I've been reading King novels since I was pretty young, probably too young in fact--there's no way I fully got the S&M bits from Gerald's Game and the sex scene with Beverly and her shithead husband from It burned its way into my prepubescent brain and has remained there since. Despite being a longtime acolyte of Uncle Stephen I slept on this one for a long, long time. I'm not sure why--I probably thought that any fantasy experience with Sai King just couldn't live up to the ultimate bad trip that was the Dark Tower. Also, I'm not huge on books with children as protagonists--I was a child myself not too long ago and I've had my fill of that perspective for the moment. Also, I steadfastly refuse to be one of those drooling fanboy/girls that forget there's another name on the jacket--Peter Straub's! I read and really liked Ghost Story so I was excited to read more of him. Well, I've never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer and I'm happy to say I was totally wrong. This book is easily one of both authors' classics.I'm utterly fascinated by the idea of a book being co-written by two big names such as these. How did it work? Did they take turns writing chapters or would one just get halfway through a chapter or scene, decide he had shot his wad and just go "Your turn." There's just so many ways it could go horribly wrong--I don't know either of these gentlemen personally, but I can imagine that there's a degree of ego that needs to be suppressed when you're working with someone else when you've both established yourselves individually in the field already. Thankfully, both of these men are clear and unquestionable Servants of the Story--there's absolutely nothing amateurish or inconsistent about this book. The vision is perfectly in focus and while I could occasionally pick out an individual writer as I was reading it was a very, very occasional experience. Overall, the prose was a happy combination between King's "just a guy telling you a story" informality and Straub's more ornate and florid writing.The characters are predictably great and full of the spark of life. I fucking dare you to not fall in love with Jack Sawyer and his mom Lily Cavanaugh, Queen of the B movies and I double fucking dare you to not do the same with Wolf (or should I say "Wolf, right here and now!"). None of that trendy gray morality here--the good guys are warm, funny and lovable and the bad guys are wretched, sadistic and ugly. The characters are given an extra interesting depth and dimension by the concept of "Twinners"; I probably should have addressed this a while ago but one of the main concepts of the story is that there is a kind of twisted parallel sister world to ours called "the Territories", and everyone in our world has one of these Twinners, a kind of parallel you. You might be rolling your eyes at this, but King and Straub explore this idea in a consistently creative manner. The story can veer from warm, sweet and funny to repulsive and terrifying within the span of a paragraph.Some good world-building here too! Fans of some of the most intense world architects like Steven Erikson, George RR Martin, Frank Herbert etc. may disagree with me on this, but I was thoroughly engaged and impressed with the Territories and the people and things inhabiting it--the good ones and the bad ones. It's nothing earth-shattering, but that was certainly part of its charm. That's something I always enjoy about King's books; you never get the sense that's he's trying, or working. He's just telling a story, doing something that comes as easily and necessarily to him as breathing. He doesn't have to try hard or work at it, it just is there, and it's good. Of course, I could be wrong and every novel could be a brutal uphill struggle for him--but I doubt it. As to Straub's writing, I cannot speak with much authority on it as I've only read one book of his, but I've already purchased Floating Dragon and Koko and will certainly get to those, and probably enjoy them!So yeah, if you've read and liked King or Straub, read this. If you've read one and liked him but not the other, read this. If you haven't read either, read this. If you're a snooty literary-type and wouldn't be caught dead with a King book in your hand, go away. Like I said, for me this certainly ranks with King's best and probably Straub's, unless the next book I read of his completely fucking blows my mind and puts me through some kind of paradigm shift that makes me rethink my literary values (he's good, but I really doubt this is gonna happen.) This is one of those books with certain scenes that just burn into your mind...when I bought this, the friendly dude at the counter said something like "Oh man...when you get to the Sunlight Gardener Home for Boys, you're gonna trip out." I had no idea what that was, but once I did I certainly did trip out. A great book.
Maybe I had too high of expectations, but I can’t say that I was overly impressed by “The Talisman”. From the very beginning of the story, I could not get into the plot or even any of the plot devices. It wasn’t that the story was hard to believe, and I don’t have a problem with fantasy, it’s just that the execution and premise of the story was really hard to get in to. Overall, it felt like a patch-work quilt where a collection of short-story adventures were sewn together with 12-year old Jack Sawyer being the single thread. My main problem with the story could be summed up with the following points: **SPOILERS AHEAD**1. Jack’s Mother: The premise of Jack’s mom dying of cancer and letting him leave and travel the country seems a bit far-fetched. If Jack’s mother was near-death and dying of cancer, why would she travel up to a beach house rather than seek medical treatment? I never really got this angle, yet most of the story hinged on Jack leaving his mother to find the Talisman to cure her.2. It seems convenient that it takes 90% of the book for Jack to reach the west coast, and on the way back he gets a car ride that takes a couple of pages. It reminds me of the Eagles from Lord of the Rings which begs the question: why does an adventure story take pages upon pages to tell the quest of a journey, yet the return home has a means that makes it convenient for the characters to reduce travel time by a fraction? Why wouldn't that have been your first option?!3. I didn’t care for Wolf. Seems lazy to have a werewolf as a secondary character and simply name him “Wolf.”4. Speaking of Wolf, King/Straub took lengths to describe Wolf’s fear of driving in a car yet at the end of the tale his litter brother is a chauffeur. 5. I could’ve done without the sexual references. When characters are described as having foreskin, erections, and jewelry for their genitals, I really don’t understand how that adds to the story. If anything, I’m distracted and disgusted.6. The main villains – Morgan Sloat/Morgan of Orris and Robert "Sunlight" Gardner/Osmond – were not as villainous as expected. They seemed very cookie-cutter and stereotypical. 7. Speedy Parker/Parkus was a bit of a confusing character. It was never well explained how he was able to pop-up in random places, yet Jack’s got to travel on foot everywhere he goes. I guess Jack isn’t so special after all. Maybe I missed something in the book, I 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 maybe I am being a bit harsh with “The Talisman” but after reading The Dark Tower series I end up comparing all of Stephen King’s work to the DT. His DT series was such an epic piece of work that it really set the bar for any of King’s other fantasy/sci-fi stories.Pros: Not many…maybe the sequel will be better.Cons: Too many…the single most being that it’s hard to believe a single, dying mother would let her 12-year old son disappear for an unknown amount of time to an unknown location.Bottom line: Not the best of King and maybe not the worst, but I probably wouldn’t read this one a second time.
