Book Review: Black House

By Stephen King and Peter Straub

 

Summary:

Jack Sawyer returns years after his initial adventure. He is thirty-one and retired, worn-out from being a LA detective. He doesn’t want to chases killers, in spite of his talent for finding them. He moves to a rural town, just as a serial killer starts snatching and eating children. Jack wants to ignore the killer, allow the FBI and French Landing’s Police Department handle the case, but everything about this case has Jack’s name written all over it. This killer, the Fisherman, may be getting help from an otherworldly being born in the Territories. Jack may be the only one who can solve this case and stop the murders.

 

Impression:

This novel, in my opinion, is a great improvement on the first novel, The Talisman. I did appreciate the stronger ties to the Dark Tower, but the novel felt closer to home. This novel was written about ten years ago and all those weird notions of pedophile homosexuals and cartoonish black people seem to have all gone away. I was also captivated by the otherworldly villain, Mr. Munshun. He’s this one-eyed monster man with a mouth full of shark’s teeth. He’s been riding on the Fisherman’s back, guiding him toward special children. Mr. Munshun lets the Fisherman eat all the mundane kids, but woe be on his head if he lays a finger on those special children.

Book Review: The Talisman By Stephen King And Peter Straub

Book Review: The Talisman

By Stephen King and Peter Straub

Summary:

Lily Cavanaugh, the Queen of the Bs, is dead. Her body is eating itself and her son, Jack Sawyer, is helpless to stop it. The two of them flee to New Hampshire during Lily’s last days. Held up in a lonely hotel room, Lily smokes pack after pack of filter-less cigarette, poisoning her rotting lungs. Jack wanders the boardwalk before the hotel, not wanting to watch his mother die. He meets an old African-American Maintenance man in the shadow of a wooden Ferris wheel. This man claims that Jack can, indeed, save his mother. There’s a world beyond this one that has magic like we have physics. A magical talisman from that world can burn the cancer out of his mother’s body. This man, Speedy, sends Jack on a journey across America on this side and the Territories on that one. Jack’s Uncle Morgan seeks this Talisman as well. Uncle Morgan may have killed before and may kill again in his such for this powerful artifact.

 

Impressions:

The Talisman has the flavors of one of my favorite series, The Dark Tower. In Black House, they adopt the Dark Tower openly. I wondered if this novel qualified as a Young Adult novel, considering that Jack, the protagonist, is twelve-years-old. On his journey across America, Jack encounters things that the YA genre would run, screaming, from. Although Jack is in danger of being murdered a number of times in the novel, it pales in comparison to the fact that he was almost raped by what could only be described as a crazed Were-goat. This novel takes place in the 1980’s and to be honest, it does feel a little dated and possibly offensive. While hitch-hiking, Jack encounters a number of adult, homosexual men who inevitably offer Jack money for sexual favors. It’s presented as more of an annoyance than something truly horrific. Possibly, it was common for homosexual men to proposition twelve-year-old boys in 1981, but it reads truly strange to my 2013 eyes. I also had a problem with the characterization of Speedy Parker, Jack’s mentor. I think they were going for an old Blues singer feel to Speedy, but it read a little like a Southern Black cartoon. I still feel that this remains a good novel in spite of these flaws. When the novel is good, it’s really good and when it stumbles, it hits the ground hard.     

The Dark Tower 4.5: The Wind Through The Keyhole - Review

How I rank this book among the others? DT 7, DT5, DT4, DT2, DT6, DT3, DT 4.5, DT1 (This isn't to say any of these books are at all bad. If my house was on fire, it's just that this is the order I'd save the books.)

Stephen King glimpsed through Gan's navel once again and brought back this tale of Roland and his ka-tet weathering a fiercesome storm (called a Starkblast) in an abandonned town hall. While waiting out the Starkblast, Roland tells his ka-tet two stories which wrap around one another. The first tale speaks of his time hunting a "Skin-Man" in the distant coal-mining town of Debaria with his boyhood friend, Jamie Decurry. The second story was of brave Tim Ross who ventures into the Ironwood forest and the swamps beyond after his father is allegedly killed by a dragon.

This novel was officially released April 24, 2012, so I'm going to refrain from too many spoilers in this review.

At 322 pages, "The Wind Through The Keyhole" is the second shortest novel in The Dark Tower series. It's that fact (along with the fact that there's a whole lot in this book) that makes me think this would be perfect for a newcomer to the series. Eddie, Sussannah, Jake and Oy are all present, but none of their fates are exposed for someone hungry for more Dark Tower goodness. For a constant reader, however, you're reminded of the bigger adventures that you've already seen. This novel has the smallest in the series, regarding scope. Roland travels to Debaria with quiet, some would say uninteresting Jamie Decurry on a mission from Roland's father. Roand and Jamie carry out the mission with hardly any snags and then they go home. The reason why the story isn't called "The Skin-Man of Debaria" is because that plotline is the weaker of the two. Buried in the middle, like a chocolate center is "The Wind Through The Keyhole." Here, we have major loss, conflict, sorrow, magic, dragons, friendship, loyal, bravery and glimpses of both Merlin and the sinister, long-lived Man in Black.

