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    Black House
    Black House
    Black House
    Audiobook26 hours

    Black House

    Written by Stephen King and Peter Straub

    Narrated by Frank Muller

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Winner of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award

    From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Talisman, “an intelligent…suspenseful page-turner” (The Wall Street Journal) from “two master craftsmen, each at the top of his game” (The Washington Post).

    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 an 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, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories, and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken those memories.

    When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades ago by a madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed “the Fishman,” and Jack’s buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help the inexperienced force find him. But are these new killings merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack’s inexplicable waking dreams—if that is what they are—of robins’ eggs and red feathers? It’s almost as if someone is trying to tell him something. As this cryptic message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he may find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted tract of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateNov 6, 2012
    ISBN9781442359055
    Author

    Stephen King

    Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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    Reviews for Black House

    4.5/5

    385 ratings49 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book blew me away! I enjoyed the pace of it, loved every character. The world was described in every color and emotion possible. I connected with everyone in the book absolutely no grey areas in this story. The journey was one I will not forget and am very certain will be continued. Well done ...sometimes things work out well in tandem.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I actually give this book 3.5 stars.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book. So much so that I was disappointed in the following collaboration. Anyway, I'm not one to read books by multiple authors, I usually find the mixing of styles to be jarring to read. This book, however, was nicely written and didn't make me feel like I was reading two different stories.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great story, but the exposition is tough. If you can make it through it, you'll be glad you did.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This sequel to The Talisman was probably made sweeter for me because I listened to them one right after the other. As with The Shining and Doctor Sleep, revisiting old characters in a fresh story was like slipping back into comfortable pair of slippers… until all hell breaks loose, of course (the way one expects it to if one is a King fan.)
      Full of characters you love and love to hate, with a big fantasy feel balanced by the horrors of life in our reality, Black House was both satisfying and left me wishing for more. I definitely recommend it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Black House is the sequel to The Talisman. It doesn't feel like it, though. The style is very different, and slightly odd, emphasising the nature of the reader as observer. It feels to me like that gimmick gets fairly tired and also made me keep some distance from the characters, instead of losing myself in them as usual. It's also different in tone to The Talisman: it feels darker. I know a lot of bad things happen in The Talisman, but Black House has more of it. I didn't like it as much, even though I read it much faster. It was nice to see Jack Sawyer again, but so much time has passed for him that he doesn't quite feel like the boy we knew at all. I didn't really care about his love story, either: I didn't really see the point in it, plot-wise. That goes for several other points in this book -- sometimes it was just too wordy.

      One thing I loved a lot about this book, though, was Henry Leyden. I believed in him as a character, and in Jack's feelings for him, and I nearly cried when he was hurt. Some of the deaths in this book do still hit you hard, but I didn't find many of the characters all that memorable. More could have been done with Dale and the Beez, etc. But Henry was brilliant.

      I also didn't like the constant references to the Dark Tower. Maybe if I'd finished reading that series, I'd enjoy the little nods to it, but it felt like it wasn't necessary for this story, didn't quite fit, and I feel like Stephen King is far too much in love with that creation of his.

      I feel like if this book had been pared down a bit, or characters like Henry getting bigger parts, or more characters like Henry, I'd have enjoyed it a lot. As it was, it was fun enough to read, but it wasn't The Talisman or particularly like The Talisman, and I'm not sure if I'd have read it without that connection.

      (Probably. Who am I kidding? I'm reading basically everything Stephen King has written.)

