 Hello everybody! E here. Welcome back to another spoiler discussion. Today we are going to be talking about Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. I don't know if I mentioned this. I know I mentioned this in the Talisman one, but the cover for this one is only slightly better, better, better, yeah better. There's the no trespassing sign, whatnot. But I never was a huge fan of the hard cover, which was just a footprint and a house that does not fit the picture of the house at all. So I don't know why the, I don't know why the Straub and King books have such terrible covers, but they do. And this is a first, this is a first, first. And it's also really cheaply made, like they didn't have any, I don't know how to put it, they didn't, they didn't think it would do well, you know, they didn't think they'd make, they'd make their money back off of it. But then again, we have things like, let's see here, this cash grab, which was the reissue of Bag of Bones and hardcover to go with the Scribner classics. And this thing is a wobbly piece of shit too. So I don't know, maybe it's just his publisher not believing in that era of books, I don't know, because how far, how far apart were these books? Let's see here, that one of course was new, this was in 2001, right? Yeah, 2001, I didn't even have to look that up. But 2001 there, sorry, I went full, I'm going full geek for this video, I want to see how close they are. I believe this one was just before his accident, so 99, yeah, maybe it's just that era, 98, maybe it's just that era of what, Scribner? No, it's Random House, they went with a Straub's publisher, never mind, completely different publisher. So anyways, now that we got all that out of the way, I like this one a lot, like I said in the review video, there's also going to be a Thursday Ferris video, hopefully it'll be up right after this one. But the thing that I like the most about it is that Straub and King's voices came together, I know someone had mentioned that in a video that they watched that either King or Straub said that they tried to mimic each other, you can really tell that here because the styles don't clash, there's tons and tons of scenes where you can almost feel Straub trying to play King, but it's not quite King because Straub can't get that, he doesn't have that conversational tone that King does. Now am I 100% certain that King didn't actually write those segments? Probably not, did I highlight them to read them off to you? No I did not, I apologize. But I recall in the Talisman always going, well Straub wrote this, well King wrote that, and it's very few times in this book that I feel that way. But as far as the spoiler discussion, when I did the one for Carrie I realized my fatal flaw, even though you guys decidedly liked that video, I was just doing a breakdown of the plot, and that's not really what a spoiler discussion is, I don't think that's what a spoiler discussion is, and I don't know why I did a video like that, but what I want to do with this is I want to talk about in-depth spoilers of the things that I liked and I didn't like, so that's what we're going to do from here on out. Luckily this is only my second spoiler discussion, the first one was Carrie and I might go back delete that one and just reshoot that whole one, let me know what you guys think down there in the doobly-doo. But with this one, right off the bat, you get that sense like you're being told a story by an old friend, they open it up and you're above the city, you're looking out as if you're God, and that's basically how they treat themselves. There is a part in the book that says where your two storytellers or the storytellers working on this book understand that you can stop the book here, I like that, that little bit there, not only do we have this God-like omniscient POV for the book, but they're even referencing that there's two gods in this case, two storytellers, so I appreciated that. One of my favorite parts of the book is the bad guy Burnside, he was batshit crazy, I loved it, and I mentioned in the review how one person mentioned that all he remembers about this book was the ass eating, there is no eating of butt meat in the book, but there's much discussion about the eating of butt meat, but there's only like, and not talking about tossing a salad or licking someone's butt hole, literally eating, you know, butt, rump, rump roast, literally eating the butt meat of these kids that he's murdering, and there's only like five or six pages worth of content regarding that, but then this person, and it's gonna stick with me forever, man, this person's comment about the, you know, the book was only about eating ass, and I find that funny, but I didn't realize, you know, how much they took away from Albert Fish to write this book, especially the first time I read the book, I was, you know, fucked up on heroin at the time, in fact, I think I was going through a self-imposed rehab at the time when I read the book for the first time, and I didn't know much about Albert Fish then, I know a little bit more about Albert Fish now, but I didn't put the two and two together, in fact, back then I'm pretty sure I thought that Albert Fish was a fictional character, that they, you know, they just created for the story, come to find out to you as a real killer, it also brings to mind H.H. Holmes, actually