The Talisman

I truly wish that King would have collaborated more frequently with other authors. This particular work is, in some aspects, so distinct from his typical output. I am extremely curious to know which parts were written by whom and what it must generally be like to have the privilege of working with the King. You are such a lucky person, Mr. Straub, you are indeed.

King writes far too few dark high fantasy works with worldbuilding. In this one, we witness the potential of switching between different realities and the manifestations of the same characters in parallel universes, including tech, society, powers, and so on. Something similar can only be seen in his Dark Tower series, which also has elements of this nature. I don't know why King avoids the meta, big picture, series style. Perhaps it's because he is so deeply engrossed in character-driven storytelling. Maybe he wants to avoid the time-consuming and complex creation of his own worlds. Or perhaps dark forces are telling him not to reveal too much of the abysses that they have allowed him to glimpse. Who can say for sure?

It's just that some of his best paranormal novels are not merely about ordinary horror but about parallel societies or powers that make them more complex than the majority of novels that only deal with death, horror, and torture elements. It's like an extra layer of insanity on the cake, an additional deliciously rotten layer in the pie of pain. Something that everyone is eagerly anticipating.

I'm honestly not sure if Straub is one of the underrated or just average authors. I have one or two of his books lying around in one of my disorganized, out-of-control TBR piles. I'm not certain if it's just his famous friend King and the horror-empty era in which he wrote his novels that made him popular or if he is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered. I couldn't get into Ghost Story and may potentially give it a second chance, perhaps when I'm back in the horror wave flow again, whenever that may be.

A problem with the genre in general might be that, if there isn't a completely new, fresh idea or a combination of great talent and hard work, there are only the same few overused, stereotypical plots that have to be employed to create suspense, which makes it rather predictable.

Tropes demonstrate how literature is conceptualized and created and which combination of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Fantasy + Horror

Jack Sawyer, a twelve-year-old boy, embarks on a long and arduous journey to seek a crystal known as The Talisman. His mother, who is battling cancer, depends on this crystal for her survival. Along the way, Jack encounters numerous hardships and faces fierce enemies. However, he also makes some loyal friends who will stand by him throughout his mission. This captivating fantasy story is set in parallel worlds. The other world, called Territories, is inhabited by parallel individuals known as Twinners, who have the ability to migrate between the two worlds.

I typically don't have a great affinity for stories centered around kids. I often believe that such tales are difficult to take seriously, especially when narrated in the first-person style. Fortunately, in this case, the point of view is presented in the third person, which effectively creates a darker atmosphere. The characters and their parallels are truly outstanding. Wolf and Richard are two remarkable characters that will stay with me from this story. This is a collaboration between Stephen King and Peter Straub, although the extent of each author's contribution remains unknown. The book has King's signature atmosphere, yet it also feels distinct from his solo works. My only criticism is that this story could have been enhanced if it were a bit shorter. The edition I read consists of 981 pages, and I believe it could have been easily trimmed by two hundred pages without sacrificing the essence of the story.

I'm still uncertain about the precise connection between this book and the Dark Tower series. I推测 it might be related to understanding the concept of parallel worlds, which is a central feature of the Tower series. Nevertheless, this was a very enchanting fantasy story.

Note: The Talisman is part of my reading of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. This is Book No.5 out of the 24 books I intend to read for this series.

“Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon.”

Only the Talisman has the power to save young Jack Sawyer’s ailing mother. So, he must set off on a perilous adventure across America and even into another world to obtain it.

I had been eagerly awaiting The Talisman for what seemed like an eternity. I couldn't quite put my finger on the reason, but I just had this inkling that it would be a book I would utterly adore. However, to be completely honest, it didn't quite live up to the expectations I had built up in my mind. I still really enjoyed it and think it's a great book, but it didn't become an instant favorite. *sad face*

Jack Sawyer is a wonderful character. He reminds me so much of Jake Chambers, and perhaps that's part of the problem – he's not Jake Chambers. This book also gave me strong Dark Tower vibes. But once again, it's not the Dark Tower. I think I was comparing it too much to the Dark Tower, and it was never going to come close to surpassing King's masterpiece, which is my all-time favorite book series. I have a feeling that if I had read this first, I might have loved it even more.

