Black House

I am reading & reading to get over what seemed to be endless story telling without excitement.

King should rewrite the part what Straub had written and relaunch a revision.

Even die-hard fans of King will loose patience.

I have read every one of Stephen King's books. This was the only one that I have not read. I have struggled to get to page 105 and I have no clue as to what is going one. The style of Peter Straub stinks. Don't waste your money, you will put this book back on the shelf an never have a clue as to what the story is about. Stephen King has finally written a real clunker. This may be the worst book that I have ever tried to read.

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.

Ive read mixed reviews on this book and though i had to make my own mind up. I first bought the book, 120pages later i realised that i had no clue what was going on, so i bought the audiobook (5 hours later i was still thinking what the hell is going on).
Now im stephen kings No1 fan and have loved the majority of his work, the talisman for me was a fantastic bolt on to the dark tower quest. So naturally i thought this would be the same.
The book is one of the slowest drawn out books ive ever came accross, not a patch on previous work. I forced myself through the book expecting more, and im sorry to say this one doesnt deliver on any horror, excitment etc, do yourself a favour, get a tin of paint and watch it dry - more happens in that and at a much quicker pace than it does in this book.
This book is for die hard fans only... but even diehards will find this a chore!

I read "The Talisman" 20 years ago. That was vintage King trying his hand at fantasy, and it worked. Not having read King in quite a few years (I was coming to feel he'd lost his edge when editors no longer dared to edit him), I nonetheless picked up "Black House" to revisit the "Territories" that 12 year-old Jack Sawyer adventured in.

But "Black House" isn't a fantasy novel. It's an attempt to be a horror novel, with Jack Sawyer grown up, a retired LAPD detective, and now hunting a cannibalistic child-killer in rural Wisconsin. Unfortunately, all the magic and myth of the first novel has been leached out of the sequel along with Jack Sawyer's childhood innocence, and we're left with a gruesome piecemeal tale that has the feeling of a spin-off from King's "Dark Tower" series. Lately King seems to be tying all his novels into that universe. The ending of Black House practically screams "Read the Gunslinger novels to find out what happens next!"

This story is wordy, but not clever as King's writing sometimes is, and even the characterization seemed relatively weak. The villains are practically caricatures, relationships are established by fiat without a foundation, and it's easy to predict who will live and who will die. I never really emphathized with this new, grown up Jack Sawyer. While reading "Black House" was a guilty pleasure, it also reminded me why I'm not such a big King fan anymore. At his best, King's characters are often the best elements in his stories, but this collaboration with Straub seems to have turned his characters flat, and the story itself has lost its impact, despite the frequent gratuitous gore.