bring him up, H.H. Holmes, Dahmer, Gacy, you know, other cannibals, famous cannibals throughout the years and ages, but one of my favorite parts is that character is like, not really character arc, but it's the idea of him being this, not innocuous, this character hidden away in his nursing home, and everybody thinks he's crazy, he's got dementia or whatever, but he's got this sorted back history with the mafia, or maybe it wasn't the mafia, I can't exactly remember, but he's got this history back in Chicago, that was, that had happened earlier in his life, and I remember really enjoying the villain this time, whereas in the talisman, Richard, not Richard, Morgan Slote, he just didn't do anything for me, that was one of the main problems I had with the talisman, is none of the characters really did anything for me, and this one you have Henry, Jack is great in this one, Jack is a great adult character, I didn't care too much for him as a kid, you also had Charles Burnside, you had the guy, you had all the bikers, Doc, Beezer, couple other ones, I can't remember all their names right now, they're finally starting to fade, but while I was reading the book they were just about as alive as can be for me, but you had, this character stuck away in the nursing home, no one was paying attention to him, he literally got away with murder, and it was interesting as they were going through it, he was going to frame this one person, and then that person ended up, what was it in the alibi, I can't even remember what it was, but they automatically knew that of course this dude wasn't the case, and me and the angel of the person that I read the book with, we were like well they're obviously going to breeze right over that because there's not too much of the book left, and we're not going to have some kind of murder investigation, and then he up and killed Henry, I was really shocked, but that scene going back to one of my favorite parts of the book is Henry throwing down, this blind man throwing down with with Charles Burnside, I appreciate that, it's so much fun watching King, I don't know if Straub has a history of doing this, watching King make a character live as long as humanly possible, so many others are like oh he cut his throat and he died, but with King it's like if the wound is not fatal, he's going to keep that character around for a while to either have emotional content, I'll put this book down because I hear it popping in the background and me messing with the spine, he's either going to have an emotional ending or he's going to have a tragic or not tragic but a funny ending, and it's funny, it's strange to me that he did both, you have the emotional ending with Henry and then you have this funny dark, darkly humorous, disgusting ending for Burnside, when Tyler crushes Tooth's testicles, I just, I noked out, my mind completely just you know left the area, like fuck it, I'm not reading anything else right now, I remember Angela bringing up how much she liked that part, I love the whole character arc for Burnside, it's probably my favorite part about the book, now that I've sat in the book for about a week and I've thought about it, I think Burnside was my favorite character in the book, honestly, other than Henry, Henry was probably my favorite good guy, him playing the four different characters, at one point in time I thought that the DJ and Henry were too completely different, now the guy who dressed in the suits and went out to the nursing home, he went out there to DJ the nursing home, that's a great scene by the way, the writing is pitch perfect for that scene, it almost has a beat you can dance to during a dance, it's really cool if you're a writer or you're a fan of the craft, go back and read just that scene and that has a rhythm to it, the cadence of the words, the structure, it's just fascinating to me and I probably read that part three times before moving on, I'm a really, really huge fan of that part, but as far as me forgetting who this guy was, it said really early on in the book that he was one man who was actually four different people and what that's funny to me is the first time I read this book back in 2001, I was coming off of heroin, this time for the first 200 pages of this book it was all kind of muddy for me, I had to talk to Angel about some things, it was all kind of muddy for me because I was on some super strong shit, they had me on fentanyl there for a little while and I didn't want to bring it up while I was on the stuff because I didn't want anybody to worry about me with my history with heroin and everything, but that was the medication they had me on and it is synthetically similar to heroin, so it's dilauded, it's this extremely high opiate painkiller, so the first 200 pages of this reread, I was in the same mindset as back then, so I took all those other characters, the radio host, the DJ, Henry, was it George Rathburn, is the one that's on the radio and then you have the DJ, Henry and all that stuff, I actually thought for a minute there that Henry was a black dude because of the way they described him doing the DJ stuff, so I thought that was interesting, but it's just the way the medicine messed with my mind that I actually made these characters into other characters when it was just that one person, I thought that was funny and Angel, I can only imagine