Now, this opening to my review might seem harsh, because I really did love certain aspects of this book and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Wolf quickly became a new favorite King character. What a kind and gentle soul he is! “Right here and now!” I really could have used even more of Wolf in the story. I also loved the concept of the Territories and Twinners. Although it did get a bit confusing at times, especially since some of the Twinners had very similar names (which was intentional, of course). But sometimes my brain had to work hard to figure out who was who. The story also dragged in some parts for me. And I wish we had spent more time in the Territories because normal earth just seems so dull in comparison, and I wanted to know more about this different world!

The Talisman is filled with emotion. Jack is a very emotional child, and he felt so real to me. His quest to save his mother is incredibly brave and admirable. It's truly special to watch his growth and development as he travels across America. The collaboration between King and Straub felt almost seamless. I really just felt like I was reading a King book. I haven't read any Straub yet, so I can't really say if it felt like his writing, but King's influence was definitely all over this one.

I'm really disappointed that I didn't love this one as much as I thought I would. I just didn't connect with it in the same way. But I did enjoy it, and I'm looking forward to reading Black House soon!

Maybe I had overly high expectations, but I have to admit that “The Talisman” didn't overly impress me.

Right from the start of the story, I struggled to engage with the plot or any of the plot devices. It wasn't that the story was completely unbelievable, and I don't have an issue with fantasy in general. It's just that the execution and the premise of the story were really difficult to get into.

Overall, it felt like a patchwork quilt, with a collection of short-story adventures stitched together, and 12-year-old Jack Sawyer serving as the single thread. My main problems with the story can be summarized as follows: **SPOILERS AHEAD**

1. Jack’s Mother: The idea that Jack's mom, who is dying of cancer, would let him leave and travel across the country seems rather far-fetched. If she was near death, why wouldn't she seek medical treatment instead of going to a beach house? I never quite understood this aspect, yet a significant portion of the story depended on Jack leaving his mother to find the Talisman to cure her.

2. It seems rather convenient that it takes 90% of the book for Jack to reach the west coast, and then on the way back, he gets a car ride that is described in just a couple of pages. This reminds me of the Eagles in “Lord of the Rings.” It begs the question: why does an adventure story spend so many pages detailing the journey of a quest, yet the return home has a means that makes it convenient for the characters to reduce travel time significantly? Why wouldn't that have been the first option?

3. I didn't really care for Wolf. Naming a werewolf character “Wolf” seems a bit lazy.

4. Speaking of Wolf, King/Straub went to great lengths to describe his fear of driving in a car, yet at the end of the tale, his litter brother is a chauffeur.

5. I could have done without the sexual references. When characters are described as having foreskin, erections, and jewelry for their genitals, I really don't see how that adds to the story. If anything, it just distracts and disgusts me.

6. The main villains – Morgan Sloat/Morgan of Orris and Robert "Sunlight" Gardner/Osmond – were not as villainous as I had expected. They seemed very clichéd and stereotypical.

7. Speedy Parker/Parkus was a rather confusing character. It was never clearly explained how he was able to appear in random places, while Jack had to travel on foot everywhere. I guess Jack isn't as special as he seemed. Maybe I missed something in the book, but it was unclear to me how Speedy was able to show up in all the right places at all the random times.

I feel like I might be being a bit harsh on “The Talisman,” but after reading “The Dark Tower” series, I can't help but compare all of Stephen King's work to it. His “Dark Tower” series was such an epic piece of work that it really set a high bar for any of his other fantasy/sci-fi stories.

Pros: There aren't many... perhaps the sequel will be better.

Cons: There are far too many... the most significant being that it's hard to believe that a single, dying mother would let her 12-year-old son disappear for an unknown amount of time to an unknown location.

Bottom line: This isn't the best of King's works, and maybe it's not the worst either, but I probably wouldn't read it a second time.

