Black House
by Stephen King, Peter Straubpublished
September 30th 2003
(first published 2001)
by Ballantine Books
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binding
Paperback, 688 pages
literary awards
AudioFile Earphones Award
isbn
034547063X
(isbn13: 9780345470638)
description
In the seemingly paradisal Wisconsin town of French Landing, small distortions disturb the beauty: a talking crow, an old man obeying strange intern...more
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Read in September, 2001
Stephen King and Peter Straub, Black House (Random House, 2001)
The first thing you notice about Black House is the cinematographic nature of the third-person omniscient narrator. Everything is described as if the reader were a cameraman making a movie of the book. In the same way as Cormac McCarthy, it's a style that takes a little getting used to. Once you've settled into the narrator's rhythm, however, the book moves right along. Unfortunately, also as with McCarthy, there are going to be a ...more
The first thing you notice about Black House is the cinematographic nature of the third-person omniscient narrator. Everything is described as if the reader were a cameraman making a movie of the book. In the same way as Cormac McCarthy, it's a style that takes a little getting used to. Once you've settled into the narrator's rhythm, however, the book moves right along. Unfortunately, also as with McCarthy, there are going to be a ...more
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Read in February, 2002
How do King and Straub do it? This book is not only equal to its predecessor, The Talisman, but surpasses it in quality and suspense. They also tie it with The Dark Tower series, which is even more exciting.
The story is fairly simple. Jack Sawyer is a thirty-something retired police detective. He has settled in a small town in Wisconsin, has one good friend, and generally doesn't wish to be bothered.
But a killer stalks the town's children. Two or three have disappeared, and some bodies ...more
The story is fairly simple. Jack Sawyer is a thirty-something retired police detective. He has settled in a small town in Wisconsin, has one good friend, and generally doesn't wish to be bothered.
But a killer stalks the town's children. Two or three have disappeared, and some bodies ...more
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Read in July, 2006
Travelin' Jack Sawyer is all grown up, but has forgotten the adventure of his youth. Now, after a short but brilliant career as a police detective in Los Angeles, Jack has retired to a small town in Wisconsin to try to escape a shock he cannot understand. But Jack has touched the Talisman, and the other side doesn't release those who know its secrets so easily. As a serial killer drives the local police to seek his help, Jack comes to realize that the true darkness that threatens this small town...more
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recommends it for:
any avid reader
I'd forgotten how I found out about this book but I never regretted having bought it because it's one the best thrillers ever written. I love it so much even after reading it thrice in the last 3 or 4 years and I'd happily recommend it to anyone who loves reading thrillers. This book is the collaborative efforts of two thriller maestros i.e Stephen King and Peter Straub. The Black House is actually the sequel to their first collaborative effort which is called 'The Talisman'. The first book c...more
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Read in November, 2001
Downloaded from Audible.com
Narrator: Frank Muller
Publisher: Random House AudioBooks, 2001
Length: 25 hours, 45 min.
Publisher's Summary
Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother - and her Territories "twinner" - from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wis...more
Narrator: Frank Muller
Publisher: Random House AudioBooks, 2001
Length: 25 hours, 45 min.
Publisher's Summary
Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother - and her Territories "twinner" - from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wis...more
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Read in July, 2008
I loved The Talisman. I think I read it when I was 13 or 14. It was a great story about a boy who could cross worlds, and took on a quest to save his dying mom. There were scary parts, but nothing too bad. Also, the line between King's writing and Straub's writing was pretty blurred. Either they shared the load, or one of them wrote while the other edited. I dunno, I could only hear one voice.
Years later, I listened to the audiobook and it was still great.
Black House is the seq...more
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
readers
This book was written by Stephen King and Peter Straub. I've read a lot of Stephen King and one Peter Straub book. I learned from reading that PS book that I am not a PS fan. Black House started out like a clunky, overdrawn piece of crap, then towards the early middle I could see Stephen King's influence begin to take over, for the better. By the end of the middle, the book really had my attention and I was eating it up. I think by this point, Stephen King had realized his best bet was to p...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
This is the sequel to The Talisman, one of the coolest books ever. It picks up with a grown Jack Sawyer, who has forgotten all about his trip through the Territories, but who must remember and go back in order to stop a new serial killer who is abducting children to serve the Crimson King.
I really enjoyed the way this book tied Jack's story in with the story of Roland and his ka-tet from the Dark Tower series. Damn near everything that Stephen King writes ties in with Dark Tower, of...more
I really enjoyed the way this book tied Jack's story in with the story of Roland and his ka-tet from the Dark Tower series. Damn near everything that Stephen King writes ties in with Dark Tower, of...more
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Read in October, 2007
Jack Sawyer, hero of “The Talisman”, is forced to remember the summer he was twelve years old and traveled to a parallel world called the Territories, when a series of child abductions and murders disturbs the town he has settled in two decades later.
None of the characters we met the first time appear except Speedy Parker, but we are introduced to new and equally interesting characters – Henry Leyden, the blind man who could see, and the Thunder Five, bikers who happen to be college gr...more
None of the characters we met the first time appear except Speedy Parker, but we are introduced to new and equally interesting characters – Henry Leyden, the blind man who could see, and the Thunder Five, bikers who happen to be college gr...more
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Read in August, 2002
recommends it for:
Supernatural readers, huge fans of King, Straub and/or The Talisman
This unexpected sequel to The Talisman takes place years afterward, and has very little connection to the first. It's unfortunate that it was even billed as a sequel, as only one character returns in a major role and there is very little in the way of jumping. It boils down to being yet another novel about a supernatural house, which was nothing new for King or Straub, and almost comical that it came from both of them. The strengths are the intrigue of King's otherworldly culture (which d...more
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I've read Black House probably 3-5 times...