Angel is going away in a second, oh actually she did say this in an email, I was like wait, you're the one who's supposed to be the expert on this stuff and I was like I'm sorry, I'm actually on drugs right now, literally on drugs, but another part is something that'll come up in the Thursday theorist, I had no idea that this book or that revival connected to this book so cementally, not cementally, is that so concretely, these two books are pieces of each other, if you've read Revival and you've read Black House you will notice how close, not close, how much they connect and Angela found some stuff also that I just kind of breezed over and like I said, we'll talk about all this stuff in Thursday theorist, but she went in red revival right after reading Black House and I think that's what I'm going to do on my reread this time and yes I'm going to be doing these books again in my reread, I'll probably just speed through them in an audiobook, but the connections were, they're obviously there, so now I'm wondering I've long said that Revival was probably sitting around the King compound forever before, I'm pretty sure it was a Trump novel or something that he was going to release under the Bachman name or whatever it might have been, I've long said that that book is older than what we think it is and now I kind of think that he wrote Revival and Black House around the same time, who knows when they were published, Peter Straub takes forever to release a book and yet, you know, this one came out in 2001, so how far back had they actually written it before it was published? That kind of thing and 2001, that's right after his accident, I mean he poked out the trilogy of trash, of course, what from a Buick 8 was already halfway done or mostly done before he had his car accident and he came back and finished it afterwards, so that completely, we understand why that book is so bad. Dream catcher was bad because he was in so much pain and I don't know what the hell happened with Sel, I think he was just out of his mind, you know, not thinking he had lost something when he wrote Sel, but when Black House came out around that time and of course he was also working on the or had finished working on whatever, on thinking he was working on the last three Dark Tower books, I don't know how far along he was or anything like that, or if he'd even started them before his accident. But of course this one ties in directly to, it can be alluded to the Talisman tying into Eyes of the Dragon, the Dark Tower series, it can be alluded to that, but this one straight up references the Crimson King, so you know, of course it's going to tie into that and we'll cover more of that stuff when we do the Thursday Theorist, but as far as this one, there's some others, there's some other stuff, I think the only part I really didn't like came in the middle and I was kind of worried that we were going to slam on brakes and just be stuck in this diner or Ed's eats forever, I just, I felt like that scene was just going to go on forever and I was like, oh, another, another time, is that the same problem with Talisman, another time they've gotten to the middle of the book, they have no idea where they're going to go and now we're stuck here spinning wheels because they just kept on describing, you know, different sections of that scene in different ways, pretty much to say the same thing over and over again, everybody's getting into position for this one, you know, reveal of the child that's been, you know, mutilated, meetin' and whatnot, and it just kept on going, that scene goes on forever, but it's nowhere near as long as the stuff that's in the, I guess it was at Sunshine Grove or whatever it was called in the Talisman, nowhere near as boring as all that stuff, at least there's something going on and yes, there's the escape in the Talisman, but that, I think, I thought that was too little, too late kind of deal. With this one, I appreciated the use of the journalist character, journalist, what was his name, Wendell Green, again, Green is another big theme of the book, I don't think it's as big as it was in the Talisman, but with this one, Wendell Green is probably my least favorite character, but probably only because I've seen this character from King before, he kind of felt like a, a, a twinner for, what's his name, Richard, something, Richard, Richard Dees, I think it is from The Nightflyer, works for Inside Edition, it kind of felt like he was the same dude there, and I think Richard Dees wasn't he even in the Dark Half, I think, I know that character pops around a lot, I'll do some more research before I do Thursday theorist, but that's kind of what Wendell Green, and if I'm getting the first name wrong, I apologize, I'm pretty sure it's Wendell Green, but the journalist character, I think that's why I just felt like I've seen that character from King a lot, it's kind of like the abusive alcoholic husband, we've seen that character, that wears a wife beater, we've seen that character so many damn times, you know, just pack him up and put him away, and I think King pretty much has at this point, which I appreciate, you know, it's not like the dogs in Dean Coons books where they're just kind of always there, even when they're not there, there's at least a mention of a super smart dog, but with the, the one, the one thing about this