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Classic King with great characters & epic plot More territories
    • 3/5
      this book is supposedly the sequel to the talisman - sure if you say so...i was expecting to be riveted, horrified, swept away. instead i was just expectant.and ultimately disappointed.a dull read considering the powerhouse authors involved. peter straub obviously penned the lion's share of this tale. he should have let stephen take the wheel a bit more. talisman was a five star read. this one, sadly, a three.
    • 5/5
      Another Stephen King novel with all the mystery and suspense woven into all of his books.
    • 2/5
      King's most schitzophrenic book. I started this book 3 times before I finally made it past the first 100 pages of inexplicable narration (I'm sure this was Straub's contribution). Then it becomes a terrific supernatural police procedural. The last act is a Dark Tower tie-in that is just bizarre. Not looking forward to a 3rd book in this series.
    • 1/5
      I couldn't finish the book. The narrator ends all his sentences like a bad impression of Jack Black.
    • 5/5
      Can’t for the final book should be very very good
    • 4/5
      Started out very, very slow. I was afraid I would not be able to get into it, but it turned out to be an engaging story. I cared about the characters and I would love to read more about them.
    • 4/5
      Interesting read. It might have been useful to have read Talisman first, which I haven't.
    • 4/5
      Tough to start; the beginning dragged on and was hard to get past, but the back 7/8 was excellent. The reader's voice may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I feel it fits the book quite well.
    • 3/5
      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 could spell catastrophe for this world and many beyond.THE BLACK HOUSE, by Stephen King and Peter Straub, is a sequel to THE TALISMAN, and you probably need to read the first one to get the most out of it. It also makes reference to the Dark Tower series, but not in a way that's integral to the plot. In fact, I almost found the Dark Tower references distracting ? they came across in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge sort of way.The pacing in this book I found poor. High action scenes were weighted down with so much description I found myself skimming a lot to try to find out what was happening. After all the buildup, the final confrontation with the villain sped by and was over before I fully realized what was going on. The beginning of the book seemed to go on and on for chapters before anything happened, filled with minute details about the town and characters who didn't necessarily end up being central to the story.Like most King books, the characters were intricate and interesting. Even bit players had personality. Jack Sawyer is one of King's favorite characters, and it shows. Maybe a little too much. There were a couple of times where other characters made huge sacrifices for information that Jack figures out all on his own, diminishing their contributions. For me, that sucked out some of the drama of the book.The beginning was too long and the end was rushed, but the middle of the book was excellent. As the investigation unfolded and Jack re-discovered his own hidden talents, the writing was as rich and lush as I have come to expect from King. If that had held through the whole book, I would have recommended it without hesitation. As it is, this book as a whole doesn't quite pass muster.
    • 5/5
      After reading this book, which I loved, I wished I had read the Talisman first. The characters are great; a blind deejay, genius bikers? The bikers were my favorite and I would definitely want them on my side.
    • 4/5
      ** spoiler alert ** I was really looking forward to reading this book since I loved The Talisman so much. But I was kind of disappointed. The Talisman was written in King's voice which is part of the reason I loved it so much. But King's voice is somewhat absent at the beginning of Black House. It steadily grows stronger throughout the book though and it made the ending great although sad. I've never read anything else by Straub and I don't think I will. His writing just sounds so.... fake. And forced. And the beginning doesn't flow like it did in The Talisman.Black House is also mostly horror unlike The Talisman, which was sci-fi. It's incredibly gory.The storyline was amazing. I felt all the feelings I'm sure the authors wanted the reader to. I could have cried when Henry died and at the end when Jack couldn't go back to his home world. And every time they mentioned Black House or Burnside eating all those kids, I got chills up my spine.If it wasn't for Straub this book would have gotten five stars. That said, everything else earned it four.
    • 5/5
      Enjoyable part of the Dark Tower series, sequel to The Talisman or read it on it's own.
    • 3/5
      Dug this one, but it was less successful than The Talisman. I didn't buy Jack's amnesia about his travels as a young boy.
    • 4/5
      Even a blind man can see that this book is much better than it's predecessor, The Talisman! Jack Sawyer is back! Now he is a coppiceman and he must stop the Fisherman! And Gorg and Mr. Munshun too! This is a darn good read all on its own, for the first 400+ pages or so. Then it gets all Dark Towery, but still good. And top notch ending too!
    • 5/5
      Amazing! What a journey. Sai King & Sai Straub weave such a heartwarming, adventurous, funny, intense tale. And with Mr. Muller leading us through with his Incredible voice...each listening gets better & better. Right here & now!
    • 3/5
      My only complaint about the book is the opening chapter and the occassional parts where the story is written as if we are hitching a ride on a crow. I feel that these parts have been made unnecessarily wordy and are a distraction from the flow of the story. The best parts are when Mr King and Mr Straub is simply telling a story about wonderful characters such as Jack Sawyer and his best friend Henry Leyden. Honourable, dependable Jack and wise Henry.
    • 2/5
      Although I really like Stephen King, this took me forever to get into it. It actually took me 300 pages - I could not get into the story and loose myself in it. Pure stubborness that I did not put it down. At first glance a murder mystery – find the serial killer - at second glance a fantasy story with the hero travelling into an alternate reality – destroy evil! This is a sequel to “The Talisman”, which apparently was a huge bestseller. And which I will not read. Sorry, I liked the hero, but this will still go to the bottom of the list of my favourite Stephen King stories.
    • 5/5
      Having just finished The Talisman, I decided to jump into the sequel. This book surpasses its predecessor in every way possible. The writing style is mature and polished. The horror is truly horrifying. The plot is captivating. The character development is rich, without slowing the pace of the narrative.To make things even better, there are no subtle allusions to the world of the Dark Tower: it?s explicitly part of the plot. Hearing about the beams, the Crimson King, the Gunslinger, and the breakers all over again brought me right back into that world.If that last sentence made no sense, you should really read the Dark Tower books followed by The Talisman before opening up this one. It?s worth the time.Now we wait for the anticipated third book of the trilogy.
    • 4/5
      An alright sequel. The novel makes a good connection with The Dark Tower. King's novel's are all intertwined.
    • 5/5
      You can feel the hands of both Straub and King on this work, and it's the stronger for the combination. From the beginning, this is a creepy and engaging exploration of believable characters in the horrifying and beautiful world King and Straub created with The Talisman. You CAN read this without reading their earlier collaboration (and I did), but I think you might as well start with The Talisman since I'll be venturing their next. The book might be a bit longer than it needs to be since there are moments when it drags, but on the whole, this is a graceful and perfectly executed horror novel with engaging characters, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Enjoy.
    • 4/5
      This was a good follow up to the Talisman. But it was not as you would expect...there was a lot more in "real world" rather than the "other world." and this lead the way to thinking that this was a different book. I found that the set up for a potential third book rather obvious and they could have done a better job of making it less so...even though I would read it if it came out!
    • 4/5
      Like a lot of Stephen King's books, this book had a slow start but turned out to be a great read. Black House is the sequel to The Talisman but not having read the first book in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the second.I have little experience with Peter Straub, but Stephen King always develops rich, believable characters, and this story is no exception. I especially love the radio host, Henry Leyden. He has got to be my favourite King character yet. He's the kind of person I could see myself falling for in another life!Black House is written with the flair and style typical of Stephen King, with a slightly different narrative style that I assume is the result of Straub's influence. I picked this book up expecting to be impressed and I was not disappointed.
    • 3/5
      I had a hard time getting into this book and had to start it multiple times. Finally though, once getting past the first 50 pages or so, I cruised through it. I hated a lot of the writing, but I liked the story.