What do You think about The Talisman (2001)?
When I first read "The Talisman" I was roughly the same age as, if not younger than, the 12-year-old protagonist, Jack Sawyer. I remember it being a pretty good adventure story about a young boy on a quest to save his mother, and I remember enjoying it, but I couldn't remember much about it. I'm in my 40s now, older and hopefully a bit wiser, and I happened to stumble upon a paperback copy of the book amongst my vast collection of tomes, so I decided to pick it up and zip through it. I figured, it's Stephen King AND Peter Straub, two really great writers of horror and dark fantasy, so at the very least it was going to be a good yarn. Let me just say that, upon reading the first paragraph, I was immediately hooked in a way that I doubt I was when I first read it (back in middle school? Over two decades ago? Really?). I was actually more than hooked, I was enthralled. Nay, transported, much like the protagonist is transported, to another world. The powerhouse writing team of King and Straub have acheived something wondrous here. Imagine if Tolkein's Middle-Earth and Lewis' Narnia had been discovered by two 20th-century college students. And what would happen if these two college kids, by stepping through that wardrobe door, introduced something horrible into those fantasy realms? What if they infected Narnia with 20th-century cynicism, and they brought drugs and guns and pettiness and hatred and disease? A fascinating premise, one which King/Straub explore in wonderful and disturbing detail. I guess I couldn't remember much of this book when I was a kid because much of it was a little over my 12-year-old head. I get it now. And it's awesome. "The Talisman" is more than just a good fantasy yarn. It's a coming-of-age story. It's an allegory about adolescence. It's a story of how jaded and fallen and perverted we have become as a society and a species and how we are destroying our planet and our youth and our hope for the future. It's a fantasy story that Tolkein or Lewis probably couldn't (or wouldn't) have told because it required the perspective of two writers who are used to staring into the dark and yanking the unpleasant (and slimy) things out of it.
—Scott Rhee
4.0 stars. Stephen King knows how to tell a story and this is another good example of his talent for world-building and plotting. Having read this, it is amazing to me that this story was not originally intended as part of the "Dark Tower" universe because the tie-ins are "in your face" for most of the story. In fact, as a huge fan of the Dark Tower series, one of the only reasons that I did not enjoy this story even more is because it wasn't expressly connected to that larger story and so read a little bit like Dark Tower "Lite." That minor gripe aside, this is a great read and I look forward to reading the sequel, Black House, which I understand "retroactively" makes the connection of this story to the Dark Tower. Recommended!!!Nominee: World Fantasy Award for Best NovelNominee: Locus Award for Best Dark Fantasy/Horror Novel
—Stephen
This could easily be one of King's greatest novels. It seemed to be one of his most poetic novels IMO. It felt like going back home at times to The Dark Tower novels. You could feel that same magic flowing across the pages. The magic that consumes you as you read.I know that Straub is involved in this novel. I am not too familiar with his work, but I can say that this book felt mostly King to me. It did get very very wordy at times and I felt myself saying just get on with it please. LOL But as King readers we all know we have to deal with the wordiness to enjoy the whole novel.Like the DT series some of King's best characters reside within the pages of The Talisman. Jack, Wolf, and yes even the annoying, and frustrating Richard. Probably my least favorite character. So much so I wanted to slap him. Jack is definitely one of King's best characters. And he is so very memorable. Jack made you feel what he was feeling. His doubt, accomplishments, and heartbreak. He took you through every plain of his existence for a ride that readers will never forget.Wolf was another character that I loved. In his simplicity he is unforgettable. You could feel yourself root for Wolf in each endeavor. His character was so rich in humor, love, and strength. All the qualities of a best friend. Someone you definitely want to have in your corner.I look forward to Jack and Black House. It will be nice to see how Jack turns out. I could not bring myself to rate this a 5 star because like I mentioned already it was wordy and drawn out in place I did not feel it needed to be. But this book I would recommend to any King fan. And this book also makes me look forward to more Straub novels as well.
—Janie Johnson