When I finish a new book I return again and again to authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
Always comforting to me to read, deliciously terror-filled and yet there is lots of hope to be found when the characters bond together in order to beat their usually otherworldy foe. Black House was a favorite.
The description of the feeling you get when you take a little used road and end up in some really creepy, tiny, out-of-the-way ramshackle commu...more
When I finish a new book I return again and again to authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
Always comforting to me to read, deliciously terror-filled and yet there is lots of hope to be found when the characters bond together in order to beat their usually otherworldy foe. Black House was a favorite.
The description of the feeling you get when you take a little used road and end up in some really creepy, tiny, out-of-the-way ramshackle commu...more
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Read in January, 2003
I was SO FUCKING NERVOUS when I started reading Black House. My love of Jack Sawyer is a pure and unadulterated thing and not to be fucked with, and I was terrified the book was going to be bad, or the story would be stupid, or Jack as an adult wouldn't be recognizable or good or lovable. I'm actually surprised that I didn't have a goddamn breakdown at some point during the first three pages.
I explicitly remember finishing it up in the wee hours of the morning and going and crying int...more
I explicitly remember finishing it up in the wee hours of the morning and going and crying int...more
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Read in January, 2006
I finished this book with one thought: Why? King and Straub exchanged all of the elements that made The Talisman a good read for long-winded material that goes nowhere. Most of the prose in this big tale is well-written filler. How else can you a lengthy scene that boils down to one crime-scene; the curious townfolk who want to see it; a group of ne'er-do-wells that find a "back way"; and the cops in charge of everything? And the result of this protracted arrangement? Nada.
Both ...more
Both ...more
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Read in August, 2007
I read the Talisman years ago. I had no clue there was a sequel until someone mentioned it in passing. As soon as I was told, I scrambled to find a copy and lucked into a cheap used hardcover edition.
As far as being a sequel, I would definitely say that Black House can be read without reading the Talisman first. Nothing is really left unexplained that requires it.
The Black House started a bit slow for me, but became a solid and entertaining read by the tenth page or so. By then, I had no...more
As far as being a sequel, I would definitely say that Black House can be read without reading the Talisman first. Nothing is really left unexplained that requires it.
The Black House started a bit slow for me, but became a solid and entertaining read by the tenth page or so. By then, I had no...more
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Read in June, 2005
This is an all right, but not great, sequel to The Talisman. For the first couple chapters, I found the intrusive narrative voice to be REALLY annoying, but that eased up after a while. I liked individual parts of the plot, but overall it just doesn't have the focused intensity that The Talisman has. I mean, I loved the characters (the Thunder Five and Henry Leyden especially), but I didn't feel like they were used skillfully enough and the whole plot didn't really hang together as...more
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Read in January, 2004
This is a sequel to "The Talisman" also co-written by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Where this first was interesting and intense, this is down right scary! The story produced some imagery that I don't think I'll every forget. Not for the faint of heart.
The villain is an old man who goes in and out of a conscious state. When he's not fully here, he's in a nursing home and sleeping. When he wakes up he leaves the nursing home in a "not so nice" fashion. The main ch...more
The villain is an old man who goes in and out of a conscious state. When he's not fully here, he's in a nursing home and sleeping. When he wakes up he leaves the nursing home in a "not so nice" fashion. The main ch...more
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A follow-up to The Talisman, this is a good book, but didn't grab me the way that The Talisman did. Meeting up with Jack Sawyer again was like running in to your best friend from junior high school for the first time as an adult and realizing that you've not only lost touch, but have also become completely different people. I eventually warmed up to the adult Jack, but was more fascinated by the biker gang. I wish they'd had a bigger part.
There was still enough of the magic of the Territo...more
There was still enough of the magic of the Territo...more
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Read in July, 2007
I read this a couple of years ago. But when someone handed me a copy of the audiobook (thanks Paul) and I discovered that it was read by Frank Muller, I had to go there again. Frank has a quality in his voice and in his reading that simply adds to the experience. This is another installment in the life of Jack Sawyer, Travelin' Jack, as Speedy Parker would say. If you know what I'm talking about here, then you read The Talisman. If you haven't read The Talisman, go get a copy and take a trip wi...more
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Frankly, I was disappointed. This should not even have been connected to the Talisman at all. The Talisman was great fantasy that made me leap from page to page while this was.....some kind of weird suspense stuff. Maybe if I hadn't read the Talisman or expected that this would be like the Talisman, I wouldn't be as disappointed. Either way, it was dry and kinda dull stuff. Everything felt dark and gloomy. I don't dislike what Jack became but it was just really dreary reading this book. I finis...more
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Read in August, 2008
recommends it for:
Stephen King Fans
First off let me start by saying this was my third attempt at reading this book, this time around it was with a book club, so I was more motivated to read it.
Please, if you read this book don't give up before getting past the first chapter, I PROMISE it gets much better after that.
Amazing book, great read, I will read it again!
This book is also motivation to read The Talisman and The Dark Tower series if you haven't read them (which I have not, but will be)
Another great one b...more
Please, if you read this book don't give up before getting past the first chapter, I PROMISE it gets much better after that.
Amazing book, great read, I will read it again!
This book is also motivation to read The Talisman and The Dark Tower series if you haven't read them (which I have not, but will be)
Another great one b...more
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