Customer Reviews

Asylum (Blackstone Chronicles) (No 6)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This last installment left me totally iritated. After holding me spellbound for the first book, somewhat intrigued with books 2 and 3, a little too predictable with 4 and just mediocre with book 5, I expected at least some satisfying closure with the last book. NOT! The book didn't end so much as it just suddenly stopped-like the author realized he was running out of paper and had to rush it to a conclusion. It had a million hanging loose ends, a dumb climax, and [a poor] final scene. This could have been a great work in the tradition of Stephan King, if only the author spent more time developing the background stories of the original inmates or the character of Malcom Metcalf (i.e. the "sources and nature of the evil")...

I suppose this explosive ending to The Blackstone Chronicles is essentially why I like John Saul's writing so much. The suspense in this story is built beautifully, and I was truly on the edge of my seat. The main character Oliver is now forced to face the reality of his dark past, and in the process finds healing and hope. After reading every Blackstone Chronicles, I was very satisfied with the ending.

I pushed myself to finish this book just to read this ending and the ending itself wasn't what I hoped. In Asylum we're told all of Oliver Metcalf's secrets after his uncle dies and gives him the razor his twin sister was killed with. This brings back memories Oliver had blocked out for years, including how his father tortured him and who really killed his sister. Also in Asylum, Oliver tries to kill "someone" during another one of his blackouts.

Very disappointing conclusion to a disappointing series. The finale is, to put it mildly, unsatisfying, full of old horror-cliches and very badly written. Saul may not be the greatest horror author alive but he has proven in other novels that he can do better than THAT

Following the success of the monthly serial, "The Green Mile" comes John Saul's "Blackstone Chronicles." While the books are printed in a similiar six-part format with attractive black glossy covers, what lurks beneath the cosmetics is merely a shadow of Stephen King's inspired tale. Saul's creates some interesting characters and is able to conjur up a few chills but the pay-off is not worth the investment as loose plot-strings dangle upon reaching "Asylum's" final page.

******THERE WILL BE SPOILERS OF EARLIER NOVELS******

"The Blackstone Chronicles" is a novel serialized in six short (88 page) monthly segments, and this is the sixth and last installment. And so it ends now. Yes it really ends. Kinda. But first what has happened before, and you cannot read this last book without having read the previous books in the series. In the small town of Blackstone, there is a project to renovate the now closed, but still hated and feared Blackstone Asylum into a series of small shops and restaurants. Unfortunately somebody is taking a dim view of this, and is on a mission of vengeance. They are doing this by sending cursed objects to the various people who have had past or have current ties to either the Asylum, or the Asylum's renovation project. In number one, an antique doll is sent to the developer, in number two, a locket is sent to the financer, in number three and four, old employees are sent a cigarette lighter and a handkerchief respectively, and in episode five, a stereoscope is sent to the lawyer of the bank that is financing the Asylum renovation. And misery, murder and destruction follows to whomever receives these gifts.

In this last episode, the lawyer is now dead, Rebecca Morrison, the town's assistant librarian, who was kidnapped in episode four, is still kidnapped, and the towns patriarch, Harvey Connelly, has now been gifted with a blood encrusted, old-fashioned straight razor. It doesn't take him long to realize who the razor belongs to. It belongs to Oliver Metcalf's father, the last superintendent of the Blackstone Asylum, a brutal man who suicided in 1959 soon after the mysterious death of Oliver's twin sister.

Oliver Metcalf is the editor and publisher of "The Blackstone Chronicle", the town's weekly newspaper, and throughout the serialized novel he has been trying to get romantically involved with the now kidnapped Rebecca, and to investigate the continued mysterious deaths that have been happening in Blackstone, and now investigate the disappearance of his sweetie. He has also been suffering from increasingly debilitating migraines, migraines that have been followed by visions of a small boy who is being continuously tortured sometime and somewhere in the Blackstone Asylum.

This is the episode in which most of the novel's continuing plot lines are all tied up. Some of which are done satisfactorily, and the rest, well, not so much. First the good stuff. Oliver gets his memory back. The visions that he has been having throughout the novel aren't really visions, but memories, and they are pivotal to what has been happening in "The Blackstone Chronicles" series. We also find out the answer to what caused the death of Oliver's twin sister, a death that has haunted his family ever since it happened and which may have caused the suicide of Oliver's father. We also get to find out what has happened to Rebecca during the time she was kidnapped.

On the negative side, the ending is particularly unsatisfying as the person that is responsible for the town's mayhem will remain unpunished. Also, Saul leaves the ending open for a sequel as there may be more cursed objects out there, and NONE of them are ever recovered. We also never find out how these objects ever became the cursed things that they were. Then there is the reason as to why the person was committing the acts that they were doing, as it is based on a now discredited psychological theory that was popular in fiction during the nineties, but has pretty much proven to be rubbish now, and will leave the reader with an "oh-come-on-now" feeling at it clichédness.

