no matter what happens in Black House, the ultimate battle is yet to be fought, let alone won. Black House is a great sequel but because SK has infused it with in-jokes, I'm not sure it can stand on its own. At the end of the story, a single word is uttered-a word that is the answer to all questions, a word that explains the inexplicable and dispenses hope and despair in equal doses-and only those familiar with Roland of Gilead will understand.

This book is unlike the Talisman in that it is not a "Quest" novel and doesn't really spend much time in the Territories that I loved so much in the Talisman. Nevertheless Black House is SK's (and Straub's) best book since I would say "IT" The characters are great, especially Henry. And the narration tool used is so "god pounding" great that I was really blown away! It was also interesting as this book had so much to do with the Dark Tower series, as I think most all future SK books will. So while a person can pick up "Black House" and enjoy it....please read "The Talisman," all four Dark Tower Books, and for that matter "Hearts in Atlantis" before you read this. Thankee Sai.

On the flip side of The Talisman(like Jack flipping into the Territories), this book appears to be mostly Straub and I suspect that Mr. Straub's nightmares and daydreams are far more terrifying that Mr. King's. The mystery and the horror are dead on. There is no chaff; only streamlined story that is racing towards a stunning end. I believe this is due to Straub. In fact, I think King should use Straub as an editor because I didn't find myself bored at any point(something I find in King's later works usually the middle). There is a rumor that Mr. King and Mr. Straub would like to do a third book about our friend, Jack Sawyer. I hope this is true and eagerly await it's arrival.

I only read the reviews after I read the book...and must say that I agree with one reviewer who stated that fans would buy the book despite any criticism from other reviewers.
However, I was disappointed...there is no comparison to The Talisman beyond some of the characters. The sense of wonder Jack feels in the Territories; the feeling of being in on a frightening, amazing adventure; and for the most part, the character development are missing here. I stopped reading Stephen King's books when I felt they became more horrific than enjoyable, but immediately had to buy this, the sequel to one of my favorite novels of all time.
Can't say I really regret it, because I'd have been wondering what I was missing, but still, paid too much money for this one.

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 $$$.

Are editors scared of telling authors like King or Straub to cut down the fat on some of their books?
I guess it must be next to impossible to tell a best-selling writer that he might be doing something wrong. After all, they have the sale figures with which to back their defence.
But I do think someone really needs to tell King that less is more. 'Black House' has the makings of a great book hiding in there somewhere - but there's too many half finished ideas getting in the way. (Dickens got away with it in 'Bleak House' but unfortunately neither King nor Straub is close to Dickens.)
The middle third of this book is excellent. The first third, however, drags (although in a not uninteresting way); the final third (after Jack's visit to Judy/Sophie in the psych ward and the Territories) is terribly disappointing - as if both writers had given up and just wanted to get the damn thing out of the way. I had reached the 'unputdownable stage' at this point but then the steam just ran out of the story.
And what is this attempt by King to tie up every one of his novels into some kind of over-arching meta-narrative? (Dark tower, etc.) A few science fiction writers seem plagued with the same need (Asmiov and Heinlein to name but two). Is it some sort of desire to play God in a solipistic universe? If it is then that way madness lies - just try to read some of Robert Heinlein's final terribly inward-looking, self referential dross.
Read this book but then try 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski and (ignoring the pretentiousness factor) then tell me which one features a really scary house.

This effort is a pathetic attempt to cajole fans of a great novel into buying a sequel. If you haven't read "The Talisman", go out and get it! Read it, and skip this rag. What a bummer! I want 3 days of my life returned to me! As a dedicated King and Straub fan, I was sorely disappointed in The Black House.
Reading The Talisman so many years ago turned me on to Peter Straub and gave me reason read more of King's yearly drivel. "The Talisman" successfully melded drama, great characterization and plot into a book that you can revisit like an old friend.
The characters were so weakly written. Henry Leyden was the strongest of the batch, and when he comes to his end, you don't really care one way or the other. And whereas Jack in "Talisman" was a wondrous boy-hero, Tyler, is a hollow character with so much promise, as was the case with most of the people in the story. You just don't care.
I finished this one hoping page after page that I would be rewarded at some point, only to be robbed. The blatant tie-in to the "Gunslinger" saga was a joke. Leave the marketing to your editors boys. I read "Wizard and Glass" and was thrilled. But if this is the best that is to come, I'll read elsewhere.

I loved this story. It is in my top five of all time. It was a truly terrifying horror story reminiscent of It because of the monster taking and brutalizing these children. Henry Leyden is a fabulous character(s) and i really like the thunder 5. What I really recommend is listening to this on audiobook with one of the best performances by the late, great Frank Mueller.

OK, I really expected this to be a sequel to "The Talisman", but it ended up being a fairly straight-forward horror novel, with some Talisman and Dark Tower bits thrown in near the end. In fact, it reveals a lot of new information about the Dark Tower worlds, but very little about the Territories (from "The Talisman"). As a Talisman fan, I was somewhat disappointed. As a Dark Tower fan, a really liked the new Dark Tower material. (Dark Tower fans: if you want another taste of the Dark Tower, go to... and read the first chapter of his next Dark Tower book!)
The story is set in a small Wisconsin town (Le Riviere) just like many of the small Maine towns from just about every King book. It starts very slowly - the "bird flying over the town" trick used to introduce the characters just doesn't work. Once it gets going, though, the story moves along pretty quickly, mixing the bad (a serial child-killer named the Fisherman) with the truly evil (Gorg, Mr. Munshun, and the Crimson King). The end happens very quickly - maybe a little too quickly. I expected a more drawn-out confrontation between good and evil, and the battle was over before I knew what hit me.
The characters are quite good. Jack Sawyer is back from "The Talisman", and is joined by the La Riviere police chief, a beer-brewing group of bikers, and a blind man named Henry Leyden. Henry is the real star of this book, and is easily one of my favorite King characters. There's also the usual collection of small-town characters, evil creatures from another world, talking crows, and other oddities thet you'd expect from Stephen King and Peter Straub.
Altogether, a good book. Just not a sequel to "The Talisman".

It's kind of hard to know where to start with a 800+ page novel like this. I didn't HATE it, but I didn't like it as much as I did the Talisman. Both the authors have suffered from excess wordiness of late and they could have used the services of a good editor here. Yes the novel does offer the occasional gem but you have to hack your way through a forest of needless words to get there. Worst of all, I didn't feel they were taking the fantasy elements seriously and the ending is an insult to the reader. Fantasy only works if the author is totally committed to the alternative world he creates and if it has clearly defined rules. Stephen King always seems to me to use fantasy as a way of changing the rules when he has painted himself into a corner plotwise ...

Although I was warned going in to this book that it was not going to be like The Talisman, I couldn't help comparing the differences between the two books throughout reading Black House. Overall, I was left with the feeling that a lot of the richness in characterization and experience from The Talisman was lost. Apart from some shining exceptions (notably, Henry Leyden and the motorcycle gang characters) many of the characters were fairly shallow... including Jack. I fell completely in love with Jack of The Talisman, and while the older Jack is still a very good man, we know this more through the narrator positioning him that way than through seeing Jack overcome many truly challenging situations. The final confrontation for adult Jack seems ironically like child's play compared to the truly horrific ordeals young Jack overcame many times over.
I felt that it was a true injustice to Jack's character that he's relegated to a position below gunslinger in the obvious effort to set up future Dark Tower stories (and I love those as well). Also, there were far too many pages dealing with ordeals in our world that were more annoying than suspense-building, such as the fact that sensitive information keeps leaking out to the public.
Straub and King were considering this Jack-as-adult sequel when they wrote The Talisman, as the quote by Mark Twain at the end of that book seems to suggest. They've had a long time to consider what to do with their characters and the worlds they created. I'm surprised this was the best they could do with so much time and such a great story.
I would recommend this to Dark Tower fans who have not read The Talisman. If you have read it, this is worth the read but be prepared for a more mundane experience than you might be expecting.

I am amazed that readers review this book with comments such as "It's too bizarre" or "It's too grim" and "It's too scary"!
Hey, this is Stephen King not Charles Dickens or Dr. Seuss. If you want to be comforted read a cozy love story or a western novel. This book is MEANT to be scary. Its a horror book!
I found it an easy read and quite frankly....alot of fun! It's certainly IS creepy and the characters are described with that uncanny realism theat King is so good at. The book illustrates madness and human frailty along with some down right interesting, albeit weird, people.
Read the thing and get a little frightened. But lighten up! It's only fiction. ENJOY!

I have for many years been an avid reader of Stephen King and, to a lesser extent, Peter Straub. I have enjoyed virtually all of the writings (including the Bachman short stories). But enjoying is quite the same as appreciating. There are elements in King's writing which continue to bother me. That doesn't mean I stop reading his works, but I continue to wish he'd get better at some aspects of story-telling. Case in point: King has no idea how to write a romantic element into his novels. Such relationships as might be expected to have a romantic turn are almost invariably clumsy, maudlin, and -- generally speaking -- genuinely implausible. Most of the time, I think, these themes are superfluous, even when the supposed motivation for the actions of the main characters involve romantic involvement. As a less significant aside, King's world seems to be utterly devoid of any sympathetic gay characters. The only gay characters that even come to mind are two men killed by "It", if I remember correctly.
Now, that aside segues into a more serious problem. Increasingly, King's novels require both an excellent memory and thorough acquaintance with his work. I first read the Talisman when it came out in the mid-80s, so it was a real stretch of my memory to dredge up details of that story. Many of the readers of the Black House will have to read The Talisman before they can really follow the action, despite what I admit was an attempt to give essential information in the narrative. I suppose that's the price one pays for having a sequel appear 20 years after the first novel. I can forgive that infelicity, however, for otherwise this book couldn't have appeared at all. More troublesome to me is the introduction of the Dark Tower narrative into this book. It is possible, I suppose, that I simply failed to note the similarity between the Talisman's dual-world and the Dark Towers' universe when I first read the Dark Towers, although I really don't think so. This marks a kind of annoying tendency for King to make off-hand allusions to his other works in a number of his novels, but never, that I can recall, has it been so central to the narrative as in this case. Now, the reader must not only have read The Talisman, but also the Dark Tower series in order to understand the novel fully. Somehow, this seems to me to be too much to ask of any but the most avid King devotees.
Now--What this novel does is what King is best at: the marriage of natural horror with the super-natural. He takes our instinctive loathing and fear of sexual abuse of children, not to say an even deeper loathing if canibalism, and ties it to a super-natural source. Nearly all of King's novel's do this, it seems to me, and it is a key to why his work often provides a very real sense of discomfort in the reader. Not that we ever come to understand the natural evil presented; quite the opposite, we are permitted to de-naturalize the evil and attribute it to some concretized evil, condensed into one thing, be it a huge hotel, a Black House, a giant spider-like creature (and Clown), or the Walking Dude. There is a distinct Manichean element in King's novels: Good and Evil are opposing forces in the Universe (or Universes, as the case may be); Evil dominates much of the time, but is always vanquished in the end--only to re-appear in the next novel.
I simply don't think that this sort of approach is particularly sophisticated...which may not bother Stephen King in the least. He is certain to be remembered as one of the most popular and successful writers of our time...but not as one of the best. Oddly, I think he COULD be both; I'm not sure what restrains him from trying to be both.
Having cheerfully taken King to task (I confess, I have a hell of a time discerning Straub's contributions; probably just that I haven't read nearly as many of his works), I have to say I enjoyed the book...as I almost always do. I just don't ADMIRE the book as much as I'd like.

Have you ever taken a cruise? If not, you probably don't know that it takes about three hours to get processed before you can actually board the ship. The majority of your time is spent standing in a long line and getting jostled by the fat sweaty guy in the Grateful Dead t-shirt. Thank God I had this engaging book!
As a huge fan of "The Talisman" I was overjoyed when I realized that this was the sequel to a book I never thought would have one. Could the writing team of King & Straub pull another rabbit out of their collective hat? Oh yeah.
From page one I was hooked. I've noticed that others have complained that the story doesn't kick in until after at least 200 pages. Not so here. Every great story needs a firm foundation to build upon, and I found the overall structuring to be well done. I had often wondered about Jack, Speedy and other characters from the first book, and while Jack's having forgotten or dismissed the Territories was a bit unexpected, it actually worked well. The background of the Fisherman was equally engaging and kept me hooked. The tie-ins with the Dark Tower books was quite a surprise, and cleared up some of the questions I had about those books. Kudos, guys!
I don't remember much about the first day of the cruise, as I stayed in my cabin and kept my nose in this book. The day before I had just finished the disappointing "From A Buick 8," so it was a relief to see King back in form (with assistance from Straub, of course). I recommend the book, don't let a few naysayers disuade you.

I have waited for years for a collaboration from these 2 again.....well it was a little disappointing. I expected more magic and less real world horror. The real world is a scary enough place as it is and what they incorporated into this book was serial killer images with very little "flipping over" into the parallel universe. Granted, they left the door open for perhaps a 3rd book, but overall I feel that Stephen King is slipping. Peter Straub I don't read much of anyway. But Steve's last few books have been overrated and underread (by me at least). I still have "DreamCatcher" on my shelf and I just can't seem to get through it. I remember the days when I would read a Stephen King book from cover to cover, sometimes in one sitting, even if it meant staying up all night like a crackhead...

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

Ever had the experience of thinking throughout the day of the characters in a book you're reading, and wondering how they are? That was me, every moment I wasn't reading Black House.
This book may be a little hard for some to start - the opening narrative requires attention and discipline - you have to force yourself to go along with the authors' floating view. Make your mind's eye into a roaming camera, and just go with it. Within two or three pages, you'll lock into this way of seeing and be able to move from scene to scene without trouble, and with the beautiful bonus of a well fleshed out physical setting.
I haven't read Peter Straub before, not even the Talisman, but am a lifelong Stephen King fan. Consider this background when I tell you these two things: 1) There is just the right balance between King's and Straub's voices, and they complement each other in a way I hadn't expected - I could still feel King's presence, but it seemed more mature, more directed, more lyrical then his typical style. Mr. Straub, I presume. 2) This book does not need to be read as a sequel - it stands alone beautifully. If you haven't read The Talisman, that's okay. Pick this up.
I came to care about the characters created here - I found them lively and funny and enjoyable, and felt they interacted in a "real" way, like actual, complex people.
If you need one more piece of encouragement to read this book, here it is: Black House finishes in a satisfying way. You shouldn't find yourself scratching your head and going - 'now, what happened here . . .' The authors did a stellar job of plotting, and it shows in the details - having finished the book this evening, I could probably sit down and outline it, start to finish, because it made sense. It flowed. This is a fully realized story set in a fully realized world (or two or three) and a great achievement for Stephen King and Peter Straub.