There is always a first time for everything. It has come to abandoning a novel by King. We'll blame it on Peter Straub. Poor him.

It was getting very difficult for me. I like that King inserts terror and the supernatural into the normal lives of ordinary people. In "The Talisman", everything is fantasy, there is no normality. And that exhausts me, especially in such a long novel. It's like "Inside the Labyrinth", "The Wizard of Oz" or "The Neverending Story", works that I greatly enjoyed at the time. But it hasn't caught me now, neither with eagerness nor with patience, to get into Fantasy. It must be something related to age.

I prefer to leave this novel in time (200 pages have been read), and I will reconcile with King sooner rather than later. I have no doubt about that. The King is the King.

I give it two stars, because my grateful nature prevents me from rating so poorly someone who has given me so much.

Truly wondrous.

My memories of my first read of The Talisman were far from doing justice to the original. The re-read, which came after a vast re-read of all the other SK works with their connections to DT and the fact that everything follows the beam, was an eye-opener.

Of course, I might have judged this book solely based on its merit compared to all the other SK books I had read up to 1989 when I last read it.

The obvious is that this is a straightforward adventure novel. Half of the time, it takes place in 1980s America, following a 12-year-old's harrowing adventure across the dark continent from coast to coast. The other half occurs in a magical mid-world version that is just as dark as our side. All of this makes this book a bona fide Epic Fantasy in my eyes. Only, here it's called the Territories.

Dark forces, powerful magic, the erosion of reality and goodness, the entire quest structure, which is much bigger than Jack Sawyer's attempt to save his mother, is as classic a fantasy as one might imagine, yet it's not derivative.

Indeed, with the YA core, a better treatment than that of Holes, the true nastiness of the human spirit, and the feel of On the Road mixed with dark doppelgangers and twinners everywhere, I have to say I like this better than most modern YA by a long shot.

But the best part is this: It was written with Peter Straub and SK and published in 1984, exactly two years after SK's first Dark Tower came out. Back then, I could only tentatively guess at the connections. The Blasted Lands are the Wasted Lands, both accurately representing middle America. The Territories resemble Midworld, and the references to many Territories are also a giveaway.

And here's the really fun part: From the rest of the DT series, we get all the references to the train, wizard and glass, a different representation of The Rose, chittering spiders on the Tower itself, and so many other aspects that make this novel, The Talisman, almost a direct prototype for the full epic of The Dark Tower.

I don't recommend reading this book before the full epic of DT, mind you. I love the easter-egg hunt and the analysis too much.

BUT, if you're a big fan of SK's new book, Fairy Tale, this is a great follow-up and continuation and a slow build-up for everything else. Or as any fan of SK knows, everything follows the beam. It doesn't really matter where you start. It all builds and leads you to the same nexus in the end. ;)

My appreciation for this novel has, however, increased significantly. I'm kind of geeked out over it now. Other than the DT itself, it is the closest we get to the full saga, and I wonder if that's how it had to be. The publishing industry didn't really want to give DT a chance at the time.

In the beginning of 2020, I made a decision to reread all of Stephen King's works in the order of their publication. So far, this experience has been an exciting and rewarding one. I have discovered that I underrated certain books such as Christine and Firestarter.

The Talisman is a book that I have fond but vague memories of. I remember the trees like those from Evil Dead 2, and a character called Wolf, a unique twist on the werewolf mythology. However, that's about all I can recall. I have to admit that I attempted to reread this book back in 2019 and was met with disappointment. You can read the reasons why in my original review below. I still stand by everything that I wrote about the book.

The first 200 pages of this book read as if King and Straub were having a contest of dueling writers. Those pages are overly written. That's not to say that interesting things don't happen within them. For example, there are the already mentioned Evil Dead trees and an interesting chapter where the main character, Jack Sawyer, works at the Oatley Tap. However, they do drag on. Take the Oatley Tap scene, for instance. It begins with Jack deciding to leave and then involves 40 pages of backstory about his time there.

