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Jan 20, 2012

Lou rated it:

Jack used to be a coppice-man and he is now settling into a new home in Wisconsin. He has been having strange dreams, no Speedy or flipping over for many years now he is trying to deal with the present.
Jack is eventually forced out of retirement as a Coppiceman on trail of the Fisherman, flipping over again but to where? What does Speedy and black crow feathers have to do with the case? This is an engrossing page-turner written in a more faster momentum than The Talisman I am loving the adult J More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

Tony rated it:

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.

Bl More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Danielle rated it:

Stephen King and Peter Straub apparently decided that, since their last collaboration was so great, they would try to follow it with an astounding book that broke every single writing rule in existence. I believe the effort is a prime example of why those rules were made in the first place. Amen.

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 03, 2007

Barbara rated it:

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...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2007

Brownie rated it:

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...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 09, 2011

Larry rated it:

[I wrote this review in late 2001 for amazon.com shortly after reading Black House for the first time.]

Hello, My Name Is TreeRider and I’m a Stephen King-aholic.

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 mys More...

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Oct 31, 2011

Dennis rated it:

Black House is a sequel to "The Talisman" but it can be read by someone whose never read "The Talisman" either way. This book takes place in the future, when Jack gets older and becomes a detective. He has to solve a case of a missing boy presumed dead, then things start getting bizarre. A little known fact about the villian in the story, this evil maniac was inspired by real life serial killer cannibal Albert Fish, which I highly reccomend to look up.

As writ More...

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May 22, 2011

Neil rated it:

(This review was originally published in the Washington Post in 2001.)

Black House is a novel of slippage. We learn about slippage (a secondary definition of which, we are told, helpfully, in the text, is the feeling that things in general have just gotten, or will shortly get, worse) at the beginning of the book as we travel, invisibly through the town of French Landing, Wisconsin, early in the morning, winding up in an abandoned shack where “limp flypaper ribbons hung invisibl More...

6 comments like (18 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2011

Alex rated it:

Territories Band With the Dark Tower

On September 15th, twenty years ago, twelve year-old Jack Sawyer received his first experience of the Territories – a fantasy land created by the great minds of Stephen King and Peter Straub. On September 15th, 2001 Black House was released; the compelling sequel to the 1984 bestseller, The Talisman.

The deal with sequels is that they tend to suck, especially when they are compared (Jackie Collins comes to mind), but Black House reaches in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2011

Zarkseven rated it:

Hot on the heels of finishing The Talisman on audio, I started up the sequel, Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub, as my next audiobook selection. Black House picks up the story of Jack Sawyer when he’s all grown up. He’s now a retired copisman… err, cop who once solved a murder in French Landing, Wisconsin, and decided to retire early and move there just prior to the start of child kidnappings and murders in the scenic, sleepy town.

So did this sequel, written by King and S More...

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Oct 18, 2010

Michael rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Apr 19, 2010

Amanda rated it:

So, I'm writing this in the just-finished-a-good-book haze. You know, the one that clouds your mind after shutting the cover after a really intense climax and resolution? So I might be a little bit biased.

However, even such a good ending can't make me forget about all the little annoyances that happened. Though it was a great deal smoother than the Talisman, pacing was still a really big problem as well as the perspective. The book starts out with a third person omniscience, the use More...

1 comment like

May 20, 2009

Jessica rated it:

Not being a huge Stephen King fan, I had no idea that this was a sequel to The Talisman, so of course I read them out of order.

That being said, this didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The story was still okay, and the character of Jack was interesting, but I didn't get the references to his last adventure to The Territories.

Maybe had I read these in order, I would have liked this book better. As it was, I loved the character of Henry, and felt like I'd been kicked i More...

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Jan 22, 2011

Andrew rated it:

The main error I managed with this book was reading it before 'The Talisman' however by doing so I can say little awareness of the book preceeding it didn't harm the narrative at all...truth be told I started to read 'The Talisman' ages back got a few chapters in and for some reason never got round to finishing it (youthful social life at the that point prevented me I think).
I was therefore familiar with the main character plus had pencil sketches of 'Speedy Parker' and the fact the Talism More...

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Dec 05, 2008

Susan rated it:

I adore The Talisman. It's such a good book. M-O-O-N, that spells good book :-)

So, why does this book fall SO flat? King has been so committed to the Dark Tower storyline (which I'm not too keen on) and Peter Straub "grew up" from great books to critically acclaimed books.

So, while this isn't on par with The Stand or Ghost Story like The Talisman is, it's a combination of their styles at the time it was written

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 10, 2011

Kel rated it:

I have been a Stephen King fan for longer than I have been going out with MMM (which is 22 years this month I believe), but I have never properly embraced the Dark Tower series. And I can't consciously recall The Talisman either, although I am pretty sure I've read it in the distant past. Nonetheless, most the references to the latter that appeared in this book were sufficiently flagged that I picked up on them (I think). I may have missed some of the Dark Tower connections, but I got enough o More...

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Jan 17, 2012

Paula rated it:

in this sequal to the talisman, jack sawyer is in his early 30's, retired from the l a police force with an amazing solve rate, and living in a small town in wisconsin, near the mississippi river. his memeories of his childhood adventures have faded greatly, the mind's way of protecting itself, but his specialness has not gone away, it's kind of in hibernation. when a series of grisley abductions and murders begins in his town, the local sheriff calls upon jack's expertise to help catch the vi More...