This was a hard book to read -- and an even harder one to rate! Did I like the book? Well, yes...no...maybe??
The only way I can really rate this book is in stages. This may help the readers who are desperately scanning the store for a glimmer of hope that the book is worth the money they spent on it. That is what I did after attempting to start the book for the third time. A reviewer said there was light at the end of the tunnel around page 50. And I found that to be very true. The first 50 pages I wanted to attribute fully to Straub since I could not get into them at all. Being a very big King fan, I wanted all the parts I liked to be King and the ones I didn't to be Straub. I'm sure there are Straub fans who feel just the opposite.
There were faint glimpses of hope as we were introduced to people instead of flying around with a 'bird's eye view' of this town on the edge of slippage. I just had to type that word slippage here because if I didn't overuse it like King/Straub did, I wouldn't feel like this review was worthy of the book! Other words were equally overused causing the reader to 'fall out' of the book. I mean, is bitchrod really that awesome a word? I loved Henry. Who wouldn't? I am sure he is as bitchrod as a person could be. And after 5 references to that, I, like everyone else, most definitely knew it. (And don't even get me started on Oppan...oh, I can't. It would just be one time too many.)
It was nice being reacquainted with Jack, the Territories (briefly), and Speedy Parker. I liked the characters of Sophie, Henry, and the bikers. The middle of the book was very good. It was involving and paced fairly well. The 'talking to the reader' was distracting, but I used those points to remind myself that I had other things to do and that I needed to put the book down. It worked wonders!
The Dark Tower references -- made me glad I have read the series. If you haven't, you might want to backtrack some before reading this book. I can only hope that King will drop Straub for the continuation of the Dark Tower series. In fact, let's stop this collaboration train right here. You did it once and it worked beautifully with the Talisman. But this second effort missed the mark. Much like Blaine.
And now to the end. Was there a page limit? Did King/Straub reach it and decide that a quick wrap-up was needed here? And after the quick wrap-up, did I really need the author to remind me again that I was reading this book and could stop if I didn't want to read what happened next? Because I wouldn't like it? Major spoiler! Thanks King/Straub. When I want the end of a book to be spoiled next time, I will just log in to a website review. I truly didn't need that commentary.
And now it is rating time. I can give a 1/2 star for the beginning, two stars for the middle, 1/2 star for the end. It is worth the read but not worth the hardback cash. Wait for the paperback. You'll be glad you did.

There's a lot of positive things I can say about Black House, as well as some negatives. Overall, it's a fun, thrilling novel that feels a lot more like a Stephen King novel than a Peter Straub novel. I liked The Talisman better than this one, but I still found this story about the adult Jack Sawyer hunting down a serial killer to be highly enjoyable. Fans of King's The Dark Tower series will have a lot of questions answered that have been plaguing readers. Easily my favorite characters in this book have to be the members of the philosopher biker gang The Thunder Five, which I know sounds really goofy until you actually meet them. As for the bad stuff in this book--for such a long novel I have to say that the climax was pretty disappointing. It's full of the weird mystical mumbo jumbo that drives me crazy about so many otherwise terrific Stephen King novels (It, Desperation, etc.). Without ruining anything, let me say it involves magic baseball bats and rings that work like the one the superhero Green Lantern used. Also, considering all the buildup to it, as well as the fact that the novel takes its name from it, we see surprisingly little of the actual Black House. Watch for all the little allusions to other works by the two authors, including King's miniseries Rose Red (that hasn't even aired yet) and a nifty allusion to Straub's brilliant Ghost Story.

I have been reading Stephen King since I was a little kid, and have been really disappointed in his writing lately. However, when I saw Black House, I was intrigued.
I became wrapped up in the story almost immediately. I fell in love with the vibrant characters and the unique narrative approach. Then I reached the final section of the book, and was soooo disappointed. The ending felt as if the authors were bored with the book and just wanted to finish writing it already. I felt cheated!
The book was off to a great start, and is worth a read if you have already read other books in the series. Just be warned- the ending will leave you disappointed.

I liked parts of this book. I liked the obvious parts written by King. The Straub parts were okay, but I wish King would have written the whole story. I enjoyed that it was not really a Sequel to the Talisman (which I loved) but more of another story involving some of the characters from the Talisman. I really enjoyed how the plot line paralleled, and sometimes intersected my favorite story by King, The Dark Tower. I enjoyed this book, because I am a hardcore King fan. If you have not read anything else by King, at least read the Talisman before you tackle Black House.

For those of you out there who are huge Stephen King fans like myself, you will buy and read this book regardless if every review you can get your hands on tells you it sucks like a vacum. That's just the way we are. But the truth be told, this is not one of the best, and perhaps not even one of the better. The Talisman, part 1 of this story, was great. It had fantasy and suspence and childish innocence to a tee. Blackhouse goes through the motions, in reality it seems like a murder mystery that added the Territories as an after thought so it could be a part 2.
Don't get me wrong it's not a bad book. It has some great story telling in there and some awfully likeable characters like Henry the blind radio announcer with several on air peronalities, and in places it really shines.
For the fans I was talking about earlier there is some insight into the Dark Tower and what might be dealt with in the future Gunslinger books which makes it a worthwhile read.
I guess the singular most annoying thing about this novel, and it is something that I have never seen in a Stephen King Book ever before and hope to never ever have to read through again in one, is that in parts of the book the narritive is described as if the reader is a watching third party to the story. example, "and now we float up away from this scene and go to visit another important character blahdy blahdy blah" believe me this gets mighty annoying mighty quickly. Perhaps its not Stephen King who wrote this way, although I admit it is unfair to blame what I don't like on the one who isn't one of my favorite authors, but oh well.
To sum up, In the absence of other Stephen King writing, any Stephen King is better than no Stephen King.

As some are complaining about here, this is a Dark Tower novel. I think it is becoming clear that most, if not all, of King's novels concern the dark tower in one way or the other. Maybe not the early ones except by association of characters, but the later ones certainly are. Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and now Black House are all adding to the mythology surrounding Roland's quest for the Dark Tower. In that respect this book is a slam dunk. It brings back characters and refernces events in Dark Tower as well as The Talisman. However the prose is a bit difficult at times with its detached quality and it works to take you out of the story by talking directly to you. It can be distracting but the story and payoff are worth it in the end. Bring on Dark Tower V!

Like many of the other reviewers, I was excited to see a sequel to _The Talisman_ in the works. I loved the earlier book and looked forward to seeing where Jack Sawyer would go next. Well, I must say that only perseverance got me through this book. The opening section's writing was so tedious and overly detailed. I was glad I stuck with it but I hope if the proposed third book does actually occur, the authors will pick up the pace at the start of the book.
Apparently, those who know the Dark Tower series benefit from their knowledge when reading this title. I didn't find it a problem but I may try (again!) to read that series.

What can I say about this book, I just finished reading the book, and I have to say, that there are moments in this book that are just fantastic, which made the book a bookt hat I would recommend. However, the thing about this book which forced me to give it only 3 stars is that sometimes they go into way too much description. The first three chapters, I almost had to quit reading, again, which Im now glad I didn't cuz it makes much more sense to me now, but at first I didnt know what was going on, who was telling the story, or anything. Even once the story gets going, there are points where they go on and on describing something, which would be fine in a short little essay about whatever topic they are describing at the moment, but not in a story where pace is important. With that being said, the book is very exciting, suspensful, and the overall greatness of the story overides the effects of the other negatative stuff. I hope they continue this series, and also if you read this, might want to try the Dark Tower series, that is a good one as well and there are many elements of those books in this one!

More horror and more scare in this sequel to the Talisman. Jack Sawyer is a man now. His past is calling him back to the Territories. He's the only one with the skills and unique knowledge to save the children. Unwilling Jack is afraid to confront the past because it means dredging up old memories and reliving the nightmare. Don't let your 12 yr old read this book. Disturbing child abduction "parts" in here. Enjoyed the connection to the Dark Tower/Gunslinger. The cover alone got me to read this book.

I've been a King fan (on-and-off again) since I was in Jr. High and I've liked most of his books overall (but there were some bad ones). But my favorite book of all time from King was Talisman. That's why I was so eager to read Black House when it came out. Well, the beginning reeled me in, the middle dragged, but the end actually picked up and changed my overall feeling of the book. The part that kind of made me wanna just finish the book were some of the characters. They just seemed unbelievable, esp. the biker gang. Even Jack was overly revered throughout the book and made him appear flawless which we know he was not by those who read Talisman. I did like the Henry Leyden character though and Speedy whom I liked in Talisman. I also wish the Territories were used more in this book but it was only a bit here and there. As an overall review, I'd say it was okay but for those who loved Talisman as much as I did, don't expect the same for Black House. That's my humble opinion!

Stephen has the world caught up in his story telling once again. Although this is with Peter Straub, this book is more about S.K. And Let's face it, this IS a "Dark Tower" book within a Talisman book. This book wasn't about "flipping" as much as it was about the Crimson King and saving the Axis of all worlds. It brought us more questions of Ted Brattigan. Jack, Jason, Jake... could they be the one and the same?
One of my fears of this book was that it would be about a 30-year old man "flipping" from world to world. This is a Talisman Book, a Dark Tower Book and an independent book all in one. If your not an continuous S.K. reader, this book doesn't mean as much. But for those who snag every S.K. book as it hits the shelves, your in for a great ride!

This book is the sequel to The Talisman, which is one of my all-time favorite books (and which I have a signed copy of). Although I haven't been very fond of much of King's writing in the last several years (pretty much went downhill after The Stand, IMO) I had lowered my expectations to the point where I was certain I would at least find this enjoyable. I was STILL dissapointed. There is a writing technique used which I find very annoying (I'm sure there's some technical literary term for it) where you are taken through the story by an all-seeing narrator. This style is used in Black House and I didn't like it here either. It is very difficult to suspend disbelief, since you are constantly reminded, by the narrator, that this is a book, a story, and is not actually happening. Then there's the story itself, which plods along and at times goes off on such formulaic King rants that it feels like he's just cutting and pasting from other novels (be reminded, King is one of my favorite authors and I've read everything he's written). It does not incorporate much of the most ejoyable parts of The Talisman, which were the excursions and wonders of the parallel-world "The Territories" -- these are hardly utilized at all in Back House. Instead it pulls in more of the Dark Tower stuff, which I consider another big mistake. Top it off with a pathetically predictable ending and you have a real bomb, I'm sorry to say.

This books is... intense, to say the least. The novel picks up some years later after Jack Sawyer has completed his quest, and is now a retired LAPD officer living in Wisconsin. There's plenty of description above so I'll go into the less mentioned, but more important details of the story. King finallys brings us into the world of the Dark Tower again, and taking off from "Low Men in Yellow Coats", from Hearts in Atlantis, we learn who and what the Breakers are, and some more of the mystery around the Crimson King is revealed to us. After being so wrapped up in the story of the last gunslinger and his quest, this has been the most highly anticipated book of the year for myself. My only regret was that I couldn't be more objective in this review. On a note, readers not familiar with the Dark Tower storyline, or who have not read The Talisman, may be a little lost initially, but will nonetheless find this a compelling read. For those fans like myself, who have gleaned small bits of the story from many of Kings books over the years, this is an essential read to bring you further.

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=ZikvWB48LCQ
Please people with the money, if you buy a new book, include a used one in your shopping cart. That will help the store enormously in their storage, and it can help you too. At some places the price can’t lower to lesser a penny. Take a used book for a 0.01$ anywhere.
It has many usage including, “Cash4Books.net”
Recycle or Burn it for survival heat. Use two books as spacers to raise your monitor because it’s always better to view at eye leveled to the center of your screen. Even better, send it to donation, any library would take it, or the third world too.
Do not fear a book because it has no teeth!!
When you open your used book, wear gloves if you have to, then you’ll realize, “This book ain’t that back after all.”
Good read and peace!!
- Ricky

Being a fairly new reader of the macabre, I felt like reading a book by the master of terror (Stephen King). Considering the synergistic power of two famous authors, I thought this book would be the ultimate. I felt that my time in reading this book was a waste of six+ hours, and would advise readers to read other materials. Every strange twist and turn in this story was totally predictable. The topic, while gruesome and sadistic, seemed almost normal. I was hoping to be gripping an armrest and losing sleep as I read this book. This definitely wasn't the case. I do believe that with a lot of re-structuring, this would make a fabulous horror film. especially if directed by Mr. King. I was far from impressed.

I remain firm that Talisman (prequel to this book) can and actually does stand on it's own. But Black House would be a dismal failure without the Talisman.
I began this tale and immediately realized I had to read the Talisman first to get the most out of this book.
There is one saving grace (actually two) for this book and if you are reading instead of listening, I honestly would chuck the written version and grab the unabridged audio. Frank Muller is a GENIUS - pure and simple. His character's voices are clear and distinct. Muller is what makes this book. Period.
I had hoped that the black house was somehow tied to the black hotel in the Talisman, but alas, no. The second saving grace -- the times when we do get to return to the 'other world,' the Territories. Both King and Straub seem to be most comfortable there as well.

Basically, a good book badly written. I am a huge King fan, though I don't know much of Straub's work. I also think that the Dark Tower story is the most intriguing thing I've ever read. It's because of this story's proximity to the Dark Tower material that I gave it even three stars, though I think that connection can be way too heavy-handed at times. I had a really hard time getting into this book because of how it begins - no grounding, no character, just an author or two force-feeding me and leading my around by the nose. Even the foreshadowing near the end is executed with all the subtlety of a cudgel, and it ends up being all bark and no bite anyway.
The middle of the book is wonderful. The characters are interesting, the situations are innovative and realistic, and the plot unfolds beautifully. Read this book for the story. Read this book to fill in your understanding of King's ever-widening cosmology. But when it's done, put it down and let it be. There is tedium in the writing that I've never before experienced in King's work, and hope not to again.

As always, King and Straub have told a captivating tale that will keep you turning the pages. A nuance to DH that was missing from the first book is the connection to King's Dark Tower series; as a fan of this series, I enjoyed the references to it, but others might not appreciate this aspect of DH. I also found it a little hard to relate the Jack Sawyer of DH to the Jack Sawyer of The Talisman--maybe a prelude would have been helpful. Finally, in contrast with the Talisman, very little of DH takes place within the Territories. Overall, however, I found this to be an enjoyable, engaging read.

It is startling to read so many bad reviews for such an incredibly written novel, but alas, to each their own. I was late in reading The Tailsman but fell in love with it as so many other people seem to have since it was first published so many years ago. When word came that a sequel was going to be written it simply could not be published fast enough to satisfy me. Yet, the wait was well worth it.
I admit that at first the very unique style of writing was a bit off putting but as the book goes on you will get used to it. In a lot of respects as well you could consider this to be a sequel to The Tailsman as well as The Dark Tower Book 4 1/2. For all of you out there eagerly awaiting the fifth book in that series this one has enough elements from that world to keep you happy. If you are a King can its difficult to not give this one a read!

Having been a long time fan of King's work (since 1975), I found 'Black House' to be predictable. It took me a while to warm up to it. Although it doesn't make the top ten of my favorite King books, I enjoyed it nonetheless.
I still feel that 'The Talisman' was a better overall book. This story was more representative of the Dark Tower series than it was the Talisman, and it even had a Tolkeinish feeling to it towards the end.
If you are a true King fan you will enjoy the book. But, if you are just getting started with King I think that 'The Stand' and 'It' are a better bang for the buck.

Ten minutes into this book I had to check to be sure that I was actually reading the sequel to The Talisman. Granted, this book was not intended to be a smooth continuation over from the Talisman but the writing style even changed. The 'guided tour' styling that is used throughout the book is absolutely maddening. I can't stand it and to make me even more frustrated I cannot understand why they would completely change writing styles from one book to the next when it's THE SAME SERIES.
A slow start combined a horrid writing style brew up a very bad novel. As hard as I tried, I could not finish this book. Even if you've read the Talisman, I suggest you point your spending money at a more worthy novel! Black House is garbage.

A five star rating does not do this story justice. Don't wait until the paperback version. Buy it now! I got a good chuckle out of "KINGSLAND" brew. The best there is, I bet. I loved meeting Jack as an adult. Old characters like Speedy and memories of Wolf come back. The new characters are wonderful. Henry, the bikers and Tyler. I'm a fan of the Dark Tower series and the story gives a glimpse into that world. Some questions get answered and ties in other stories, past and future- Hearts in Atlantis and the future TV movie "Rose Red", for example....
This story stands out on it's own but the DT tie-in is the best yet. If you're not a DT fan, better hurry up and get on the DT bus. I have a feeling the best stuff is yet to come.