After finishing the novel, I believe that this overwriting is due to both writers working in a genre that they aren't as comfortable with. The first 200 pages deal with the building of a fantasy world known as The Territories. It's only after the entrance of Wolf that the novel falls into horror elements and the book finds its groove. Additionally, Jack Sawyer as a character works better when he has a comrade in arms such as Wolf or Richard Sloat. Alone, he's difficult to empathize with.

The rest of the novel after Wolf appears is enjoyable, heartfelt, and at times frightening. The most horrifying sequence is when Jack and Wolf are captured by Sunlight Gardener, the novel's secondary villain. Gardener is an insane individual who serves the main villain Morgan Sloat while pretending to be a Christian evangelist running a home for wayward boys. He is the type of character that readers love to hate and, as such, outshines Morgan. The time that Jack and Wolf are at his mercy creates some of the most tense moments in the novel. I rate this book 2.5 stars.

Original 2019

I originally read this book when I was 13 - 14 years old. Now, having decided to reread it at 29, it has made me think about how much patience I had back then. This is a DNF (Did Not Finish) for me and one of the few that I've had this year. What makes it even more disappointing is that I am a fan of both of these writers' other works. I don't think this is because I was distracted by work or life, as I chose to take this massive novel on holiday with me. I had an abundant amount of time to immerse myself in the story it presented, and I was eager to do so.

The problem I had with The Talisman this time is simple. It is far too indulgent in all aspects of its storytelling. It takes 75 pages for the story to reach the point where the objective of Jack Sawyer's quest is mentioned. It isn't until page 102 that he commences on that quest. In the interim, we get a strange scene where a 12-year-old tells his mother he is leaving her to find something that will save her life. This scene doesn't work because it wouldn't work in reality. Yes, this is a fantasy novel, but it jumps between the real world and a fantasy one. Since the conversation takes place on the real side of things, it doesn't hold up. Plus, this is fantasy light at best. Despite being overindulgently described and wordy to the point of boredom, the time spent in the fantasy world has very few fantastically elements in its first 250 pages. In fact, there are only two scenes, one of which involves horrifying, living, and hungry trees and a man who transforms into a monster.

In other words, The Talisman reads very much like a novel of its time, with a long-winded introduction to the story and its characters. If it were released today, it would be condensed massively, especially if it is considered a young adult novel with its pre-teen main character. What would have made it better is if the authors had a better understanding of that main character. Jack Swayer doesn't feel or act like a 12-year-old boy but more like a whiny, entitled adult. Entire chapters pass by with little or no dialogue from him. It's like the reader has nothing to hold onto. From memory, I do recall that he befriends a werewolf-like character called Wolf, and this is the standout relationship of the story. However, I couldn't reach that point. It's 270 pages into a novel that feels more like a meandering cocktail of vague ideas.

Heartwarming journey of self-discovery and triumph.

Travelling Jack, a 12-year-old boy, is on a remarkable quest to save his ailing mother through worlds within worlds.

The story's concept of playing within worlds vividly reminds one of the Dr Seuss Horton Hears a Who movie, where actions in one world have profound repercussions in another.

Jack encounters familiar faces along the way, and the fates of both worlds are intricately intertwined and have a significant effect on each other.

He embarks on experiences that are both painful and heartwarming, which gradually mold him into a unique individual.

Jack forms a special bond with two particular characters, making this one of the best buddy tales in recent memory. One of the unique characters, 'Wolf', evokes a wide range of emotions, making you want to both cry and laugh.

This is an unforgettable tale of Jack's unwavering determination to save the one person he loves more than himself - his mother. It's a story that we can all relate to, and you'll find yourself wholeheartedly rooting for his triumph in finding the cure for her declining health.

The balance of life and death rests in the hands of this one boy as he retrieves The Talisman.

It took me a week to read this captivating story, and now I'm eager to move on to The Black House to see how Jack's story continues.

June 2011 update: There was initially going to be a mini-tv series of this, but unfortunately, due to funding issues, the studio dropped it. However, there is still a possibility of a movie, and we'll have to wait and see. The story would truly look amazing on the big screen.

Jack from the artwork of the novel is presented here.

Movie trailer can be found here.