book that will probably stay with me the most though, is the writing, the story's fun, the story's great, but I'm still so impressed with how they did the writing, and there's, there's quite a few people who've expressed their, not their concern, but their, how irritated they got at the, the omniscient point of view, and while I understand that, I disagree, I think that's the best part of the book, I think the way they chose to talk, to tell the story is the best part of the book. Now, there, there are scenes where it hurts, like, the, you know, with Jack at the end getting shot up and, you know, stuck in the territories, and he'll never be able to come home for long again. I think that, that section was, the, the power of that section was ruined there at the end with the fore, with the forced foreshadowing. I can't remember who it was, but somebody else mentioned, you know, I don't know if it was on, on this review or not, but someone else mentioned that omniscient is great as long as there isn't too much forced foreshadowing, and I think that was one of the times in this book where that was way too forced. Why would you tell us that Jack's going to die before you do it? There's so much more of a punch later on. Now, there are times when King has done that, when I've appreciated it, like, in spoilers for Pet Cemetery, so if you want to click away spoilers for Pet Cemetery, please go away if you don't want to hear spoilers. When Gage dies in Pet Cemetery, King is setting that up throughout the whole, the whole front of the book. He's setting it up, but it's also a child. You know, it's kind of preparing, because he, he was bound to lose everybody. You know, kind of like he did with the whole Kujo thing, with hurting the, hurting the dog. You know, there's dogs running around killing people, people like, oh, poor Kujo. Yeah, poor Kujo, but what about all the people he ate? Um, and then it, in Pet Cemetery, you know, he kind of, he pads, he lets you know this kid is going to die. So, you know, don't get too attached, but just attached enough so I can break your heart. Now that kind of forced foreshadowing I enjoy, but with this one, I don't think we need to be told that. Now there is a twist. Jack ain't dead. He's just, uh, just can't come over to this world anymore. Now, um, here's some speculation. Here's a freebie speculation video for you for, uh, the, the Institute. I firmly believe now, I could be completely wrong, I've been wrong before, that the Institute is our third Jack Sawyer or third Talisman novel without Strob Attach. Um, I don't think, I think Strob and King had like a parting of ways, because Strob has been really, really, really upset as far as, you know, how he's been treated since the Talisman came out and Black House and on top of that, with how people have just kind of ignored his input into those books. And it's a thick move by us fans, but I mean they are Stephen King books. He did agree to come play in Stephen King's universe. Um, if there are sections of the universe that are Peter Strob's, then what can we say at this point? You decided to come over here, you had the Crimson King, you got all that stuff from the Dark Tower universe. It's a Stephen King book. You're playing in his sandbox. It's kind of like, you know, Black House, Stephen King presents Black House with a special appearance by Peter Strob. Now, did he do half the work? Probably. Did he do more of the work in this one? He might have, I don't know, because there's a lot of stuff in here that feels like Strob. But if we got King purposefully trying to mimic his style, I'm sure King can do that because King is a terrific mimic. Especially if you pick apart the bizarre bad dreams where he goes through and tells you what authors inspired what stories. If you go and read those other authors, you'll understand, you'll understand the connections almost immediately. He does a fantastic job of being a mimic. I think that's why he's so great because he can do damn near anything or anybody. He can mimic anybody. With this book that I have so many pleasant memories about reading this book. One of the biggest pleasant memories is reading it with Angela. That was a lot of fun. I hope to read more stuff with her. So Angela, if you're watching this, it was a blast. I really enjoyed reading it with you. Another thing is there were so many small moments of perfect, pitch perfect writing that I can't fault the book whatsoever. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I want to put it on my top five list. But the problem with that top five list for my Stephen King books is I still like those other books better, but I want to hold this one up to the level of those. So let's call this book 5.5 on my top five list of all time. I know we've talked about Black House before, but this time open up with the spoilers down there in the doobly-doo. Please tell me your favorite and least favorite sections. You don't even have to go to spoiler warning because honestly, if people come across this video with spoiler discussion in the tag, they deserve to be spoiled. Let's be honest. But anyways, leave all your comments down there in the doobly-doo. I'll talk to you guys there. But until next time, I have been E, you have been E. This has been another spoiler discussion video. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye bye.