Review: Black House

[Kalthanan]

As a long-time Stephen King reader, I was obligated to read Black House, the sequel to the amazing modern-day fairy tale, The Talisman, both books co-authored by Peter Straub.

Anyone who is a fan of Stephen King must read The Talisman. It was a wonderfully-told tale of the journey of a young boy trying to retrieve a magical talisman to heal his dying mother.

However, readers should be aware of King's style, which frequently includes vulgarity, scatology, rape, and pedophilia. You were warned!

Without spoiling the plot of the book, Black House is a dark murder mystery that takes place many years after The Talisman. Jack Sawyer reprises his central role, and fans will not be disappointed.

Technically, the book is well-written. The novel features very well-written prose, and sometimes even beautiful descriptive passages near the front of the book. Contrasting the picturesque town of French Landing and rural countryside, however, is the gory detailing of murder and torture by the serial killer and pedophile, the Fisherman.

Thematically, the book is very familiar ground for King. Where The Talisman journeyed across the breadth of the United States, Black House is a journey to awareness and remembrance for Jack. Also familiar is the fact that some characters we become attached to fight the good fight, but die anyway.

The climax of the novel is a short train ride that takes a long time to get up to steam, and is over after only a short glimpse into something much larger than Jack Sawyer's role this time. We are saying goodbye with more questions than answers, this time.

King readers, rejoice. I have been disappointed with his novels in recent years, but Black House gives me hope that he's not just a hack churning out 1000+ page ego-stroking puffed up short stories that would not have made the cut of Night Shift.

Kal

[Janari]

Awesome review K, I loved The Tailsman. Next to King, Straub was another Favorite writer that I enjoyed reading his work. I hadn't given Black House a second thought, but now I have to say Im thinking of buying it.

Thanks for the post bro.

Jan

[Viccar]

I was a King fan for a long time, but over the last 10 years, I've grown less enchanted with his books. I tend to buy his books still but never picked up Black House. I think the last King book that I read all the way through was Hearts in Atlantis.

His latest, From a Buick 8, has to rank right up there with Rose Madder as one of his worst. While reading this book, I kept asking myself "Do I really care about these chars and their boring story?". Finally I gave up on it since I had only made it through about 200 pages in one month.

Over the years, I've read many authors and King keeps slipping farther and farther down my list of favorites. Some of the authors I do really like are F Paul Wilson (wrote one of the best series of books ever in the Adversary Cycle), John Sandford, Michael Slade, and Robert McCammon (doesn't write anymore, but Swan Song was one hell of a book).

I've thought before about posting something on the boards about what people like to read. I know once I get done reading all of Sandford's books, I will be looking for ideas for new authors. I would like to get a few ideas from everyone.

[Janari]

If you like Fantasy style books, I would have to say the Masters are Margret Wiess and Tracey Hickman. Of course Im bias, these two authors and single handed made me fall in love with Fantasy reading. They really go all out in getting you to fall in love with their chacters.

Two more Authors that I enjoy a lot are Joel Rosenberg, though I haven't read anything by him in awhile, he has the same type of style.

Raymond E Feist is another good one. He wrote the Serpentwar Saga's and my favorite Riftwar Saga. Wat started meout on him was a book he wrote called Magician. Def worth a look if you enjoy Fantasy type reading.

Cheers,

Jan

[Kalthanan]

"Gerald's Game" really capped it for me. I stopped reading King at that point, almost completely I think. It was such a boring and disappointing novel, like an exercise in sadism -- on the reader.

"How much can I abuse my readership before they completely abandon me?" Apparently his old stuff is laurels enough for him to keep publishing trash still. "Insomnia" was the biggest waste of space. It was a short story blown to over 1000 pages; a waste of trees and time that only served to stuff King's coffers with yet more gold. I guess owning your own movie studio that makes bad versions of your films isn't enough.

If you guys want to get into suggestions and favorites lists... maybe we should create a new forum just for books...

:hmm:

[Spanmaster]

Black House was a good sequel to The Talisman. I hope that NO ONE tries to put either of them on screen, as none, or few, of King's books translate very well to film. I too have been dissapointed by King's latest writings, but I did find The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon entertaining.

One of the best books I have read recently is False Memory by Dean Koontz. Actually it is the first book by DK that I have read. You talk about books that you can't put down? This certainly fell into that catergory for me. It uses the story of The Manchurian Candidate for it's base plot, so if you've read that, it may not have the same effect on you as it did for me.

[Viccar]

I'm not much on the Sci Fi/Fantasy style of writing. All the descriptive writing in that genre loses my intrest in the storyline. Most of the stuff I read is horror or murder/mystery.

As I said in my previous post, F Paul Wilson wrote one of the best series of books I've ever read in the Adversary Cycle. It starts out with The Keep (which was turned into a very, very poor movie that even Wilson hated) and includes the books, The Tomb, The Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, and Nightworld. In The tomb, he introduced his most famous char Repairman Jack. He is now writing RJ books that take place between The Tomb and the end of Reprisal. Another thing that fascinates me about Wilson is he takes time to respond to his readers on his message board.

Anyway, it's sorta interesting to hear what everyone else reads.

[Kalthanan]

My primary reading material would probably be science fiction. I've read a lot of the classics -- Asimov, Heinlein, Clark, etc.

I've read a lot of fantasy as well; begun with things like Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series, some Weiss and Hickman, etc.

I also read some horror; Stephen King (except for the last decade), Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, and Dean Koontz.

My favorite author would probably be Roger Zelazny. His stuff is edgy enough to be New Wave scifi, but he has very strong Fantasy elements as well. My favorite thing about Zelazny is that he doesn't insult the reader. He writes from the first person perspective and uses shorthand to gloss over things the character should know, instead of having soliloquays where a character explains basic information to the reader in order to familiarize him with background information. Zelazny forces the reader to play catch-up, which means that I can get into the character and story more completely.

Recommended Zelazny: Any short story collection; the Nine Princes in Amber series (available in one oversize edition, worth it at 3x the price), Lord of Light. Be warned -- reading Zelazny can be challenging.

Alan Dean Foster -- anything more than a decade old. Recommended; Short story collections "With Friends Like These..." and "Who Needs Enemies?", the Pip and Flinx novels.

I also read The Destroyer series, about Remo Williams and Chiun, the master of Sinanju. Very funny, quick reads. They're short, so pick them up in a used book store. Comedy value and a bit of Eastern philosophy, martial arts, and a bit of the unknown -- is Remo the incarnation of Shiva, the Destroyer?

I've got about 400 books of my own, and have read many times that, between borrowing others' books and getting my degree in English Literature.

:bookworm:

Viccar; I'll check out those books -- I came about this close >< to reading The Keep once, but it looked cheesy because of the movie. Heh.

[Halilie]

This is Jan, I remember reading The Keep back in Jr. High. I don't remember too much about it other that I did read it a couple times that summer.

Might have to head to the Library and see about getting it. Thanks for bringing back that Flash Back.

I read a book a couple years back called The Summer of the Fox. Was kind of like a Spy type book. I'm not sure if that was Clancy, I kind of doubt it was, but wow what a great book.

Ciao

Jan

[Spanmaster]

I remeber reading the Remo Williams series...around 15 years ago. I do remember them to be humurous and thrilling. Man that was a blast from the past!


Edit: By the way...Bag of Bones by SK was pretty good also.

[Gallium]

the coldfire trilogy by c.s. friedan is an excelent series.
the main problem is that she only has 1 other book published
and i would like to see more of her stuff.