I was 12 years old (like young Jack Sawyer) when I first read the Talisman, and it's characters, settings, and straight-forward narrative ensnared me in a way that few books have since. So it was with rare excitement that I attacked Black House, and while it contains all of the creepiness and humanity that you'd expect from King and Straub (plus the great tie-in with King's Dark Tower series), it left me, sadly, wanting. First off, it's a little too long. which goes in hand with my second hurdle, the "voice" of the narrators. The narrative style, though compulsively readable, cuts away on a lot of the suspense, especially in the last chapter, which hits upon my third complaint: Cut through much of the narrative, put this in the middle, and THEN write another 200 pages, where we find Jack with his new role in the Territories, and I guess that's where it really hit me. I REALLY missed Jack in the Territories. He spends little time there, but I found myself flying through those sparse sections, and wanting more at the end of each. The end guarantees a continuation of Jack's adventures in the Territories and with The Dark Tower, but that doesn't help the Fisherman storyline. Finally, with the exception of Henry Leyden , the other characters, even a somber, angry Speedy, don't hold a candle to Wolf, Farren, or Sunlight Gardener from the Talisman.

I was extremely excited when I first heard this book was being released, but as the release date grew closer I began to have feelings of trepidation. The Talisman has been one of my favorite books since it was released when I was fourteen. Jack Sawyer has always been one of my favorite of Stephen King's characters (ok, I realise that this is a collaboration, but I tend to view it as more of a Stephen King creation. This is probably grossly unfair to Peter Straub, but there you have it.)
My great fear was that I wouldn't like Jack as an adult. That there was no way that these two could top the marvelous quest that was The Talisman. Then I heard that Black House would be tied into the Dark Tower series. I wasn't sure how to feel about this either. While I feel that the Dark Tower will prove to be the greatest of Stephen King's works, I have always viewed The Talisman as something altogether seperate, and magical.
My trepidation increased.
Then I decided to just let it go, made a concious effort to view Black House as something unto itself, to not hold it up to the Talisman, or anything else for comparison. I am very glad I did this.
I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning reading this book, and let me tell you it was wonderful. Jack Sawyer, a little older, a little wiser, a little more lonely and scared, but still the boy with the good heart, grown into a man of integrity.
I will not give away plot points in this review, but let me just say a couple of things. The connection to the Dark Tower series is done very well, revealing some important information without taking you to far afield, and making this into an actual Dark Tower book. It is more akin to Insomnia - related, but not overwhelmingly so.
The characterisations in this book are wonderful. I was a little afraid there, because I was disappointed in that aspect of Dreamcatcher. These characters are like people you would meet on the street. They have their strengths and weaknesses, fears and hopes. At the top of the list is Jack, who after all of these years remains someone I would really like to hang out with.
This is not a rehash of the Talisman. The Talisman was a quest novel, while this is something different. There is a questing element in this novel, but it lies within Jack. His quest is to come to terms with himself and his past. Outwardly, this is more of a crime novel that veers into alternate realms with great effect.
I had great difficulty in putting this book down. Until I realised that I less than 100 pages left, at which point I became afraid to finish. I didn't want it to end, you see, and to me this is the greatest compliment I can give a book.
This was a wonderful addition to the Talisman, and to the Dark Tower pantheon. It has whet my appetite for more of both. Hopefully the wait will not be too long.

I'm a voracious reader. I normally will skip sleep to read a book. And this one was putting me to sleep. The authors skip from topic to topic without really landing anywhere... I really tried to stick with it, but 100+ pages and they still haven't hooked me.

I was very pleased with Black House, although I really dont think it seemed like a sequel to The Talisman. The territories only made brief appearances throughout the book. Still, it was a great story all the same. Henry Layden has to be one of King's most memorable characters and thats why I was surprised..oh Ill give it away, sorry. Come to think of it, there are many surprises in Black House. Dont listen to all those other know it all reviewers who dissed the book. I think any Stephen King fan will enjoy it. Its quite a comeback from the disastrous Dreamcatcher.

I hate to do it, but I see this book being unnecessarily trashed, so I will refute those criticisms before I explain why I liked this book BETTER than the Talisman.
1. The cannibalism and/or treatment of children was "over the line", "too much", etc. etc.: Rubbish. DO NOT read a Stephen King book if you don't want nastiness. Yes, this was nastier than the average King book, but come on, now. Don't read a Grisham novel and act surprised at its shallow treatment of legal issues; and DON'T read a Stephen King novel and complain that it wasn't quite sanitized enough for you.
2. Too much tie-in with "Dark Tower," aka "You had to read everything else first.": More rubbish. A good friend of mine read this - the only other King books she had read were Misery and It - and she had no problem at all understanding what was going on. I personally found the references to King's other "related" books general enough to almost be something of an in-joke, and the use of the Territories in this novel could nearly stand alone - at worst, it would seem like a mildly underdeveloped plot point to the uninitiated.
3. "Not enough about the Territories": See point 2. To this I add, "Good." Which leads me into why I like this better - yes, BETTER - than The Talisman.
The Talisman was a fine book - probably not one of my favorites by either author, but definitely high on the list. I would recommend it, in other words, but wouldn't shout it from the roof tops as I do with, say "The Shining." My primary complaint with The Talisman - the same complaint I have with the Dark Tower series, and the Green Mile, the Stand and others - is that particular brand of fantasy (it is not horror in any sense) is that it is insultingly hokey. I don't care how well written it is. While DT is the least offensive in this sense, the others just never quite do it for me - the whole wide-eyed wonder schtick has been done better a zillion times, and is singularly unconvincing when set against such an otherwise cynical backdrop.
Black House, on the other hand, shook off the Speilbergisms - and is the better for it. It was an intensely moody (in a good way) book, and the whole treatment of simple wrongness, in every sense of the word, was some of the best I've ever read. Anywhere.
I had to knock a star off the rating because the whole floating around the town intro WAS ANNOYING. I'm sure this was Straub's doing, and I am disappointed, because I usually love the man's work. That aside, I loved Black House and would recommend it to anyone

One of my least favorite King books. The Talisman was so much better. Without spoiling anything I'll just say that if you have read The Dark Tower series then you'll understand more of what is happening towards the end of the book. Overall it was pretty boring and uneventful.

The 15th of September finally arrived. Jack Sawyer, who along with his friends Wolf and Richard had captured my heart in The Talisman, was back. It was like meeting an old school friend whom I hadn't seen for many years and I wondered what sort of man my friend had become.
From page one I was hooked. Jack Sawyer the boy has grown up to be an honest, trustworthy and honorable man, but a man haunted by memories of a childhood odessy that he has convinced himself never happened. In Black House he must come face to face with those memories, go back to the Territories and draw on all of his strength and courage to save a little boy, a town and all of the worlds linked by the Talisman and the Dark Tower.
The early part of the book at first seemed to drag but I guess I was just eager to get back to the Territories. With hindsight this stage-setting was essential to the story as it unfolded. Likewise the merging of the Dark Tower mythology into the story at first felt artificial and forced, but became natural and right as the saga progressed.
Jack Sawyer is still brave and true. Stephen King and Peter Straub have done him proud. Black House is a truly wonderful sequel to the Talisman, right up to its heart-wrenching conclusion.

As already noted, by far the most interesting character in this novel is the pedophilic, cannabalistic child murderer-taken over by a demon, the elderly Burnside. Unfortunate choice of name, as I kept picturing that bad ol' man of Springfield, C. Monty Burns carrying out the killings ("Chop, chop! Excellent!"). The book also borrows outrageously from both the film EXORCIST III and the novel THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. There are wonderful passages, to be sure, and I actually enjoyed the gimmick of the omniscent, flying narrator. I just didn't think the book, as a whole, ahem, flew.

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.

... it was a great read! I thorougly enjoyed the characterizations, and it completely got me anticipating the next Dark Tower book, for there were plenty of references to it in this story. But it was very far from the magical adventure that the Talisman was. The story being told in the present tense was also very difficult at first. I had figured that they were only using this tense for the prologue, but it continued throughout the book, and it was hard to digest in the beginning. But as the story progressed, I started to forget about it.
The ending was a bit of a bummer too, and I didn't feel like a lot of the questions I had were answered. I particularly remember in the Stephen King book the Tommyknockers, the main character in that book met up with who we all know is the teenage version of Jack Sawyer on Arcadia Beach. That Jack told how his mother was killed in a drunken car accident. In Black House, we learn that Lilly Sawyer succumbed to cancer- to for all you die hard King fans who have read both books, did you notice this incontinuity?
Other than this- I did very much enjoy the story as a seperate entity. I don't feel it is an apt sequel, for it doesn't really seem to connect. I had a hard time associating this adult Jack Sawyer with the young Jack of the first story. Nonetheless, I do recommend the book for die hard King fans, and for those who are greatly anticipating the next Dark Tower book!

I loved Stephen King and never really dug Peter Straub. I wasn't happy with the "Talisman" but figured I'd give the new book a shot.
I'm up to page 32 and I'm so sick of the narrator having us 'fly' all over the place. I feel like they were writing the screenplay for the movie to save the screenwriter some time. I don't want to fly over scenes in a book. I want to be put squarely into the action and all that zipping around town pulls you of the story. It's not cute or clever, just annoying and distracting.
There is one stand out line that I thought said it all:
"The black house was pretty bad; in fact, it was terrible, but this...this is going to be worse."
You can't get anymore prophectic then that.

What utter, pretentious drivel. This book is an insult to The Talisman. I loved that book and really looked forward to the sequel. After 18 years both authors have become long-winded and obviously in love with their own prose. Compare the two books and the difference will be immediately apparent. Over 200 pages in and Jack has finally remembered what came before. I have decided that I don't care how it comes out. I am going to move on to something that is written better and is more enjoyable to read such as one of Phil Rickman's novels.

I agree with a few reviews written here. One being that the perspective in which this is told (fly on the wall perspective) was very unique in the beginning and seems to be less present as the story unfolds (unfortunately). This technique made the reader feel as though they were flying from location to location getting all the pieces of a story (much like a movie/screenplay). However, as the story unfolds I agreed with another reviewer here in stating so much little time is spent on the enchanting world and so much time is spent with unscary gore that it's much like a slasher movie lacking creativity. I expected more along the lines of Talisman where I just couldn't put it down. <SPOILER?>But here I found myself simply finishing this story reading every word hoping that the end would unfold some gloriousness but it doesn't for me. I think I will take friends/reviewers advice and move onto Clive Barker since his imagination is vast - read Weaveworld and see why I state this.

Overall, Black House swept me in and kept me reading but I have a couple problems with it. For those who love The Talisman, the style of storytelling is quite different; King and Straub actually talk to the reader, which kind of hinders the book in places. I did like the book, but at far as a true sequel to the Talisman goes, I was disappointed. I enjoyed it not following the same formula as The Talisman and going a more eerie route. The characters in this book are more thought out than in the Talisman and more enjoyable, especially Henry the blind man, but I was especially disappointed that the climax was rather anti-climatic. Add in a bitter twist at the end and we are set up for another sequel. The Black Tower references were interesting but seemed to be incorporated for other reasons. Black House just seems like its purpose is to make people buy the Dark Tower books and wait for another sequel.

Ever really looked forward to a book and then when you finally read it, it let you down? Ever had that happen with a King book? I doubt it. His excellence is consistent, you have to give him that :)
This is the sequel to Talisman, written by King and Straub ages ago. I think it was one of the first King books I ever read, and I really didn't remember much about it except thinking that it was pretty cool, but as I read Black House, it came back to me in bits and pieces, enough to make me want to go back and read it again (if only I could remember where I put it!). Jack Sawyer, our hero, has grown up and forgotten (supressed) his memories of The Terratories. Events necessitate that he bring these memories to the surface in order to find a missing boy, catch a Dahmer-type serial killer, and (of course) save our world as well as all of those connected to it.
These books take place in the same realm as the Gunslinger books and are guaranteed to please any fan of that series. Will there be another sequel in this line? There is certainly room for it. Personally, I hope that there will be and that we won't have to wait quite so long this time!
In a nutshell, Stephen King proves himself not only the King of Horror, but of Fantasy as well. Plenty of each to please both types of customers. Check it out and get ready for a couple of all-nighters :)

I loved The Talisman and had no idea there was a book 2. I tore through this book in record time. I hated for it to end. King's writing just keeps getting better and better. Since we are talking sequels, check out Dr. Sleep, a sequel to The Shining. Another page turner.

Maybe I am being a little harsh but I had such high expectations... There was way too much explanation of superfluous situations and people that have little to no impact on the plot. Unfortunately, this will probably be my last King novel. Once a big fan, I now just want him to get over his need to connect his books together (w/the Gunslinger series). Does Straub even get to contribute? King is all that is heard in this book where "Talisman" had a more colaborative voice.

In addition, I too found the "love at first sight" of Jack and Judy unbelievable and unnecessary, unless there was more to the relationship that got axed in the editing. Come on, Travelin Jack and a married mental patient....They have always portrayed Jack as on the straight and narrow having an internal moral compass. Now he is hiding evidence and having an affair. I just did not buy it.

UGH! Rarely have I read a book which presents itself as an impossible-to-read book! The prose in the first section is atrocious...at first I thought I was reading a story treatment for a film! I have attempted to read this book three times previously...and last night, with nothing else on my shelves, I tried to do it again....I skimmed the first hundred or so pages (having been caught in that trap before!) and yes things did pick up...somewhat.
I loved the TALISMAN, with its easy to "see" imagery and flowing prose...I would lose myself for hours in that book...not so in this one. It seems to be a concious effort on the authors part to keep the reader distant! In an age when people DO NOT read, the last thing an author wants to do is distance them! Both of these men are known for drawing the audience in, so I have to ask, why did they not do so on this book.
Truly a wasted effort.
I amlooking forward to the Dark Tower books and Straub's new mystery...perhaps these guys can get back to their collective roots!

This is my all-time favorite book. I loved everything about it and even though it's pretty long as it is, I tryed to take my time on it because I didn't want it to end. I haven't read the first one (The Talisman) but i'm ure it's amazing and I just want to say that you don't need to read the Talisman first to understand who Jack is, he does a great job explaining Jack's background. Again I can't tell you enough how much I loved this book, it will always be in my heart. Try this book out, you will love it. If you want to know his two other greatest novels in my opinion, they are "Misery" and "The Dead Zone". All greats. But The Hunger Games is the greatest book ever though so why waste your time on any book when you can read the Hunger games books 1, 2 and 3 !!!

I've been a King fan for a long time, and I loved "The Talisman" -- a really good yarn on its own, with great observations about life thrown in. I looked forward to "Black House," and it also has its good points, but it is badly hobbled by two authors who know better.
On the plus side, Jack Sawyer grows up well, and is still able to carry his burdens. The Territories age equally well when we are there, and are enough to make a reader homesick. Some of the supporting characters are interesting -- the sherriff, Beezer St. Pierre, etc -- and the theme of an adult rediscovering his childhood imagination is terrific. It's a generally good tale, and has enough strong points that I'm reading it a second time.
On the minus side, the majority of the supporting characters aren't particularly believable. Henry Leyden just never comes to life (from his first appearance, I kept expecting him to be the Fisherman, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because otherwise, he just didn't seem to have much of an interesting place). Wendell Green is merely an irritation. The Fisherman himself is not a very intriguing monster, and Jack lacks the kind of driving personal motivation that made the quest for the Talisman so poignant. The hackneyed love-at-first sight with Judy/Sophie is so unlikely that it doesn't even register, partly because it is introduced so abruptly and partly because Judy doesn't really do anything to make her seem to warrant Jack's adoration -- either in the present or in the past. There's no equal to a character like Wolf, or the marvelously stodgy Richard Sloat (whose own inner journey provided a good counterpoint to Jack's in "Talisman").
But mostly, what brings the book down is the wretchedly affected style. Both of these authors know better than to get in the way of their story by pulling a "Look, Ma, see how nice I'm writing!" gimmick out of their shared hat. "Black House" is a fairly straightforward story, and burying it under the floating camera (oh, all right, I know, it's supposed to be a bird) just cuts it off at the knees.

