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Review: Black House ; King and Straub

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  • 25-09-2002 10:01am
    #1
    LoLth
    Registered Users Posts: 10,339 ✭✭✭✭


    Stephen King and Peter Straub. A good combination in my opinion. BUT BE WARNED!!!

    *****
    THIS IS A SEQUEL TO THEIR PREVIOUS COLLABORATION "THE TALISMAN"
    *****

    It references events in that book and the main character is a carry over. A lot of the background of Dark House is contained in Talisman and it is assumed that you have read this book. So much assumed in fact that it doesn't say that it is a sequel on the blurb. I went back and read talisman as soon as I worked this out and I must say, yes, reading talisman first is a good idea.

    Jack, from talisman makes a reappearance as an adult. He is an excellent policeman and detective who has retired in his thirties.
    Now an evil killer is stalking his retirement town and Jack is draughted in to help catch the killer (against his wishes of course).

    The book starts as a decent detective thriller. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but then again, King has done this before with Long Green Mile, Eyes of the Dragon (fantasy not horror) and the girl who loved tom green. Straub I was not familiar with but having seen his influence on King, me definitely going to check out his works.
    About half way through (with some nice foreshadowing) it changes to a horror/fantasy thriller. And most enjoyable it is too! Involving devil dogs, rotting people, alternate worlds, demons and psychic people. Oh and a healthy dose of King's gunslinger series, which you don't need to have read to pick up on what's happening.

    The writing is nice and clean. The characters are well developed and left just undefined enough to allow you to fill in the blanks yourself (which in my opinion is always a good thing as the description "bad" means different things to different people). The story doesn't amble and the narrative is excellent. Again King's "gentle reader" style comes through (Long Green Mile was where I remember it most from, I forget who he borrowed it off.. I think he mentioned Dickens).
    The book screams SEQUEL, which would make the Talisman/Black House / ??? an excellent trilogy if the thrid lives up to the second's standard.

    In short:
    If you like King, go read it. It's not as good as The Dark Half or Long Green Mile but it's infinitely better than a lot of his works.


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