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Apr 25, 2011

Jenn & Matt rated it:

This continuation of The Talisman is a masterpiece by King and Straub. Although I liked its predecessor better, because of the journey and the new characters introduced at every stop, along with the truly terrifying 'Territories,' this book is superbly crafted. Black House itself, although not in very much of the story, is a central character, and quite possibly one of the scariest haunted houses in any literary story. The basic plot is that Jack Sawyer, now 31, is a retired hot-shot L.A. det More...

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Apr 02, 2011

Arun rated it:

Another prime example of why some sequels taste like half cooked food. The Talisman was an experience in itself, a novel where you could only speculate as to which author wrote which part. It was also a wonderful concoction of genres : horror, coming-of-age and fantasy. The sole reason why I decided to read the sequel was because I loved Talisman. Disappointment is the only emotion I have about this book.

After the first hundred pages, it was a completely disinterested way in which I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Dxmaniac69 rated it:

I'm not sure the book is really a five star novel, but sometimes a novel just resonates with you, and Black House did with me. I was emotionally involved with this book from the very beginning.

Read Talisman first. I don't think this book would be have as effective if you haven't read Talisman.

That said, I actually didn't like Talisman as much as Black House. But it did help me appreciate the main character, Jack Sawyer, that I really cared about him again when his stor More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2011

Stephen rated it:

A solid read. Black House, the result of a collaboration between Stephen King and Peter Straub, is a sequel to their 1984 fantasy novel The Talisman. As far as I can recall these are the only collaborative novels I've ever read, and they both work surprisingly well. Perhaps keener eyes than mine could pick out which parts of the story were written by which author (supposedly they passed the story back and forth every 50-100 pages or so), but to me it flowed seamlessly. In the end I enjoyed Black More...

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Feb 28, 2010

Matt rated it:

This was a fantastic start to the Circle trilogy from Ted Dekker. If you have not read this series, this is a must read!

Publisher's Summary

Fleeing assailants through alleyways in Denver late one night, Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes to the roof of an industrial building. Then a silent bullet from the night clips his head and his world goes black. When he awakes, he finds himself in an entirely different reality, a green forest that seems more real than where he was. Every time he tries to sleep More...

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Aug 24, 2010

Lisa rated it:

It's funny that even though I've only re-read two Stephen King books in the last 20 years, he can still suck you into a story pretty brilliantly. I learned that Peter Straub and he made this "20 years after The Talisman" sequel while reading The Talisman graphic novel version a few weeks back.

Black House is a book that reminded me why I couldn't stand psycho thrillers for YEARS...it's books like this that trip my mind up.

The Fisherman is a cannibal serial kill More...

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Aug 31, 2009

Gossymotto rated it:

This story starts off a bit slow (seems over-descriptive at first), but then it jumps right in and you quickly understand why so much of the town and it's people were being laid out. Some characters in this story were not for me, the biker gang seemed somewhat cliche (5 long-haired, tattooed, leather-clad, beer brewing thugs, that just happened to be former doctors or came from other highly educated backgrounds, but preferred to present themselves as a gang called "The Thunder Five"), More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2011

Cory rated it:

I have gotten about 150 pages into this book, and it is clear that nothing will happen fast. This book was written just after Stephen King's famous car accident, and it is clear that Peter Straub is doing most of the writing. He is trying to copy King's brilliant book starting manner of introducing characters slowly by showing their actions and so on. But literally the 150 pages that I did read could have been summed up in about 20. Literally nothing happens except introducing the evil black hou More...

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Apr 29, 2010

Ribblefizz rated it:

I do not like Stephen King, let it be said. Nothing against the man - he's obviously an authorial and marketing genius - just not my cup of tea. But I kept being drawn to this book, then noticing, "Oh, Stephen King," and putting it back. I finally bought it; it took me four tries to get through the first 50 or so pages, and I was about to give up. But my theory is that there's something worth reading in ANY book, especially one as thick as this one, so I pushed onward.

H More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2009

Skipbertman rated it:

This book is the sequel to The Talisman although it's not a direct continuation. The Talisman is an individual story where readers become very attached to the main character. It's a fantasy story, although not in the swords and sorcery sort of way.

Black House is a different style of book. While the main character is the same, this book is meant to be an expansion of King's Dark Tower universe. Readers who have not read the entire Dark Tower series won't appreciate this book yet. More...

1 comment like

Feb 25, 2010

Rachelle rated it:

Usually I'm a fan of Stephen King's writing, but this book was only mediocre. I would have given it 2 1/2 stars, but since that's not an option, I was generous. After reading The Talisman, I was looking forward to reading the sequel Dark House. This book started out slow, which is typical of a Stephen King novel. After the first two hundred pages the story did pick up, but if I was an impatient reader, I would have moved on to a different book. Unfortunately, the narrative was jumpy with it's se More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2010

Brian rated it:

I don't usually care for King. I find his style of horror too passive, too "Americana." I don't even like the The Dark Tower Series. Horrible characters. That said, I didn't even like "Talisman." (but that's 'cause I hate books with kids as the protagonists.) Somehow, with all that said and against all odds... I love this book. I blame Straub.

The characters fit the plot, which has just the right flavor of bizarre horror. Stronger than a serial killer novel, More...

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Mar 30, 2011

Jess rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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