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I am not enjoying it nearly so much as I did 'Talisman.'
I feel like they put style over substance. The first three or four chapters have the audience as POV characters, flying over the town, looking in on people's discussions. Now, in chapter five, that device has been left behind. None too soon. It was irksome.
But the tone of the book, so far, is great. It's pretty standard King fare-- innocent, whitewashed town, with little miseries hidden about, gets assaulted by implaccable evil. There's no mystery as to who's behind the implaccable evil-- we pretty much know from chapter 2-- but knowing only heightens the suspense.
Or, I should say, thinking that we know heightens the suspense. I'm going to be a little disappointed if (SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!) Burnsides is the only conduit for the monster.
Tom, didn't you warn me off this book some time ago? I'm trying to decide if I should feel stupid for not following your advice.
[ November 22, 2004, 06:40 AM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
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posted
Yeah, I warned you off that book. Frankly, all the books featuring the "Crimson King" kind of suck -- and I'm including the last Dark Tower novel in that heap.
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I bought black house when it was out in hardcover because Talisman was one of my favoristest books ever.... Well, maybe its best that they be treated as two separate stories instead of a pair.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Myr... I did the same thing when Black House came out. I loved reading The Talisman so much that I thought I would enjoy it as well. (I actually saw a first edition, first print of The Talisman up for auction on EBay once, but could not afford it at the time.)
I totally agree with Scott about the first chapter. I kept working my way through that whole bird's eye view chapter because I knew that I liked the main character. I kept telling myself it would get better. And, eventually, it did. I think it took me a week to get through that part. The rest of the book took me half that time to finish.
I always thought it would be interesting to find out which one of them wrote that chapter or who had the most input. Personally, I always thought that Peter Straub might have written it.
After finishing it, I was sort of disappointed. I liked it well enough, but somehow the ending didn't match well enough with how I thought of the main character. Of course, the main character was just a boy in the first book, even storybook people grow up.
An addendum: Look what I found at IMDB.com. Apparently, there are talks about a movie based on The Talisman. Interesting.
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I liked Black House pretty well, but then I read that before I read The Talisman and I liked Talisman much better. The last Dark Tower book would occasionally do that annoying talk-directly-to-the-reader bit, so I wouldn't be altogether surprised if it was King who was doing that in Black House.
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Frankly, all the books featuring the "Crimson King" kind of suck -- and I'm including the last Dark Tower novel in that heap.