Frank Muller's breathy deliver continues to enchant. The voices he does in this piece are varied and consistent, creating an atmosphere of spoken word story.

Touches of the Dark Tower mythology is what I sought, and they are few and far between. The plot itself is compact, but the exposition is looooong. The story could have been easily 100 pages (1 or 2 tapes) shorter.
It took way too long for Jack to even admit he had the adventures that took place in the Talisman.
I appreciate Parkus's missive that Jack my have something to do with the endgame, though he ultimately did not appear in the Dark Tower books. Parkus's whispered "Ka" was rather poignant.

The point of view/tense used is rather off-putting. For 2-3 tapes, I was waiting for the prologue to be over, as King often uses the present tense to introduce certain aspects of a story. It went on the whole book, of course, the narrator being the omniscient observer. A little too personal for my taste.

Other than these complaints, it was a well written yarn; enjoyable turns of phrase on every page, brilliant characterization (made all the more real by Muller), and unexpected story twists.

The first ten pages of this book are pure literary writing, beautiful prose. The story itself is fairly simple and if you're familiar (as you should be)with Jack Sawyer's adventures into the Territorries from "The Talisman," then you might be delighted to find out the deep connnections with the Dark Tower series (all of King's books have to do with the Dark Tower in some way). I would advise anyone to begin with the Talisman, move into the Dark Towers, read this book, then Hearts in Atlantis, and then Insomnia, It, The Stand, etc. etc. ad nausea.

Like most contributors, I read "The Talisman" when it first came out in paperback (those days I couldn't *afford* hard cover editions!), and consumed more King and Straub in the years before and since. Unlike some, I don't feel qualified to act as a 'literary' critic...
That said, I will share that I truly enjoyed reading *every* word on *every* page of this book. I read it in three long chunks over the long Memorial Day weekend. I found the style fresh and delightful, the characters - old and new - wonderfully interesting and fully articulated, the narration FABULOUS and inspired (so inclusive!)... I'm running low on superlatives! What a story! What geniuses Straub and King again prove themselves to be! These men are truly at the top of their games.
I find comments on this book by others interesting - attributing certain bits to King and others to Straub. I remember reading interviews of them when "The Talisman" came out years ago; one said Constant Reader might be surprised by who writ what. I think we'd again be amazed at which artist (I *mean* artist, too) penned which pages of this book. Amazed and shocked, in fact...
Bottom line: read this elegant, stylish, witty, thankfully less-gory book by two literary masters of our generation.

As a sequel to The Talisman, Black House is quite brilliant. As a stand-alone novel, it is also an exceptional work, and this is probably why it works so well. As a Constant Reader, the references to the Dark Tower and The Talisman certainly didn't baffle me, I relished them. Overall, Black House is a thrilling novel which is extremely hard to put down (a testimony to the authors is the fact that I ended up cursing them at 3am because I couldn't put the book down earlier). Sure, it feels more like a King novel than Straub, but that is probably to be expected - although the decision to link it with the DT was apparently Peter's idea.
Overall, I rate this novel very highly, and bought the hardcover edition of The Talisman shortly after reading it (I already had the paperback, but thought what the heck) and am about to embark on a journey through Black House's crooked doorway again very shortly. I look forward to it, and honestly rate this as one of King's best works (I know Peter Straub had a hand, but I'm a King collector). It was interesting to catch up with not only an adult Jack, but Ted Brautigan also. Looking forward avidly to the release of DT 5.

First, for those looking for an epic quest, really wouldn't that be a little repetitive? The Talisman was amazing, but having Jack (or anyone else for that matter) do a cross country run to find it again would have been a little pointless. Instead, this book ties together a lot of things from The Talisman, the Dark Tower series, and many of King's other books. If nothing else, I understand the Dark Tower, the role of the gunslingers, and the role of the Breakers now far better than before reading the book.
The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was the first 60 pages or so...flying around from character to character and place to place was dull, and the story didn't advance for quite a long time. The rest of the story made it all worthwhile, however.

I’ll admit, when I started this book I didn’t care for the whole “flight of the crow” POV at first. I actually set the book aside and gave up on it. A friend, however, encouraged me to give it another try, and once I did, as expected, I fell in love with the book. Once you get a feel for the rhythm of the story, you fall into it as easy as an old rocking chair.

As we move into the new Millennium, books are going to have to change to meet the ever growing needs of people. Stephen King and Peter Straub are showing with their latest opus that they are capable of doing just that. As the book opens, we(the audience) are flying 200 feet above a beautiful bucolic small town in Wisconsin, we will soon learn that first impressions can be decieving. This town is wrapped in the cold grip of a madman conveniently dubbed "The Fisherman" by the local press. As the book proceeds King and Straub flex their literary muscles and prove to us why they are the masters of horror. A familiar character pops up. Jack Sawyer is back and very very confused. He has forgotten everything that has happened in the Talisman as well as his friend Lester "Speedy" Parker. Well without giving the story away I will tell you that this book is absolutely one of the finest novels of both author' careers Straub's more literary approach lays a great foundation for King's more radical(but no less awe-inspiring)prose. The book provides an amazing look at small-town America in the new Millenium while simultaneously, being an amazing follow up to one of the finest novels of the dark fantasy/horror genre.

I finished this book last night and I must say, it was very good. I liked it every bit as good as the first entry, The Talisman. I say again: Stephen King and Peter Straub work together with very good results. I recommend this along with The Talisman to all fans of Stephen King and Peter Straub.

P.S. I suggest you stop at page 639 (this paperback edition has 659 pages) in the book and draw your own conclusions about what happens next. The last 20 pages are really not worth reading.

The mere idea of Black House inspired curiosity: It's unusual to see two authors writing one novel together, much less giving it another go 20 years later. Nor did the Talisman lend itself to a sequel easily; following an epic quest, one wondered where the story could go.

The authors' answer was to break away from the first book, nearly entirely: Although we are reintroduced to a now-adult Jack Sawyer, Black House bears little resemblance to the Talisman, aside from references that are largely tangential.

Instead of the Talisman's dark cross-country odyssey, whose urgency is matched by the narrative, Black House focuses on a sex crimes investigation set within the confines of a local town, and the pace slows to a crawl. The overall effect is a mundane letdown. The magical Territories make only fleeting appearances, and the excitement of the first book is missing. This is exemplified in the first 100 pages, which describe French Landing, WI and environs in numbing detail. Unfortunately, these self-satisfied, sometimes cinematic flourishes add little to the story.

The plot bears a surprising similarity to King's earlier Dead Zone (and, as with the Talisman, it is King's flourishes that are most recognizable between the two authors): The protagonist has a special ability that can assist a local sex crimes investigation; is reluctantly drawn into the investigation; develops a relationship with initially skeptical law enforcement. Even the conclusions are comparable. Although this was an interesting part of the Dead Zone, the theme is less compelling when stretched over 600+ pages, especially as a follow-up to the more ambitious Talisman.

King almost always creates good guys that are endearing, and easy to identify with, and particularly noxious bad guys; as always, he wallows in the unpleasant. We've read it all before, and indeed, there is an exceedingly indulgent tone throughout. The Talisman and Black House may parallel different stages of King's career: His early novels were entertaining and well-paced (even if superficial); his later novels seem self-satisfied and meandering, with prose in need of serious editing. It's disappointing that despite his writing ability, King never seemed to rise above the level of pulp fiction.

If you are a follower of the Dark Tower series, I would recommend reading both the Talisman (first) then Black House before picking up the Dark Tower V this November.
If you are not a follower of Dark Tower, read the Talisman before picking up this book. It seems that both authors assume you have read it.
Overall, Black House is a very refreshing read. I loved the 1st person plural POV. Made me feel, in a way, like i was reading/watching a movie.
The plot is decent, characters well developed, the ending lacking. It seems to just be an important step into Dark Tower 5.
So, pick it up. It's a damn good book. King...with some editing by Straub (how much did straub ACTUALLY write here? I think he just gave King the 1st person plural idea, then edited) has created yet another entertaining, gripping, disturbing read!

If you picked up this book expecting a horror novel, well you ALMOST get one. Serial killer aside, this book is "just another tie-in" to the Dark Tower. Those of us waiting on pins and needles for the days of IT, Needful Things, and the early gripping shorts of Night Shift to return find our hopes bashed cruelly against the rocks once again. Welcome to the world of "rabbits the size of kangaroos!" whoopie! :-(

There are some gruesome elements, but they seem like afterthoughts rather than well built up scares. The sense of terror present in other works is reduced to a deep sense of nausea. Bring bag with you, you may _really_ vomit after reading this. Gore, aside, there are no psychological elements to "spook" the reader as in The Shining or IT. You will not come away being any more afraid of child eating murders than you are today.

The style of presentation is amateurish, not reflecting anything King has done before. The passive term "we", indicating the unseen narrator and the reader, appears far too much for my taste. It's overuse in this novel limits, rather than expands, the role of the reader. You are carefully dictated exactly what to see and what "you/we" think about it.

The characters in this story have very little compelling or "real" qualities. For instance, the bizarre and illogical relationship of Jack and Judy. After meeting Judy, his co-worker's wife who is in an insane asylum where she is recovering from the kidnapping of her child by a cannibal serial killer, he is somehow madly in love after five minutes. Without any buildup or common sense, the authors just expect us to accept that there was love at first sight for both of them -- "magically" of coarse. By his second encounter, he asking the head doctor to borrow his office for little "nookie" and a mind trip to "Faraway" with his drugged and unstable true love. Nothing in Jack's character to this point indicated he is anything but an alter boy, and possibly not even heterosexual... much less the type to be writhing on the floor of the loony-bin with married women who had their children kidnapped a few days earlier. The relationship simply doesn't make any logical sense, and nothing in the text helps make it any more sane to the reader. You can't help but feel like Judy is a victim of Jack, which I hope wasn't the actual intention of the authors.

The contrast of gore to the happy-go-lucky world of Faraway (The Territories) is interesting, but the attempt of pulling elements of The Talisman into this book didn't work too well. The main character could have been anyone, not necessarily Jack Sawyer pining over his dead movie-star mother and the traumas of being a twelve year old. In some ways Jack reminded me of Tom Hanks in the movie "Big", he is an adult physically but still a little boy in his mind. This was probably intentional, but if anyone is out there hunting a serial killer like the Fisherman, I certainly hope they are slightly more of an adult mentally.

Finally, the tie-in's to The Dark Tower are just too much. First, King should recognise that he has made a name for himself in horror and, just as there are problems for cross genera actors, some of his fan base simply isn't interested... not even a little. Unlike, putting in a reference to "Castle Rock", all the recent novels shove a whole mythos of gunslingers and kangaroo rabbits at you like smashing a square peg in a round hole. It doesn't matter if it works, at this point it is just a marketing ploy.

Chances are if you are a fan of the Dark Tower series the gore will turn you away, and if you are a fan of horror the kiddie-esque la la land of Faraway will do the same. This book is a no win situation. Do yourself a favor and dust off a classic King novel from your shelf and give it a read instead.

I read the Talisman one summer many moons ago. I treasured the book and have put it at the top of my list. Enjoyed it so well, that as soon as I finished it, I read it again. Black House was not as well written or as captivating as The Talisman but was very glad to seen a sequel. Even though it was slow at times, I enjoyed reading it. The Characters, such as The Thunder Five and Henry, bring you even closer to the book. If you loved the Talisman, this is a must read but do not expect the same effect that you received from the first book.

This book was first published in 2000 (I think) and I've only just read it in 2014. It's a sequel to The Talisman, which I read more years ago than I care to remember.

To call it a sequel, though, isn't quite right. It involves Jack Sawyer, who was the main character in The Talisman. We catch up with him as an adult. However, the story is more about the happenings at the town of French Landing than it is about Jack.

I couldn't really remember much about The Talisman, and it didn't spoil my enjoyment of this story, which stands on its own merit.

It's a big book - about 800 pages in paperback, so it will take you some time to get through. But it's worth it.

I still remember the first time I read "The Talisman It was my sophomore year of college and I was stuck on a loooong road trip with some not very imaginative people--trapped in a light blue buick with girls who never, ever read anything that wasn't a textbook. Fortunately I came prepared-- I settled myself in and started what would become one of my favorite books of all time. I promptly secured a copy of "Black House" the first day it was available at my local bookstore; I was hoping it would be as captivating as "The Talisman," but being a sequal and all I was trying not to get too worked up. So I read the book. I read it in one night. Jack Sawyer may have grown up but he still retains the qualities of his boyhood. He is still on a journey, he still has his integrity and he still has the spirit that Lily Cavanaugh, Queen of the B movies, instilled in him. The idea of the territories and our world being two sides of a coin is one of the more compelling aspects of "the Talisman." This idea is expanded upon in "Black House" and fits in well with the whole beam-tower-gunslinger thread that has been woven throughout Mr. Kings' stories in connection with the "Dark Tower" series. Suffice to say--if you enjoyed "The Talisman" you will enjoy "Black House." Be prepared to catch up with some familiar characters, as well as meet some wonderfully dynamic new ones. Mr. King, Mr. Straub--thank you!

I am drawn to it, laying there on my bed table. This book is in itself a place where the realities merge and blur, a pathway into another world. A thinny if you will...

After the first introductory chapter, which to be honest is very slow, this book really grabbed me and compelled me not to put it down. I had some semi-serious thoughts of staying home from work to be able to keep reading.

Jack Sawyer, 20 years after the events in the talisman, is a genius cop. Touched by the territories he has an inexplicable insight that guides him. The police work has gotten to him, however, and now, still a young man, he is retired and has just moved to French Landing, a formerly peaceful small town - presently in severe unrest. Jack eventually has to recommence his former line of work to bring clarity into some gruesome killings in the French Landing area. Killings somehow related to the mysterious and elusive Black House and also the world of his childhood experiences - The Territories.

Not only is this a terrific mystery/crime/suspense novel but the connections to the Dark Tower story line becomes even more apparent than in the Talisman, which is of course always good and will get the constant reader some insights and joyous grasping-of-connections-only-hinted-at :), but that is in no way necessary for understanding and enjoying the plot as such...