In the end, most of the episodes were worth reading, while a couple, including this one, either fell flat, or were anti-climatic. I don't know if the collected novel has been revised or re-written, or if Saul just collected all six together and did nothing with them. If not revision was ever done, then this would have been one of Saul's weaker novels.

Looking back at it as a whole however, I will have to admit that it probably would make a pretty good six part mini-series on something like the Scy-Fy channel.

As a bonus, Saul gives us an afterward in which he discusses the origin of the novel, its concept, and why he wanted to write it as serial novel.

For this site I have all six of these volumes in this series:

The Blackstone Chronicles #1: Eye for an Eye: The Doll (Blackstone Chronicles).
The Blackstone Chronicles #2: Twist of Fate: The Locket (Blackstone Chronicles).
The Blackstone Chronicles #3: Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's Flame (Blackstone Chronicles, Part 3).
The Blackstone Chronicles #4: In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief (Blackstone Chronicles).
The Blackstone Chronicles #5: Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope (Blackstone Chronicles, Part 5).
The Blackstone Chronicles #6: Asylum (Blackstone Chronicles) (No 6).

With the publication of part six of this serial novel The Blackstone Chronicles are complete. Unfortunately the final volume was more like the fifth volume than the first four. After a strong start the story just did not go the distance.

Volume six, ASYLUM, finally reveals Oliver Metcalf's dark secret and clarified some of the subtleties from earlier volumes. Rebecca was finally found (by Oliver, no less) and the final death occurred, brought on by the final object, an antique straight razor.

The story was really over midway through the book. Much of the second half was just the author's way of making sure the reader made all of the connections they were supposed to. It was sort of like seeing a magic trick dissected. It lost the magic.

I had high hopes for this serial when it started, but there is little point to horror, or suspense, if the building tension goes nowhere. I recommend the series on the strength of the first four parts as they are worth reading. I just wish it was worth finishing. Combined into a single volume the rehashing in this part will really seem redundant.

In this concluding volume of the Blackstone Chronicles, Oliver Metcalf, the editor of the Blackstone Chronicle, is given the last of the objects belonging to former residents of the long-closed Blackstone (NH) Asylum. All the previous objects, given out by a "dark figure" from the Asylum, have been responsible for mayhem in the lives of the recipients--suicides, deaths, grievous bodily injuries, explosions, fires, and demonic possessions. Oliver, attracted to Rebecca Morrison, has been seeking her since here disappearance in Volume 4 (In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief), and he suffers blinding headaches whenever he goes near the front of the Asylum.

(No spoilers.) When Oliver is given a mahogany box, he feels compelled to open it in his father's former office at the Asylum, where he was the superintendent. This time when Oliver approaches the front door, he has no blinding headache, feeling only a warmth emanating from the box, which looks familiar. When he opens it, he finds his father's tortoise-shell razor, covered with blood. Soon, and for the first time, he begins to remember the mysterious circumstances of his twin sister's death. Running parallel with this story is the story of the abducted Rebecca Morrison, who desperately hopes for rescue by a knight on a horse.

As the action--and the series--reach their climax here, the reader hopes that all the loose ends from previous volumes will finally be connected, that the questions about why the "dark figure" at the Asylum seeks vengeance on the children of the people who long ago engaged in torture at the Asylum will be answered, and that the "dark figure" will face the consequences of his crimes.

Though the ending answers some of the questions, it does not answer them all, and, unfortunately, it is not a surprise. (Volume Four provides enough revealing clues about the "dark figure" to make the conclusion inevitable.) Ultimately, after reading the six volumes, I was disappointed that the mysteries were not adequately connected and resolved, creating a final impression that in this series, violence and horror exist for their own sake. n Mary Whipple

"Asylum" wraps up The Blackstone Chronicles series with Oliver Metcalf's uncle, Harvey Connally, receiving a razor case that reveals the sources of tragedies occurring in Blackstone, New Hampshire--the item later resulting in Harvey's own death.

Meanwhile, after being abducted in part 4, Rebecca Morrison is still being held captive and possibly next to die. The ending to "Asylum"--or, rather, Rebecca's lamebrained excuses for her abductor--was aggravating. But still, compared to Stephen King's prior six-part serial series, I prefer The Blackstone Chronicles much more, mainly because this series is more suspenseful and horror-filled than "The Green Mile."

Though all six installments are sold separately--"An Eye for an Eye: The Doll" (#1), "Twist of Fate: The Locket" (#2), "Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's Flame" (#3), "In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief" (#4), "Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope" (#5), and this one: "Asylum" (#6)--I'd recommend just buying the all-in-one novel; it's easier to read and less expensive that way.

john saul is the most fear-fulfilling writer since king....in fact king he might have you beat.