"The Wind Through the Keyhole" is closer to "The Eyes of The Dragon" and "Insomnia" in my opinion. By that, I mean that it's a world hovering close to The Dark Tower rather than a full extension of the story. That isn't a bad thing, just like this isn't a bad book. I'm not sure how he could have done it, (most likely, he would have had to just make the two stories into a novellas in an anthology) but I kind of wished that Stephen King had distanced this from the rest of the series. I'm sure that hardcore Dark Tower fans would have loved these two tales much more if they'd been released like "The Eyes Of the Dragon", "Insomnia" or "The Little Sisters of Eluria."

The Dark Tower Nine: Roland Crying Off The Tower

These are, merely, my speculations and impressions of Stephen King's beloved Epic series about a gunslinging pilgrim searching for a jutting, soot-colored tower which serves as the hub of all reality. I speak, of course, of the Dark Tower.

After finishing 2004's "The Dark Tower 7: The Dark Tower", my mind began to reel with all the untold stories that should come afterward. I hadn't been surprised that Stephen King announced in 2009 that he would be opening another doorway into Mid-world. I was, however, surprised, although still very pleased, that Stephen King had decided to place that new novel, "The Dark Tower: Wind Through The Keyhole" in between "The Dark Tower 4: Wizard And Glass" and "The Dark Tower 5: Wolves Of The Calla".

Stephen King Writes on his website: StephenKing.com

http://www.stephenking.com/promo/wind_through_the_keyhole/announcement/

At some point, while worrying over the copyedited manuscript of the next book (11/22/63, out November 8th), I started thinking—and dreaming—about Mid-World again. The major story of Roland and his ka-tet was told, but I realized there was at least one hole in the narrative progression: what happened to Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and Oy between the time they leave the Emerald City (the end of Wizard and Glass) and the time we pick them up again, on the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis (the beginning of Wolves of the Calla)?

There was a storm, I decided. One of sudden and vicious intensity. The kind to which billy-bumblers like Oy are particularly susceptible. Little by little, a story began to take shape. I saw a line of riders, one of them Roland’s old mate, Jamie DeCurry, emerging from clouds of alkali dust thrown by a high wind. I saw a severed head on a fencepost. I saw a swamp full of dangers and terrors. I saw just enough to want to see the rest. Long story short, I went back to visit an-tet with my friends for awhile. The result is a novel called The Wind Through the Keyhole. It’s finished, and I expect it will be published next year.

Although I did notice a gap in between the two books, I was expecting an eighth book to follow Roland doing what had only been implied in DT-7. You could have expected some spoilers and here, I will not disappoint you. In the last novel, Roland reaches his Dark Tower after slaying the Crimson King on his balcany. He climbs a spiral staircase lined with vignettes from his long life. He believes that the tower would stretch upward forever and then, it ends. He opens the door at the top of the tower and remembers that he's won the top of the tower over and again.
"Oh, god. Not again." Roland cries as the Ka brings him back to the sprawling desert of "The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger"

Stephen King, the human writer, could has done his duty, if such duty exists, to his constant readers. He said, "This man will go to this place" and then King brought him to that place. He even suggested that the story might go now beyond the last page, sparking the reader's imagination. Stephen King, the character, still has work to do. One can't do it without the other. I got the impression that "Roland's Tower" wasn't "Roland's Tower." The Tower can be possessed by no one, neither Roland nor The Crimson King. I got the impression that Ka's wheel wished Roland to save the beams, slay the Crimson King and finally, walk onward to live life after the tower. Before the announcement, I imagined, and still imagine, the untold story of a harsher, harder Roland gun Patrick Danville down in a haze of grief and anger. A harsher man who had lost Susannah to another world and lost Oy to the murderous, but lonesome Mordred could have easily pulled out one of those old revolvers with the Saddlewood grips and plugged Patrick down, just to lighten his load and punish the young man who aided Susannah to leave. The implications of this is obvious. If a harsher man made that trip, the Crimson King would have won the door at the top of the tower. I, also, imagined a less harsh, more kind Roland accompanying Patrick away from the tower. This is how I imagine a ninth Dark Tower book going.

The last of the DT novels was over 1000 pages and many of the other books aren't much shorter, so I'm not suggesting that Stephen King squeezes all seven into one giant book just to have Roland walk away. King would have to do it a full three times if he were to go that route. Roland coming to the tower the first time, the prequel. Roland coming this time, the current series. Roland coming to the tower the lst time, the series I'm hoping will come. I almost think that King could accomplish this task with a short stories. A quick flashback of the journey before and the battle with the Crimson King and then lastly, Roland truning away and helping Patrick gather up the scattered food cans.