This is an awesome book and I recommend it to everyone. I would strongly suggest that one reads the Talisman first though, which is not only also an awesome book but it will put the Black House in its context, and although this book does not necessarily NEED a context, it sure deserves it :)

Hope you will enjoy Black House as I did

Okay, first of all I am not a Dark Tower fan. I guess I still am a King fan - although a disgruntled one from Insomnia onwards - but I am a huge Straub fan.
Talisman was fantastic, and although it has been a while since I have read it, I found this easy to get into. The writing style seemed more pitched in Straub country, although Stephen has been maturing of late as well.
King fans? Buy this, it is probably as good as he has been over the last few years. Being a Straub fan, I missed the wider canvas that he paints - True this is a big book, but it felt like some of the strokes were rushed and it doesn't have the resonance that his ealier work - such as Ghost story ( my favourite novel ) or Floating Dragon - contains.
I did a thing typical of when I read a King novel - I closed the book half elated that it was as good as it was, and half wishing it did not have to end only to put it back without pause on my book case. When the story is strong, the characters deep and the tone gripping I usually read it again. With Kings latest I find that I finish it still hungry for more - somehow it doesn't satisfy.
This is not to say that the novel is bad, as you can see I have given it four stars, but I wonder what could have been had Straub been at the helm al alone except for the occasional chip in by King.
Seems that I like my King in moderation these days. Nothing bad about that. But Mr Straub? Bring it on!

The Talisman was clearly an early work by these two and Black House started off very strong, evincing more experience. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, it suffers from a weak and somewhat predictable ending. Still, until the last 100 pages, I found the writing highly enjoyable and the story engaging. In particular, Part I of the novel was riveting and far more scary than much of King's most recent work. If, like me, you are interested in the Dark Tower series, it seems clear that this story will tie in to Dark Tower V and therefore I'd try to get to it.

Yes, it does start slow. But the voice of the book, a fourth person fly on the wall type of tone, works, but takes time to get used to. I could not put down the book, and I fell in love with all the characters (as I usually do with King). Straub's literary flow comes through too, making it a very deep story (hence why some people found it un-King-like). There were many Dark Tower references, and I loved that, but I thought it was a very Talisman book, only it moved on from that--instead of being just a sequel, it was a foreshadowing book, a book that could also hold on its own, and give you so much about the Dark Tower series, The Talisman, and the work of horror/science fiction. I loved it. I thought it the best King book in a few years. I recommend it holeheartedly.

Compared to The Talisman, I can only give Black House 4 stars... no, it's not AS good, but it is a good book. The first 100 - 120 pages are relatively slow and they don't hold your attention very well and they're also very graphic (gross). There's quite a bit of "filler text" (analogies, unecessary descriptions, etc). But after that, the story really picks up and starts falling into place. The perspective is kind of hard to get used to (you're observing the story as a bird, instead of actually being "in" the story) and that's really aggravating in the beginning... but again, it kind of dissolves. You odn't really fall in love with the characters in this book like you do in The Talisman, but you still love AND hate some of them. On the positive side, it's a Stephen King book, so it's got some interesting characters and events... things you don't expect. As for the Dark Tower references... I'm a huge DT fan, so every little aside to the DT makes my heart pound. However, there aren't a whole lot in this book so you don't have to be familiar with the DT books to read this one. And the only reason you need to have read The Talisman is for a few references, but nothing important. Overall, it's a very interesting book, just a little slow. So RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, I give it 4 stars and recommend you stick with it till the end... it's worth it.

I have to say I loved this book. We're not introduced to the protagonist (Jack Sawyer, whom you may remember from _The_Talisman_) until around page 70 or so, and the writing style was a little odd (instead of third person or first person singular, the book is written mostly in a first person plural, and it's present tense, which was a little strange at first).
I don't want to give too much of the story away in this review, but I do want to admonish potential readers of this book to wait until they've done a bit more Stephen King reading. My absolute favorite books in the world are the Dark Tower series (expected to be finished in early 2003), and this book plays heavily on them. Also, if you've not read _The_Talisman_, I strongly recommend reading that first. I'm not saying that reading this will be awful without reading all of that (it is a lot of prerequisite reading!), in fact, it'll probably be fantastic! However, in order to be able to truly appreciate this book's references to, among other things, the beams, the breakers, the (subtle reference in the beginning to the) Agincourt, etc., the five books I mentioned (_The_Talisman_, _The_Gunslinger_, _The_Drawing_Of_the_Three_, and _Wizard_and_Glass_ [also, _Hearts_in_Atlantis_'s first novella, if you're really a glutton for reading]) are in order.
I guess I ought to give some summary of the book at this point: Jack Sawyer, a boy when last seen in _The_Talisman_, has grown up, made a name for himself as a police detective, and abruptly retired to live a simple life in Wisconsin. Unluckily for him and the rest of the town in which he lives, there is a serial kidnapper/murderer on the prowl. The storyline takes readers into the minds of the murderer, the cops, the victims' families, and several others (notably a lovable blind man with exceptional perception, class, and charm) relatively smoothly and convincingly. As with the earlier King/Straub collaboration, the prose is fantastic, and, while relatively sophisticated, easy to read.
One final point to make: "opopanox" is a medicinal herb, but is not used in that way in this book, in case you wonder as you read it. Happy reading.

I really enjoyed Black House. I know several people were disappointed in it because it was too gruesome and too confusing from a narrative stand-point. While that is completely true, I thought it was incredible from start to finish. I daresay I thought it was BETTER than the Talisman. It pulled me and captivated me more and more with each page I read.
This book was a lot darker than The Talisman. The subject matter was quite intense (a madman is killing children and eating parts of their bodies) and graphic at times (the description of one of the dead children is painted far too realistically for reader's with vivid imaginations and weak stomachs), but that only adds to the dark theme of the story. Where The Talisman was essentially all about childhood and how everything seems wonderful, Black House is definitely about the adult experience and how hard life can get from time to time.
What I enjoyed the most about this book was finding out what happened to all the characters from The Talisman. We are re-introduced to Jack Sawyer (the 13-year-old hero of The Talisman), now a 35-year-old retired L.A. cop living in Wisconsin. He has no memory of ever being in the territories. I really liked seeing Jack as an adult. As a kid he was disrespected by many of the central characters and it was great to see how intelligent and take charge he became. He was more compassionate and more friendly than he was as a child as well. We also discover what happened to the likes of Lily Cavanagh-Sawyer, Speedy Parker, and Richard Sloat.
In addition to this we are introduced to some fantastic new characters, such as Henry Leyden (my personal favorite), a blind disc jockey with a ton of personalities; Breezer St. Pierre (the father of one of the murdered children) and his biker gang posse (all very intelligent college graduates); Dale Gilberson, the hard-working and disrespected chief of police; Judy Marshall, the beautiful and confident mother of on of the missing children; Ty Marshall, her brave and powerful missing son; Wendell Green, a smarmy news reporter who will stop at nothing to get his story; Gorg, the evil talking crow; and Charles Burnside, an insane old man who has a little bit of knowledge of the territories. And of course the Black House. An evil house that is the gateway between this world and the world of The Crimson King.
The actual story does start a little slow. The reader is transported into the story via narration and we spend the first 70 pages meeting some of the central characters I just mentioned. I thought it was a good way to start the story because we knew who everyone was and there was no confusion as the story continued. Once Ty Marshall disappears the story really picks up. We journey with Jack as he interviews Ty's friends and his mother about his disappearence, as he re-enters the territories and meets the love of his life, Judy's twinner Sophie, and we are there as he tries to save Ty. We are also there to witness his horrifying ending, but it's not my place to give that away what happens. While there is some light humor in the story, it is very dark. There is a lot of blood and a lot of gore and not everyone survives to the end of the story.
With several references to King's Dark Tower series and The Talisman, you will probably need to be a King fan to understand all the references. However, you don't have to read these stories to enjoy the richness of this story.
Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy today! You won't be disappointed!

This book is awesome. As with many of King's books this one is connected to the Dark Tower. It was a fantastic read. I had detailed images in my head from the writing. Which is great except it is real graphic and involves children so preview it before letting a minor read it. There was a couple moments were I might have turned my head if it was a movie.
But I think it would make a great movie. One of my favorite books. My only complaint is that it was too short.

This book is fine, but does not live up to the standard of the Talisman.
I notice that many reviwers feel that there is some conflict with this and the Dark Tower series. Having never read those books, I was able to comfortably associate this and The Talisman, based on the desciptions and people in both. I was, however, left with a desire to learn more about Roland and the Dark Tower series, which I will read in the future.
This story focuses more on present day USA, which is where it falls in comparison to The Talisman, whose strength lay in its descriptions of the alternate world called The Territories.
Good book, but less mentally stimulating than its prequel.

It is hard for me to believe that any fans of the TALISMAN could
find anything to like in this 'Sequel.' So many missed opportunities....no sense of wonder, no time spent in the Territories, no interesting POV's from a villain to help sustain
interest (SO unlike the memorable evil of the first book).
It is obvious that Straub just let SK take the reins; why not,
this book will sell more copies than PS's last 5 books combined.
The "Dark Tower" stuff is mostly just silly, and I think it is
sad that this book was published at all....how could he NOT have
introduced Henry to the Territories...the only interesting character in the book (including JACK), and we don't even
get to see his extraordinary senses reaction to the Territories.
If King/Straub had written this 20 years ago, it would have been
a MUCH, MUCH better book. As it is written, it is completely
pointless and un-necessary.

Having only read a handful of King's stories and none of Straub's (I'm a koontz fan myself) I was a bit skeptical as to how much I'd get into this book. The first 90 pages supported my suspiscions in that it was slow going with a bit of unnecessary wordiness BUT then the story blossomed and the dark and sinister plot grabbed me by surprise. I was a little bewildered by the way in which the narration unfolded at first, with the spirit-like beings taking me on a journey here and there, but at the end of the story it all made sense. I liked how King and Straub start the reader out with a seemingly normal flock of characters with a tragic set of circumstances; a very believable storyline. Then they open the door deep into the book to a world thats turned topsie-turvie in such a successful transition you don't miss a beat. Another concept I rather enjoyed, is that the authors choose to be non-conformists with the character development stereo-type. The typical thing to do is to highly develop unexpendable characters and to mininally develop characters whose purpose's are to be extingished later in the story. They even comment at the end about it! How clever. In reading the reviews inside the cover, I realize I'm not the only one waiting for a sequel to the trials and tribulations of Jack Sawyer.

Now " the black house" is the sequal to the novel "talisman" and now when i 1st read the talisman i was blown away it was an amazing piece of literature and i was excited when i heard there was a sequal Now the black house is decent but far from King's and straub's best it was very hard to make a sequal to such a novel(talisman) and the black house just doesn't live up and its hard to get into but it gets better after the 200th page or so but i think they should have taken a different direction with this one.

I have just completed reading Black House, which certainly is a large book, and I have noticed the commentary on this in other reviews, but nevertheless I had read it cover to cover in two days. Certainly it is over descriptive in places and it does have its moments of outright grottiness in-the-gutter description, which is typical of Stephen King, but it is still a great book. I enjoyed the return to the Territories of the Talisman, albeit too brief a visit, but then it does add to the surpise, but welcome, ending which indicates more to come. I sincerely hope that the authors deliver on that promise. I would however strongly recommend that a person read The Talisman prior to Black House as it did seem to me that if you had not read Talisman you would be rather lost with the references to the characters from that story, which frequently pop up in Black House. Overall though, albeit with some down points, I found the book absorbing and enjoyable and definitely kept my nose in it until the end.

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.

To begin with, I really love The Talisman. It is one of my favorite books of all time and one that I re-read whenever I am in the need for a good story. That being said, The Black House was a MOST disappointing sequel. The narrative style that is employed was annoying. The introductions of the characters in the first section of the book drags. The middle part is very good and moves along nicely. The end of the book is fairly predictable but does OK. The last part, after the narrator's warning, was very good, as well.
The Territories are hardly touched on and the major scene that is played out there is annoyingly full of references to Stephen King's Dark Tower and the Gunslinger stuff. I would have preferred that The Talisman world be untainted by the rest of the King-verse, but it's too much to ask, I suppose.
Very few of the characters are engaging and interesting, unlike the Talisman where there were so many fascinating characters to meet and I think that is what disappointed me the most.
If you enjoyed The Talisman, this is an OK book - I suggest borrowing the book or buying it used. If you like the Stephen King Universe, this book will probably make you happy for the tie-ins. Personally, it is not a book I am going to keep or re-read.

Stephen King used to be one of my favorite authors. What I liked best about his writing was his striking, true-to-life dialogue and his ability to make even the most peripheral characters fully fleshed and interesting. No matter how far fetched, terrifying or creepy the plot, it was always presented in an extremely "realistic" matter. I believed vampires could take over a small town after Salem's Lot, old cars made me anxious after I read Christine.
When I look at a chronology of his best sellers, it's easy to see where the "realistic tone" of Stephen King's writing I adored began to be subverted by, well, I don't even know how to explain it. "It" was the last Stephen King book that I truely loved, he perfectly nailed the friendships of the young Losers and the writing appears effortless.
The disappointment began with Tommyknockers, instead of the believability of the earlier books, I never felt like the tommyknockers themselves were explained well enough. While Needful things was just okay, Insomnia was the first Stephen King book I actively disliked. I hated the dream-like, trippy ending which was such a departure from the crisper, more realistic tones of his earlier novels. This trend was continued in Rose Madder, Desperation and the Regulators.
I have pretty much liked each new book less and less. I disliked Dreamcatcher so much I returned it to the bookstore for a refund. While I think Black House is a better book than Dreamcatcher, I find it extremely precious and affected. The royal "we" of the narration, for example, becomes extremely tiresome. I also began to despise the "Kingisms" I used to appreciate, you know, the little terms like "bXitchrod." His wonderful ability to inhabit a character and speak in a natural voice for that person has disintegrated, everything feels forced to me.
I'm also disappointed in Stephen King's treatment of the disabled. In Dreamcatcher, the mentally disabled boy was depicted in a nearly beautific light, in Black House, blind Henry is so cool and so hip as to be rendered cartoon-like. He plays to nearly every stereotype of the blind, since Henry can't see, his other senses are hightened to nearly superhuman levels! He doesn't NEED to see, heck, according to Henry, the blind can even drive.
Perhaps I am too harsh, who am I to deny my former favorite author the chance to mature as a writer, to attain a new depth of vision and to strive for a greater lyricism? All I know is, I used to look forward to every new book and now I don't.
-- Former #1 fan

..that I am VERY disappointed.
To all the Talisman fans out there: this is like watching Godfather 3!!
Although you know you are going to read it, it will make you sorry you did!!!
WARNING: spoilers ahead!
For me, The Talisman was magical because of the Territories. I was sooo looking forward to visiting again!!! But SK/PS don't take us there. Instead, we are stuck in Wisconsin with no return ticket. I was appalled at the gruesome-ness of the book. It was wholly depressing. The ending just seemed to happen as a quick wrap-up; there seemed to be this massive build-up which fizzles in a few pages.
I am a HUGE SK fan. I am crushed. The first half of this book was almost impossible to get through. The only redeeming quality to this tome is the insight into the DK series. I think I'll go back and re-read Hearts of Atlantis now that I have a better understanding of Breakers.
So: Tyler has no Twinner? does that mean we could possibly hold out hope for a nother sequel- maybe Ty flipping?? Oh- I feel like Judy Marshall: I want to visit Faraway but I am trapped forever in this world!!!

I purposely tried to avoid the hype. I shied away from reviews and stories about it. I was just too excited to get a sequel to the Talisman. Please, don't ruin it for me, oh Entertainment Weekly...
Bought it. Read it. Loved It. Fantastic book, the tie in to the Dark Tower was a thrilling surprise, along with the quick reference to Hearts in Atlantis. He is truly tying together all the loose ends of all his novels, since they all take place in the world of the Tower. I didn't want it to end, and I am making my public plea to Stephen...
PLEASE, WHERE IS BOOK FIVE of DARK TOWER???
signed, a loyal reader for 16 years.

First some small criticisms: The "viewpoint" felt a bit confused, and a little too much in the foreground of the tale at times (this is said as one who feels viewpoint should be as unnoticeable as possible). Related, the fading in and out from omniscient to direct felt a bit awkward here and there. And the late part of the book felt slightly rushed and compressed, as thought a publication deadline had begun to dominate the authors and story to some degree, as opposed to the first 3/4 or so, which had beautiful literary tempo. No doubt related to this, there were several typos that should've been caught toward the end.
Beyond these little quips, the book is as good as anything I've ever read, and more compelling a tale (read as: "impossible to put down") than anything I ever recall reading. Rating the book 5 stars doesn't do "Black House" justice, it's clearly off the normal rating chart. It's two excellent authors combining and interlacing their skills to produce much more than the sum of their parts. If you are not too sqeamish and want to read a real masterpiece of a novel, this is a major classic.
Warning: may cause temporary sleep difficulty!

Like a lot of other reviewers, I loved the Talisman, which, while not perfect, was a finely crafted work of art compared to this novel-length Mad-Libs as filled out by two authors who, IMHO, have declined greatly in the last 20 years.
3 words sum up my disappointment and embarrassment in/for these two formerly talented authors: magic baseball bat.
Don't waste your time.

I just started this book. I've read the first few chapters, and I'm finding it tough going. The narrator, an omnipresent we, is obtrusive and offputting. There's too much description, and too little action. The main character has yet to be introduced.
I'll try reading a few more chapters, but I don't expect a Steven King/Peter Straub novel to be something you have to struggle through. The best part of reading Steven King (normally) is how he immediately and effortlessly focuses your attention and gets you engrossed in the story.

How can you go wrong with these two powerhouse authors? I liked the story and was definitely into the writing style.

I did like the first one much more - it had an innocence that having a younger main character provided. This was 'harder edged' yet still enjoyable.

OK. Let's keep it shortish and not too sweet:
Loved it after I got over the "cleverness" (not) of the narrative. I felt King and Stroub were treating me like a moron - "Let us go now hence and investigate....". Come on!! I nearly gave up after 100 pages or so. Eventually of course the story kicks in and takes over, obfuscating (sorry) the cleverness.
I could have given it two and a half stars, but then that's a reflection based on the annoyance factors, not the story. Four and a half stars for the story - It is GOOD!
Other reviewers have outlined the plot and it's ties to other King stories. Suffice to say it would be better if you HAD read Talisman and King's Dark Tower series before, but it isn't paramount.
NOTE: Just 'cos you're a King fan don't defend an experimental style as used here - UNLESS it works for you. It didn't for me, but in the end I enjoyed the complexity of the story and as usual the characterising.
I may not be a literati, but I think King (don't know Stroub well enough) should write the stories for himself for sure (it's the only way). But he MUST treat Constant Readers with respect.
I managed with the narrative style - eventually, but kept hoping it was (as King has said in his book "On Writing") simply a device, one used only in the introductory chapters. It went on. And on. AND ON!!
Stick with it though, fellow Constant Readers, because in the end this story IS fabulous, in the real sense of the word.

Of the many King books we own, I selected this one to hold up as an example of the power of collaboration. From beginning to end, Black House is mesmerizing. I read a couple negative critcisms when it first came out, but wasn't about to let that discourage me. The distinguishing characteristic of this story is that it works well on it's own. Certainly, if you read and loved The Talisman, you're going to eat this puppy up. The only valid negative observation I can make is , yes, you can practically pinpoint the parts where Straub meanders a bit setting up a scene and seems to go off on tangents, but when the writers are of this caliber, and the story is this engrossing, I can be patient. These two authors working together is a unique type of storytelling sorcery, there are moments of awesome terror in this tale, bewitching fantasy, and the depictions of monstrous evil? Pure King, baby.

I'm not going to repeat the plot, it's already been done here. I loved the Talisman, and I'm a huge fan of the Dark Tower series. That said, I wish King would just stop messing about and give us the next episode of the DT instead of these teasers like in 'Hearts in Atlantis' and now 'Black House'.
"Black House' is exceedingly annoying to read, I've always had a dislike of books written in the present tense, so that in itself is a major annoyance. Couple this with the endless introduction which is written as if in a screenplay - it came off as a conceit of whoever wrote it, I would guess Straub. Occasionally the writing takes off and the book becomes almost enjoyable, this is where Steve has taken over I'm guessing, but everything in the book seems to take forever to happen. It's not like I'm some kid who wants lots of action and fast, I love John Irving's books for instance, but this book seriously needed the attention of a good editor.
I still haven't finished it, but it's more like I feel I have to finish it as I spent the money on it, not that I'm desperate to get to the end. It's hard work.
I wish I'd saved my money.

I read the Talisman a long time ago. Then I got this book, and decided that before I jumped into it, I should re-read the Talisman.
I cannot begin to describe the disappointment of attempting to read Black House only hours after finishing the Talisman. The way the story is told is just horrible. The whole "we" thing is completely unbearable. Simply put- the writing style was so bad I couldn't read the book. I had to put it down after only a few pages, for fear I would vomit.
I skipped several hundred pages just to see if that particular writing style persisted throughout the entire book, and it appears that it did. I was horrified.
So yeah, it's a horror book. Just not what I wanted. Unreadible. I'm sure, somewhere in between the terrible prose there is a story worth reading about, but I couldn't get there. I'm disappointed to say the least.

I ordered this book the instant it was available because on Stephen King's web site it says:
"For those of you who are Dark Tower fans, Black House will answer many questions you may have about the Crimson King, who/what are Breakers, how does Ted Brautigan fit in, etc. It will be the closest thing to a DT novel you'll see before the fall of the Year Three ('03)."
Hopefully Black House is the farthest thing from the Dark Tower novels I hope to see in 2003. Of the 640 pages about 5 of them related to the Dark Tower series. After the literary triumph that was Wizard and Glass, Black House falls short of what you would expect from Stephen King. Let us do remember that this book was co-authored by Peter Straub, who will hopefully play no part in the Dark Tower books to come.
Independent of my Dark Tower expectations this book would have gotten three stars from me as there were some entertaining elements but it moved too slowly to rate any higher.

Black House has about as much to do with The Talisman as the old Lou Grant drama series had to do with The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
As a huge fan of The Talisman, I almost flipped when I realized Black House was its sequel. When I opened it, I felt like a kid opening a new Harry Potter book. Unfortunately, by the time I was about 300 pages in, I realized this was just a long, rambling attempt to make money and throw a bone to fans waiting impatiently for the next Dark Tower novel.
Black House is long, tedious, boring and, worst of all, has no connection with The Talisman. The Territories are barely mentioned and there's absolutely none of the sense of wonder and adventure that made the first book such a magical read.
Jack Sawyer is unrecognizable, his retun to the Territories is rushed and disappointing and Henry Leyden, touted by many as one of King's most memorable characters, never comes close to realizing his potential.
The love story is so tacked on as to be ludicrous. It's a desperate attempt to make Jack seem more real -- more Talismanish -- than he does in the rest of the book.
There are many, many things wrong with Black House and I caution anyone looking for more of The Talisman to save their money. I almost wish I hadn't read BH -- at leat then I could have kept The Talisman unsullied in my memory.

I picked up Black House thinking that it was going to be a lot like The Talisman, and I was somewhat disappointed that it was so different. I enjoyed the story line about the killer, the fisherman, and I thought that the idea of Jack being a Police Officer was a good one, I just wish that more time were spent in the territories.
All in all, if you like Stephen King, then this might work for you, just don't expect a story like the Talisman.

If you're a casual Stephen King (or Peter Straub) reader, or just a fan, this book may disappoint you. Likewise if you're expecting further adventures of Jack Sawyer in the Territories. Jack spends very little time in the Territories in Black House, and most of that comes near the end of the book. I prepped myself for Black House by rereading The Talisman. If you're planning on doing this, too, I won't tell you to reconsider, because it's a very entertaining way to spend your time. And it can help you to understand the authors' otherwise obscure references to events of twenty years ago and their use of seemingly odd phrases like "right here and now" that appeared in the first book. But most folks can get their money's worth from Black House without spending a week (more or less) reading the 700+ page prequel to this novel. And if you're a hardcore horror nut, neither Talisman nor House is up your alley anyway.
Another caveat: King experiments here with a different style of writing that may be off-putting to many readers. (It may not seem so different to Straub fans. I don't know; having read only The Talisman and Koko, I don't consider myself an authority on his works, but I can say I sensed more of his presence in House than I did in Talisman.) The authors use the simple present tense throughout Black House, and yet refer to past events in the past perfect tense, whereas simple past seems more correct to some of us English teachers. (King himself taught English before making a name for himself as a writer, so not all academicians will agree with me on this admittedly minor point.) And I found that their constant use of the first person plural, far from getting me personally involved, kept me from losing myself in the story. Reminded me of King's derogatory remarks about Harold Lauder's writing (second person present tense) in The Stand.
Technical matters and other sniveling complaints aside, Black House is a great read. If you read King for his humor, as I do, you won't be disappointed here. His wry wit comes through on every page. And those of you who, like me, are bizarrely fascinated by his knack for the gross-out also will not feel left out. This story revolves around Jack's attempts to track down the serial killer of children in a small Wisconsin community who eats parts of his victims' bodies and then leaves notes to their parents describing the joy he had in consuming them. The Fisherman is one of Stephen King's sickest creations to date.
For those of you die-hard King addicts (we know who we are) who are going through withdrawal while waiting so impatiently for your next fix of Dark Tower, wait no longer! See your local "dealer" (i.e., bookstore proprietor) today and shoot up with House. Not an official installment of his Dark Tower series, Black House is nonetheless a vehicle for King to give us some background info on gunslingers and the Crimson King. If you were secretly pleased (as I was) when King left horror behind in the late '80s to write modern-day myths, you will love this book. Don't imagine that his letting Mr. Straub into his private Dark Tower world is a sacrilege. The two together have some intriguing philosophical things to say about the metaphysics of that world-indeed, about all worlds. (And in a nod to the late great mythologist Joseph Campbell, their suggestion that a minor character is using alcoholism to "follow her bliss" is a hoot!)
The best reason I can give you for buying Black House is that no one in their right minds would loan it to you. We know we'd never get it back!

Not only is it a good companion to the Dark Tower Series, it's also a great sequal. Not only do you not have to read the Talisman the first book, or the Dark Tower book, it's a good stand alone book, it helps if you read the Talisman first but i don't have too, i didn't. Later i went back and read it but i read this one first, but i don't know many sequal books that you can read without reading the first. Good read, starts of slow but when things start to happen, you just have to hold on tight.

This sequel to the Talisman completely mesmerized me and I read it in a matter of days. Jack has returned--dear pure Jack who once sought the talisman. Jack is about 23 years older though, and seeking a disgusting pedophile named the Fisherman. In the end they achieve their goal against the Crimson King and Jack is almost mortally wounded by a deranged bystander--he must remain in the territories forever.
Only Stephen King's Talisman and Dark Tower series can get me so deeply involved in a book.

I have been waiting for a sequel to "The Talisman" for years. It was worth the wait. If you have not read "The Talisman", read it before you read "Black House". The characters in "Black House" are richly developed, the narrative-though a bit daunting at times-is fast paced and wonderfully descriptive. This book is a treat for all King fans, reading more like his older works than his newer. I thought the ending was a bit contrived, hence the 4 stars instead of 5.

I'm sorry, I just could not stand this book. I absolutely loved the Talisman and the dark Tower books thusfar (the only worthy books by Stephen King). I was looking for another fun adventure through the Terriritories suitibally after the Talisman ended (we all remember the very end of it). But so long after the last book...it doesn't wasn't a fun read. And does King have to insert the Dark Tower into EVERYTHING? Sure, the novelty was ok the first few times it appeared in his stories...but repeatedly? Over and over again?! Absolutley NOT! This shows he's running out of material fast. If you want to read king read his Dark Tower Series and The Talisman. If you have read those, wait for Wolves of the Calla, the 5th Dark Tower book and then wait for the rest.
Hopefully he keeps his promise of retiring after he has completed his Dark Tower Books. And hopefully he keeps his eyes on the real project and does not stray into other books like he has been doing.

If you're one of King's constant readers you will agree that The Talisman was all King. Black House seems all Straub.

The narratvie reads like a screenplay, which at times is drudging.

You look and look and sometimes you find King, buried in a sentence here and there ... here and now.

But (and here I'll use Black House style of narrative) as we float over Straub's neighborhood, and as we float over the Safeway, which

seems to have a sale on toilet paper, we reach Mr. Straub's home. He is scratching his head with one hand while the other tentative hand is resting on the keyboard of his computer. He's stuck. He can't seem to come up with the next sentence. Then he 'flips' and there is King, next to him, and he whispers into Straub's ear, and Straub has the next sentence.

So as we read Black House we know it's Straub, but the haunt of King is evident throughout the novel. It's Straub's writing style, but it's King's imagination. Oh, and the DT tie-in's are executed masterfully.

Reading this book, this past week, just after 9/11/2001, was disturbing.
pg 47 "with those foreign words, those terrible impacted images of the Tower and the burning caves beneath"
Slippage occurs between worlds, along the borders. The authors could have been describing the feeling of the past two weeks when our reality has been altered.
A good read, more judicious editing may have helped the pace, but all in all a welcome addition to the Dark Tower saga.

The more I waded through the choppy and often pretentious prose, the more it seemed likely that Mr. King was phoning this one in. Present in only sadly insufficient quantities is the dark humor that leaves you (or at least me) chuckling for pages afterward. Also conspicious for its rarity is the flowing narrative that King seems able to effortlessly construct (probably even while watching Sox games and/or conversing with his family).
This work shares the heavy hand of recent efforts by Peter Straub (Mr. X, specifically). Can't help but wonder if Straub is going downhill fast or maybe King has actually written all of Straub's (good) books in a brilliant strategy to reduce market saturation and offer a Stephen King alternative. Except now 'Peter Straub' has manifested himself for real in true 'Dark Half' fashion and is now writing books on his own (which will eventually lead to BIG trouble, of course). OK, scratch that, but once you slog through these 600 pages you'll understand where I am coming from. The ONLY thing that could have made this book shine (Dark Tower references were not enough) would have been a compelling confrontation with the Bad Guy. No such luck: it seems that little bit of story-telling was auctioned off to a class of 3rd graders from King's hometown.

Black House is a must fot the Dark Tower fan. The book has a lot of character development the first 200 pages or so, then the book takes it to the next level. This is my 2nd favorite Dark Tower book related book(Wizard & Glass #1). I will admit, if you are not a Dark Tower reader this book may be no better than average. The none Dark Tower reader will find that parts of the book make no sense and that the story gets lost in left field sometimes.

I've just finished Black House, and here's what I think: Stephen King wrote at least 90 % of that book!!! I'm sure Peter Straub wrote the very first chapter -- it just doesn't read like Stephen King's masterful prose -- and very few others, but SK did the main job on that novel! To my mind, it's not really a collaboration at all . . . I think SK just wanted to have Peter Straub's name on the cover as well (possibly because The Talisman sported both names on the front), and thus invited him to contribute a few thousand words to this admittedly moderate mystery/fantasy novel.
I wonder whether they split the money 50-50 or, more fairly, 90-10. What do you think?

The world champs of horror, Straub & King have created this water filled ham size volume of forgettable lore of a quasi sequel, which is Dickensian in its weight, but quite po' in comparison with Poe. Did these guys get paid by the word or the pound? Once again we see King's cartoon characters in action across multiple "worlds"--the righteous "black man" the happy wisecracking "blind man" the "biker" with delusions of literacy, and the nasty runny faced "Wizard of Odds". Then there's happy Jack Sawyer fighting a never ending battle for truth, justice and Tyler the wiz kid destined to work revolving shifts on an image reminiscent of something from Hellraiser II. Of course, given the immense talent of these two, there are some wonderful passages sandwhiched in between a bunch of white bread narration and too much author inserted mayonnaise. The octogenarian bad guy, Burnside/Bierstone is the only interesting character in this overcooked stew--and he's the plenipotentiary of the real bad guy from the other side of Hell. Calling Dr. Burn-Burn, we need hedge clippers in editorial STAT! Want to make better use of your time than reading this? Lovecraft, Sturgeon, Lieber-Hell- even Derleth could be just what the Doctor ordered.

This book is really more of King's creation than Straub's. The Talisman was a wonderful, imaginative book. Black House is pretty good as an installment of the (endless!) Dark Tower series. At any rate, it was nice to hear about the Ted Brautigan character in "Black House" too, just to find out what became of him after the novella "Low Men in Yellow Coats". The book is a bit dark, but certainly entertaining.

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...

As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I was thrilled to see how Stephen King and Peter Straub brought back Jack Sawyer, their youthful hero from THE TALISMAN, in BLACK HOUSE--a horror story packaged in a fantasy framed within a mystery. Jack is now in his thirties, and he's left the LAPD. He's living in western Wisconsin where a horror story is occurring. A serial killer is butchering children and dining on their bodies. Jack has no specific memories of the Territories (from THE TALISMAN), but we all know that King and Straub are too talented of professionals to let this poor fellow be. Jack finds himself roped into the investigation and haunted by wide-awake dreams and half-memories of the Territories. You can guess where this book is heading--straight to the top of the bestseller lists.

I read the Talisman as a child, and I was knocked out by both the story and the prose. It immediately went to the number one spot on my 'Top Ten Best Fantasy Books of all Time' list. And it has never been knocked from that spot. I consider it to be the best book that Stephen King ever (co)wrote and I re-read it about once a year.
So when I heard that a sequel to the Talisman was coming out, I couldn't wait. I don't usually buy hardback, preferring to wait for the more economical paperback, but I had to have this one right now. I read it cover to cover, in one sitting. And it was a major disappointment.
The book was written in an odd third person plural {like a voice-over by 'we', if that makes it any clearer for you}, and it was very distracting. The prose didn't seem to help the story, it seemed to hinder it. And where is that much-loved King wittiness, that sly humor? I couldn't find any. I almost put the book down in the first three chapters and that is rare for me. I read so quickly that I can usually slog through just about anything, waiting for it to get better. I struggled on, and it did get a bit better.
A few of the characters were great. I think Jack stayed a little two-dimensional for me, but the blind Henry was wonderful, as were the bikers with IQ's off the scale.
If I hadn't read the Talisman, I really wouldn't have known what was going on. The Territories were barely even a part of this book, which was a major disappointment, and there were too many cryptic references to other books.
And here is the worst thing of all for me: The damned Dark Tower has crept into this book, too. I suppose I'm in the minority, but I hate the Dark Tower series and I don't care if he ever writes another one. I hate the characters from it and I hate the premise. And I really, really hate the fact that this book is more Dark Tower than Black House.
The climax of the book was resolved too quickly, and it leaves one with a sense of unreality (a funny thing to say, I guess, after reading a Stephen King novel) and there might as well have been a huge sign at the end touting the next in the Dark Tower series.
I would have liked more Territory involvement, I would have liked more character development, and I don't know what else. Whatever the missing element is, it ruined this book for me.

We have had the hard cover of Black House on our book case since it was originally released. My husband read it right away but I didn't touch it until a couple days ago. I don't know why I never read it, I just couldn't be bothered. I did read The Talisman, a long time ago and I have requested the sound recording from our local library to refresh my memory. I have to say, so far, I am enjoying Black House. It is keeping me interested. I'll give another review when I finish. I finished it and liked it.

I haven't read a lot of Stephen King's books, but I have read The Talisman, so I don't know how to compare to his other books. But I thought this was much more crude and disgusting than The Talisman. Being a sequel, I thought it would be closer to the original. It wasn't.
Over-all I thought the plot and story-line were good, but I could have done without a lot of the details.
I also found it difficult to "get into". All the talk of floating around as an observer made it difficult to keep interested. I was about 1/2 way through the book before I was comfortable with being the "observer."
The double ending was also strange. I assume Mr. King did this to keep the reader unsettled. It worked. Even now when I think about it. I wonder what the "real" ending is supposed to be.

I am ashamed that in my first review, I admitted I didn't finish the book. I felt so bad I went back to it, but unfortunately, I didn't change my mind much on it. It's another overblown, overly long Stephen King novel that should just get to the point. I liked his stories that did this, like "Thinner" and "Christine", and I have no problem reading very long books. I just wished this one was more focused and to the point.

I am a Dark Tower NUT! Fed on Tolkein, and having snacked on Brooks and Lewis and Donaldson, I am a fantasy NUT! Dark Tower is even better because it draws in so much of the her and now (no pun intended). And Talisman was a nice setup for this then-future series.
And now, Black House. I'll be blunt. This book was uneccessary, ineffective, and very disappointing. It is filled with inconsequential characters than lend nothing to the story proper and show no sign of developing in future novels. Events which are pheonomenal go unexplained and play minor little bit parts. A truly anti-clamactic climax mixed with a "yeah, but that is so far-fetched it's stupid" ending (what with all the kids from nowhere) finishes an absolute let-down of a Dark Tower creation from King.
Those of us who are true fans got enough of this info in Low Men in Yellow Coats. Nothing new was introduced here, except a few possible links with Desperation (Tak, -tah, etc...). No development of the story. No development of ANY story (leaving Dark Tower out of the equation).
Turn around, go back, take the canyon road. Don't disappoint yourself by reading Black House.

But it was....so very good! After reading the Talisman, I along with lots of others couldn't wait for the sequel to be released. Of course I was going to buy it. "Black House" surpassed my expectations. This is a wonderful story of fantasy and horror, of good and evil, of friendship and committment, of courage and fear, of love and hate. This is a book that is written so superbly that it draws you in and doesn't let go. The authors write about the characters in such a way that you feel like you know them, you feel like you know what they are going through. You love them, you hate them, you want to give them a high five or a slap upside the head, but you are there with them. No, it didn't have to be this good, but thank-you Mr. King and Mr. Straub for making "Black House" so very very good.

I read The Talisman when I was twelve, same age as Jack. That was almost 20 years ago and it remained my favorite book. Until now. I was scared I wouldn't love adult Jack as I had young Jack, but I needn't have worried. He has aged well. The characters-new and old-are great. I felt as if I knew them all. Especially Henry. I didn't think Jack would ever find another friend like Wolf, but again I was surprised. The writers, God bless them, have also aged well. Throughout The Talisman there were sections where you could tell who was writing. Here it was much less apparent. They seemed to gel better. I tried to make the book last, only reading a chapter a night. It was still over too quickly. Hopefully we'll see Jack again soon. Read this book-you will be glad you did.

I'm sorry, but Stephen King lost me.( I never realy carred for Mr.Straub's writing..)
I live in Holland and for some reason his latest book; " From a buick 8 " was published here first...Such garbage!!!!!!It looked like he had some notes laying around from the time he wrote Christine...plain awfull!!
But anyhoe, I picked up this book and after 50 pages I had enough.
I like to be drawn into a book and not read some dry comments about where we're going and how the curtains look.
I know a thing or two about writing but enough with setting the scene allready!!!
No, I think I'll even pass on everythings eventually.
No more King for me alas.

After reading the Talisman (twice), it has remained on my list of favorite books since (usually in the #1 spot!). Black House is every bit as good. It's like talking with old friends again. I couldn't put it down. I read it in 4 days! I, however, can't imagine it would be as good for those who have not read The Talisman and the Dark Tower novels. After having read reviews written by others, I am not surprised to learn that most readers share similar opinions. I add my thanks to Mr. Straub and Mr. King...you're great. I highly recommend this book. I now look forward to learning the fate of Roland and his companions.

It's been several years since I read the Talisman and I barely remember it. In that time I've also read all the Dark Tower books. I think this book can stand on it's own, but this was written for King fans with some knowledge of the universe(s) he's created over decades of stories. It is a large book, but reads very fast.

Hi - I've been a major King fan since I was about 10 (Salem's Lot) and led to Straub through King's recommendation (Ghost Story). Black House is an amazing book I read in one sitting, The Talisman - a book I named my daughter from! - it isn't - because it's better.
The only disturbing thing is how little credit Straub is geting for this book, and how easily he appears to be overlooked in all the excitment about the DT references. In fact, if I was Straub, I'd be asking for royalities to DT from now on! That lovely prose, the interesting use of present tense, and that narrative voice - all classic Straub. Jazz loving Henry - very Straub. And evil old Burny - quite reminiscent of Mr X and The Hellfire Club's Dick Dart. The more classic King characters seem to be Dale, Beezer and Mr Munshun - well unless they adopted each other's characters, and are playing jokes on us all.
Buy the book, it's great - check out the references to the Dark Tower which of course leave you hanging for more - but don't forget it's CO written and Peter deserves some credit here too!

I gave up on King when he stopped writing horror a few years ago, but had to pick this one up. The Talisman was one of the best King (/Straub) books, so it seems that a sequel would be a sure hit. Unfortunately, this is not really a sequel to the Talisman. Its more of a horror/mystery story with some talisman references tacked on to the end. It was a good story, but the whole time I kept thinking how much better it could have been (Imagine Jack, Henry and Beezer on a journey through the territories).
The first 500 pages could have been a lot shorter, leaving more room for what we really want - Jack in the territories again.
I think the high point was the tie-in to the gunslinger series though, wonder how he talked Straub into that?

Having read The Talisman, I expected this to be just as enjoyable. It is a great read, filled with characters that are very beleiveable and some that are amazing. The ending is, however, a big disappointment. I won't give it away, but it seemed as if Steven and Peter were running short on time and had to finish the book in a hurry. It was not very satisfying. Like lighting a huge firecracker and it only burps and shoots a few sparks. After telling the story so well... too bad. There are many points in the book where you can't put it down, so it is a worthy read. There are no half stars, so I had to give it four. I truthfully five it three and a half.

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.

It seems as if Stephen King and Peter Straub wrote different chapters of this book and placed them together without reading them. I have seen commentary on the book that stated the first novel (The Talisman) was written in King style and I would wholeheartedly agree. Having collected and read King aggressively for 20 years, I can never say I am disappointed by one of his offerings (OK, so the Tommyknockers was a stretch), but I was not thrilled to the heights I normally get to while reading this book. It was definately appeasing to those of us who are salivating for the next Dark Tower Book, but as straight King, you may be disappointed. The POV of the book was somewhat confusing as well, until you because used to it. The characters of Doc and Beezer were wonderful as was Sophie, whom I hope to see in DTV when it is realeased. hopefully this was helpful to you and you still give this book a shot!

Black House is the sequel to The Talisman. Written with Peter Straub, it far surpasses it's predecessor. While connections between the two books are not as direct as one might expect, Black House is the incredible story of a police detective trying to figure out what happened to a missing child. The book delves into the realm of the supernatural, so for anyone not into that kind of thing, stay away. Additionally, Black House will give lots of important information on King's Dark Tower books, so for those Constant Readers reading that, reading this book is imperative, although having never read the Dark Tower books will not hinder your experience in the slightest. Overall, Black House is an amazing book that will leave you on your toes to the very end. A must-read for any King or Straub fan.

As I started reading this, my first thought was, when is Jack
going to flip ?
If you have read the Talisman and are expecting more of the same, you are in for a letdown. Don't get me wrong Black House is
pretty good for a book on it's own, but it's no Talisman.
Most of the action takes place in our world, not enough in the territories.
Although, the reference to a certain gunslinger did peak my interest considerably.

Having read most of King's and Straub's works, I could hardly wait for the publication of "Black House". Please do not make the same mistake I did: long about page 425, the reader is informed, "this is about the Dark Tower!". I had tried years ago to get into that series but could not. Now I found myself in a horrible situation: do I put down "Black House" and go read the 4 Dark Tower books before finishing, or do I just plow ahead and forget about ever reading the series since some sort of ending will be given here in "Black House". I opted for the latter. I strongly suggest you read the Dark Tower books before this one. I also wish, out of all the advance publicity, someone would have said that the Dark Tower is prominently featured in this novel.

I loved this book. The narrative of this book was extremely easy to read and it drew me back into the world of the Talisman. It had been a long time since I had read the precursor to this book but it brought back a lot of memories. This book functions just as much as a standalone as a sequel which is part of the draw of it for me. In a time of lengthy series' it is nice to see a book that can stand on its own not to mention the allusions to Roland and the Dark Tower. I also like to see king return to some of his older stories which he never seems to do except in the Dark Tower books which I also love. Overall I loved the book and read from start to finish over the course of 24 hours. For me, a sign of a great book written by a great writer.

It takes King and Straub over five hundred pages to get us to what should be the end of a novel whose central plot culminates in the Fisherman�s death and the mystery�s resolution. The terrain isn�t all that easy to traverse. The first two hundred pages are ponderously expository, inviting as much skimming as reading. The novel as a whole is dogged by an intrusive narrator who frequently interrupts the story to provide transitions (�let�s make like an amoeba and split�), to tell us what we�re thinking (�Our hearts groan for a hero�), or to tease us with hints of things to come. The most egregious example of this occurs near the novel�s end: �you�re not going to like what happens next,� the narrator tells us. �Certainly the idea that he [spoiler withheld] might be dying in a few minutes has not occurred to him.� Curiously, while Black House is ostensibly Jack Sawyer�s novel, Jack�a watery shadow of the boy he was in The Talisman--is not compelling enough to be the hero of his own tale. Furthermore, of the dozens and dozens of characters in Black House, perhaps ten of them further the narrative. The rest of them bring Coulee Country to life, to be sure, but they are narratological dead ends that have no bearing on the story�s outcome. Wendell Green, for example, the rabid reporter desperate to make a killing on the killings, threatens to impede the investigation and tarnish Jack�s reputation, but after a couple of punches in the stomach and a whack on the head, he slinks away. At least Sophie, a woman in a parallel universe with whom Jack falls truly, madly, deeply, and spontaneously in love, is still with us at the end of the novel, playing a minor role in the resolution of Jack�s personal life-and-death drama.

What occupies most of the last 125 pages of Black House is the denouement of the parallel supernatural plot hinted at from the novel�s beginning but only partially fleshed out in its final third. The evil the Fisherman has done was encouraged by a ghoul named Lord Malshun, head henchman to the ultimate evildoer, the Crimson King (whom we never actually get to meet in Black House). Lord Malshun directs the collection and enslavement of telekinetics who are then put to work to psychically �break� the �axle� around which the universe�s many parallel worlds turn independently. Bit by bit, they gnaw away at the �beams� that support the universes, the goal being to collapse time and space into utter chaos over which the Crimson King intends to rule. (If you�ve read Hearts in Atlantis, this is the work that Brautigan, here the �chief breaker,� is forced to perform.) Lord Malshun is thus the prime mover behind the evil in French Landing, working with the Fisherman to find Ty Marshall, the breaker of all breakers (and allowing him to eat those children who have no breaking abilities). Malshun, however, with his one red eye and spoon like face, is a cartoon ghoul easily brought down by rays from a baseball bat Jack calls �Wonderboy� after The Natural�s bat. As the �axle� on which the murder mystery plot turns, the supernatural underpinning is too flimsy to bear the weight of a story like the Fisherman�s. Too bad King and Straub didn�t notice that real evil, as it is embodied by the Fisherman, is all the evil Black House needs.
I suspect that Black House�s weakness can be explained by the supernatural plot�s potential to generate yet another sequel, one that would take us to the Crimson King�s court and focus on the supernatural machinery we barely glimpse in this continuation of The Talisman. Black House is not intended to be a whole in its own right, we might argue, generously seeing its narratological imbalance as a temporary thing to be righted in Talisman III. Yet this possibility is about as satisfying to us as Sppedy Parker's explanation of the work of the Crimson King was to Jack. Noting Jack�s confusion, Speedy, a repeat character from The Talisman, insists, �There�s no need for you to understand it all in order to do your job.� Now there�s an excuse for poor storytelling if I ever heard one.
Despite the novel�s warts, die-hard Stephen King fans like me will want to read Black House just to make the acquaintance of the Fisherman and of Henry Leyden, the real hero of the novel, a blind-from-birth radio personality whose keen powers of observation make him an extraordinary human being and a pretty darn good detective. And afterwards they may want to join me in volunteering to proof the first draft of the sequel. As readers, we will do our jobs, after all, and they will be easier if King and Straub do theirs first.

This is the scariest book I have ever read. Make sure you have something to cover your nose. A cross between Lovecraft and Poe. I live in the Coulee Region. Maybe it would be better if you had something to cover ALL of your senses, yes even your tatse buds. Whatever you see, you'll wish you never did. And a major problem we have here is the "river fog". Heck, you can't see two feet ahead of you, and weirdos have taken advantage of this natural mystery. How are you gonna see who does what in fog that thick. And man, its like "painting your windows white". Its is a great story, and it should be called a novel. Beware of the FOG.

When I heard that King/Straub had written a sequel to the Talisman, I was ecstatic! Nay! Not just ecstatic. I felt like how Jack Sawyer must have felt when he first breathed the air in the Territories-rapturous! I couldn't wait to get hold of the book.
I just finished reading it and the book has left me feeling disappointed. This book is nowhere near Talisman. The book takes too long to start and the ending is too short. The references it offers to the Dark Tower series is good, but not really required. Why tie this to that series? The Territories is a world all by itself.
Jack Sawyer also came across as an omnipotent kind of guy--far different from the troubled Jack we knew in Talisman.

Dear Mr. King,
I'm following your work from the first book you've published and it is awhile since I realized that you're actually just preparing to write one book - the book about your childhood. You almost skipped that part in autobiography On Writing and you were once almost there with Hearts in Atlantis - but you backed out (writing about the childhood of the hero in 3rd person and about his high school years in first?) Now you're loosing yourself in scattered parts of the Dark Tower and in the end it all comes down to freeing the suffering children out of dark jails bellow the ground like in this novel?
I still haven't lost hope for THE book about your childhood but we're not getting any younger. So long live the King!
Your dear constant reader

I've been an avid Stephen King and Peter Straub fan since I was in junior high. As a huge fan of The Talisman and The Dark Tower series, I was hugely disappointed Black House.
The beginning of the booked is plaged by boring descriptions of the of the town of Parrish Landing. The use of a "floating camera in the sky" technique did more to irritate me, than enrich the experience. The editor of this book should have red-inked the first 300 pages of this novel!
About half-way through the novel, the authors begin tying in the Gunslinger Series to the territories of The Talisman. For those of you who have been eagerly awaiting closure after The Wizard and the Glass, prepare yourself for disappointment. These two story lines do not jive well together.
If you don't have the patience of Job, leave this book on the shelf.

When I first picked up 'Black House', after I just finished the great novel 'The Talisman', I thought that the novel was going to reunite Jack Sawyer...but it didnt. The beginning was confusing, and I threw the book across the room after page 400.
The story is boring, and I got confusing at the beginning because of the detail and all the skipping around...and it just got more confusing.
I loved 'The Talisman', and still do, but 'Black House' is about as confusing as teaching a 5 year old astrophysics.
What made it more confusing is the eggs that Speedy sent Jack, how did the eggs get there? ...

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....

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.

Not only is this book a satisfying and long-awaited continuation of young Jack Sawyer's story, it also can be considered, by those who are positively clamoring for it, a glimpse of a fifth installation of the Dark Tower series. Many faithful King readers had already noticed stark similarities to the Territories of the Talisman and the Gunslinger's Mid-World; in Black House they come crashing together, not in great quantity, but enough to fasten some loose ends. If you're reading this, Stephen King, your Faithful Readers eagerly await Dark Tower V.

The Talisman is one of my most favorite Stephen King novels, and when I found out there was going to be a sequel I was thrilled. However, I hated Black House. If you are not familiar with King's Dark Tower series, you probably won't appreciate this book. I'm very impressed with King's ability to interweave so many stories, however, I didn't want to have to read a bunch of other things, i.e. The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Wastelands, Wizard & Glass, "Low Men in Yellow Coats", and Insomnia, just so this one would make sense. I prefer The Talisman as a stand alone work.

But it was not as you would expect...there was a lot more in "real world" rather than the "other world." and this lead the way to thinking that this was a different book. I found that the set up for a potential third book rather obvious and they could have done a better job of making it less so...even though I would read it if it came out!

I just finished reading this book and I would like to say, I LOVED IT!!!! Once I started reading it, I was unable to put it down. To me it coved every aspect possible...I laughed, I cried, I cringed, and I cheered!! Once I got past the first few informational chapters I was hooked. I loved the portrayal of all the characters in the story, Henry being the most interesting, although, I thought Beezer was equally interesting and I was rather glad to see a positive spin put on a bunch of hog riding, beer drinking guys. Nuff said....grab a copy of the book and sit down and start reading.....ps, turn the answering machine on and feed the cat before you start...cause you sure wont want to do it onced you get into the book!

First off, if you haven't read The Talisman - don't even bother with
Black House. Much of it will go right past you. But if you're still with me...
...remember The Talisman? The magic? The absolute wonder of that amazing parallel land? The JOY???
Not one whit of it remains in Black House. None. The cutesy POV the authors have taken is irritating at best. The attempts at tying in other King works - most notably the Gunslinger series - seem pale and contrived. The whole thing stinks of profit-motive versus art-motive, as if it was written from formula and not from the heart.
I say this as one to whom The Taslisman is an all time favorite...
Shame on you guys - you can do better than this.

i just finished this book a couple of days ago and it is a great second part to the talisman. the first hundred or so pages were a pain almost to get through then once it hit page 150 the book disappered faster than a pizza at a weight watchers convention.if you read the talisman read this, or if read the dark tower then read the talisman then black house, you won't be disappointed.

From an avid Stephen King fan, I have to say that this novel was extremely disappointing. And I think this was due, largely in part, to the Peter Straub influence.
To start with, the third person narative style, whereby the author is seemingly taking you by the hand and leading you through the book like some lost child is EXTREMELY tedious. Every time I felt the book lean in that direction, I could almost feel myself cringe. "Now lets go see whats happening here boys and girls." I am sorry, but if the Mr. Rogers analogy doesn't indicate what age group that style of writing is geared for, I am not certain what will.
Secondly, there was no real apprehension in this book. I never felt the type of genuine concern that is supposed to be instilled onto the reader when characters in the novel are in peril. The book seemed to just slowly trudge from one page to the next as our protaganist moved forward in his quest.
Finally, this book was clearly nothing more than sheer marketting. A way for King to generate additional revenue by bringing in the tie in to his Dark Tower series. (Which I am also reading by the way)
The ironic thing is that The Talisman (which Black House is the sequel to) was my all time favorite King novel. It was a taut, suspenseful and thoroughly enjoyable novel. Fortunately, Black House's drivel did not tarnish my minds image of it since other than the resurgance of the main character (who was a young boy in the first novel) is the only real linking point. That, and the concept of the alternate universe, "The Territories" which is now the underlying premise in the Dark Tower series.
For die hard King fans, I think you may want to leave this one on the shelf. I am not sure who to cast the blame on, King or Straub, but it is more than evident that the writing style is clearly NOT King.

This book with a very scary title really really horrified me. I expected a fantasy book, but instead got lots and lots of scary parts about some psycho fisherman. It was a little on the slow side so I had Keynote read it to me for sleepytime and that worked good except for the bloody bits. Very gruesome and scary scary scary too. An average horror novel if you ask me by two above average writers. Microwavable, yeah!!

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?

Stephen King and Peter Straub created a hybrid out of their writing styles in "The Talisman". The opposite is true in "Black House". They seem to avoid complimenting each other, so the sequel doesn't have the same flow or enthusiasm. I enjoyed the book, but something was missing.

This is an excellent book for the seasoned horror reader. It has extremely visual contents, and moves back nd forth in time and between characters. I have read many horror books and stories, and this was very mature reading even though it was a real page turner. Do not recommend to the squeemish or to those that may be offended by horror to children. May not be the best choice if this is your first horror read, but if you are the horror freak that I am, and you enjoy S.King as well as D. Koontz, this is a must read. May be my favorite horror novel. Go for it!!

i can barely remember "the talisman" but this book stands on its own pretty well. it's kind of plodding in some places, as i find straub sometimes is. but it draws some very real characters as king alone and king/straub do. probably a good book for a couple of winter nights shut in.

I bought this book because I've enjoyed and admired other novels by the authors. I gave it one star because I couldn't give it zero. It is 823 pages of pure tedium, excruciatingly written in the present tense. I loathed it so much I wanted to throw it out the window, but I was on an airplane. There were endless passages of boring description and characters I didn't care enough about to slog through all that mind-numbing prose. I can't fault the editor for doing a poor job because there obviously was no editor at all. I've read thousands of books in my lifetime, and I've never hated one more than this piece of garbage. I want a refund of my $9.99 plus tax.

I love most of Stephen Kings books. The Stand, the Gunslinger series, Misery, The Shining - and many more. I read many of his books as well as listened to them as audio books (some of them two or three times) and loved most of them. I haven't read Peter Straub, except for The Talismen. Which I had the same reaction to. I was hoping Black House would be better than that one. I have reacted to them both about the same. I found it interesting for about the first 2/3 of it, and so dreadfully boring after that. I never evn finished The Tailsmen, which for me is saying something because audio books aren't cheap even on audible.com. I am suffering through the last 3 hours of Black House. At first I thought perhaps it was the reader that was boreing to listen to, but I've since listened to other books he's read and not found them boring. I paid attention through his book, and have to say its the way its written that is making it not as interesting. I don't feel involved. i don't identify with nor care about the characters. I felt the characters were mostly card board caricatures. Henry was the only character I thought had protential to be interestng, but potential was all it was. In addition, I felt the writing style itself was exagerated and drawn out. As an example "The music annoyed him. It annoyed him a lot. In fact, it bugged the hell out of him." Ok, so the music was annoying. I got it. And every paragraph and every sentence seems to be like that. I just found it distracting and unnecessary. Also, writers are always instructed to show not tell. I felt that the description was mostly telling instead of showing, especially in the end of the book about the time I lost interest. I felt like the reader of the audio book was just looking out his window and describing a scene or a movie over the phone to me. I did not get pulled into the minds and hearts of the characters as I usually do - and expect from a good book. There were even times where the point of view switched in the middle of scenes unexpectedly and I had a disorientating moment when I didn't know who was thinking/seeing/saying what - which I do think would have been more easily determined if I had been reading the book. Over all, I found the begining of the book interesting and promising and the ending boring and hurried as if the authors just got most of the way through and then had to finish fast. I'm disappointed that I wasted money on the audiobook, and do not care for the story or characters enough to attempt to read the hard copy. I should have taken The Talisman as an indicator and not bothered with this book.

I have avoided King's books for many years after being repeatedly disappointed that they were not up to his earlier work. I caved in this time and was sorry I did. The book was an effort to get through. I ended up skimming towards the end just to get it over with. Did not care about the characters, the plot (I think it had one), and was ticked off I wasted money once again. It will not happen again.

I read The Talisman, and found it to repetitive and dull. How many times can we drag out the Dark Tower formula?!! This book was by far more interesting, and Jack Sawyer had grown up. If they had left out the flipping between realities, and the supernatural nature of the Black House it would have shaped up to be a pretty good murder mystery!

Blackhouse is a very good book. Better than the talisman. The beggining is rather slow, i almost gave up on it, but by the time i got into the middle, i was hooked. After a few days of slogging through it it finally began to scare me. About two thirds of the way through I wanted to put it down because i thought it would give me a heart attack but it was just too damn gripping. I strongly suggest buying it and reading all the way through. The beggining is weak, but the rest will scare the pants off you.

This is a great suspensful and horror filled novel. This has great character development and we gain much insight about the world the authors created in "The Talisman".
Deffinitely read "The Talisman" before reading this book.

The Talisman was a one of a kind adventure leaving the reader longing for more. This one was an interesting read but it really leaves you hanging around waiting for the Talisman story to continue. It goes into detail with horrific and gory details of crimes against children. This book went more for the shock value than anything else. I am sorry, but I have to call it as I saw it. King is probably my favorite author but......well......

- Easily the worst book ever to carry the name of Stephen King. What was he thinking, I wonder? Fulfill a contractual obligation, perhaps?
- Shallow, flimsy plot, characters you just can't care about, no real element of horror whatever, and an ending not even good enough for a comic book!
- Skip this book - it isn't up to snuff and it isn't worth your time.

I can't remember the last time I gave up on a book. It's been years. Black House headed for the shelf after a mere 88 pages. I couldn't bring myself to wade through the lengthy and arbitrary verbiage employed to describe, for example, a street. I found it neither relevant to the story nor setting the tone, mood, etc... This, to say nothing about the bizarre first person "we-based" narrative. Kudo's to you if you made it through and enjoyed it.
"Now we float down and click submit to turn in this review. We wish we could have rated it lower."

This is the single most disappointing Steven King book I have read. The characters don't make you wonder about them anytime during or after the story. The most unsettleing thing for me was how the same scene would be told over again from the viewpoint of up to four different characters. I thought this seems like an attempt to just make a long 600+ page book out of a 180 page book. The worst part about the entire book however, was the blatant, graphic violence towards children.
To get me back in the Steven King frame of mind, I'll need to make a quick read of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
My advice, stay away from Black House. It's bad....bad I tell you!

It has been a long time since Stephen King wrote a novel that is as satisfying and thrilling as "Black House"! King and co-author Peter Straub revisit the character Jack Sawyer, originally introduced in their first collaboration, "The Talisman", twenty years after his first adventure. Unlike some of King's other recent novels, "Black House" manages to weave multiple threads into one complex and fascinating story. This is easily his best work since "Pet Sematary".

Based on the average review, I must say I thought more of this book. It's no _Talisman_, but it's a good novel. There is some great characterization as is true in most King novels. He's been in a slump recently but Black House is worthy of his name (and Straub's).

Why do authors feel they have to interpose an artificial style between the readers and the story?
Although the plot and characters were fascinating, the precious and condescending stylistic devices employed by the authors made this book almost unreadable. As a fairly enthusiastic fan of both authors, I anticipated another thrilling ride...but unfortunately the authors chose to tell their story in a highly obtrusive style in which the narrative voice takes on the persona of your 6th grade teacher, constantly reminding you that you are reading a book rather than experiencing a story.
Too bad...it could have been really good.

Another Dark Tower series tie-in. Find out more about the Breakers, the Beams, the Tower, the Crimson King, and TED BRAUTIGAN! Aside from that, it's a great story anyway, but it's HEAVILY Dark Tower-related. Go get it!

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