Status
Available
Call number
Call number
F Kin
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Berkley (1987), Edition: Unabridged, 784 pages
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. Horror. HTML:On a brisk autumn day, a thirteen-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America--and into another realm. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother's life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin. . . . Features a preview of Stephen King and Peter Straub's new book Black House.… (more)
Subjects
Original publication date
1984-11-08
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User reviews
LibraryThing member Carl_Alves
I read The Talisman when I was in high school, and the story still sticks with me today. It's part horror, part fantasy, part adventure. What King and Straub managed to do was weave a wonderful story with intrigue and suspense, regardless of how you want to classify it. In The Talisman, Jack Sawyer
Trying to stop Jack in his quest is his evil uncle Morgan Sloat and the forces that work for him, who would like to see Jack's mother perish. The novel has a definite epic feel to it. There are a lot of interesting parallels between the worlds like how time and distance are related to each other as well as the contrast between the use of magic and technology. The Talisman is one of the novels that really turned me on to the worlds of fantasy and horror and made me want to write. It's brilliantly crafted and well written. Separately Stephen King and Peter Straub are great writers, but together they work magic.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity.
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must travel between his world and a parallel universe where his mother is the queen all in the hopes of saving his mother, who is dying. The novel has a clear dark edge to it despite the youth of its protagonist. It's not all fun and games for Jack, who has the ability to flip between worlds in this adventure. In the process he befriends Wolf, a werewolf from the alternative universe. Wolf provides some comic relief as well as some scary moments for Jack as he transforms into a werewolf in our world under a full moon.Trying to stop Jack in his quest is his evil uncle Morgan Sloat and the forces that work for him, who would like to see Jack's mother perish. The novel has a definite epic feel to it. There are a lot of interesting parallels between the worlds like how time and distance are related to each other as well as the contrast between the use of magic and technology. The Talisman is one of the novels that really turned me on to the worlds of fantasy and horror and made me want to write. It's brilliantly crafted and well written. Separately Stephen King and Peter Straub are great writers, but together they work magic.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity.
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LibraryThing member jseger9000
Two of the greatest horror writers of all time team up and write... a fantasy?!
Young Jack Sawyer is hiding with his mother in a deserted summer hotel when he discovers that he can cross over from our world to a fantasy version of America known as The Territories. Through a series of plot twists too
The writing was fantastic. Their styles blended together very well, better than I was expecting. When I started the book, I was worried that I would spend the entire time thinking 'King wrote that bit', 'Straub did that', but as I read, it felt as if they sat side-by-side in front of a typewriter and banged the whole thing out together. The writing really was the best of their two styles.
So I loved the writing, but still, I had a hard time getting into the book. Fantasy just isn't my bag, so there's always that I guess. But The Talisman also suffered from sins that neither writer would ever let slide in one of their solo efforts.
Both of these authors are experts at creating believable characters, but aside from Jack the characters here felt flat. None of them had any more depth than a character in a T.V. show. These weren't awful characters, but both authors can do so much better than the hammy villain Morgan Sloat or the one-note henchman, Sunlight Gardener.
And then there was Richard Sloat, who falls prey to one of the worst sins a character in a horror novel can commit: he repeatedly refuses to accept the facts around him, regardless of the amount of proof provided. Richard spends ninety percent of his 'screen time' insisting that he is having a vivid dream. I'm not a huge fan of From Dusk Till Dawn, but I've always appreciated George Clooney's line "And I don't want to hear anything about 'I don't believe in vampires' because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is f*ck*ng vampires!" Maybe Richard should watch that movie.
Though I wasn't crazy about the characters, I really liked the name 'Jack Sawyer'. It's not a quirky name that would distract the reader, but 'Jack' is a name heavily wrapped up in fairy stories while 'Sawyer' of course makes me think of Tom Sawyer, America and 'lighting out for the territories' (which is also sort of the name of the first section of The Talisman). It gave me the feeling that Straub and King put some real thought into what they were trying to accomplish with the book.
However, for each admirable thing I found in The Talisman there would also be a stumbling block. Though I mentioned that it looked like the two authors put some real thought into their story, they would make glaring (to me) errors. One that really bugged me is that the story relied on characters acting illogically or hitting on huge coincidences to move the story along.
For instance, when Jack lights out for the Territories, he just sort of wanders off with very little real preparation. I kept wondering why fabulously wealthy Jack didn't just buy himself a bus ticket to California? I know he had to leave quickly and all, but the extra two hours spent on arranging a bus or plane ticket would have shaved weeks off of his trip.
I understand thematically why the book happens the way it does. I'm just surprised that King and Straub didn't offer any in-story rationalization of why Jack is behaving that way. It would have been so easy to have Jack's 'adviser' Speedy whip-up some reason that he had to make the journey by the sweat of his brow or something. But it is just never addressed.
I was also irritated when Jack is pulled into the dastardly Sunlight Gardener home for wayward boys. Now, to be fair, that section of the book is terrific, but later we find out that Sunlight Gardner is in cahoots with the bad guy. It just seemed hugely coincidental that Jack wound up at that home.
I remember Stephen King talking about his annoyance with the old T.V. series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, because Kolchak wouldn't be able to go on a cruise without coincidentally bumping into a group of Satanists.
To me, Jack's stumbling across the Sunlight Gardner Home was just as wildly coincidental as anything Kolchak hit upon. This could have been alleviated if it were implied that Jack's actions were being directed by some outside operator (or if it turned out that Sunlight Gardner was just a real prick, but not linked to the Territories), but as it was presented, it felt like one 12 year old boy is crossing two different countries and repeatedly bumping into the same couple of power players from the Territories.
For all my gripes (and I had quite a few) I did get into the book as it chugged along. The further into the book I got, the more engrossed I became with the story. Richard became a somewhat less irritating character. And though I always preferred Jack in our world to Jack in the Territories, I appreciated that the Territories were a fantasy world with no elves or dwarfs. At least King and Straub's fantasy world didn't feel like a Tolkien clone. I appreciated all the thought and little details they put into their fantasy land, like how their money works or their religious views (God pounds his nails), but I still enjoyed it more when Jack was dodging monsters in the good old US of A.
I'm of two minds on this one. A lot of it was admirable. I really enjoyed the blending of the two authors styles. I thought the pacing was handled very well, always keeping the story moving (which is a feat for a 700 page book) and I did enjoy aspects of the fantasy world. The problem is, for every plus, there is a strong minus. In the end, the minuses outweighed the pluses. Though I didn't hate the book, I don't see myself wanting to read it again.
If you prefer the Dark Tower (and related) books to King's 'regular' horror novels, then you will probably groove on The Talisman. I don't like those books myself and didn't especially like The Talisman. But I did like the combination of King and Straub's writing. The book wasn't terrible, just not my thing.
Young Jack Sawyer is hiding with his mother in a deserted summer hotel when he discovers that he can cross over from our world to a fantasy version of America known as The Territories. Through a series of plot twists too
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detailed to go into here, Jack discovers that he must head West (through both the 'real world' and The Territories) to California to save his mothers life. This being a fantasy, there is more at stake than the life of our hero's mom.The writing was fantastic. Their styles blended together very well, better than I was expecting. When I started the book, I was worried that I would spend the entire time thinking 'King wrote that bit', 'Straub did that', but as I read, it felt as if they sat side-by-side in front of a typewriter and banged the whole thing out together. The writing really was the best of their two styles.
So I loved the writing, but still, I had a hard time getting into the book. Fantasy just isn't my bag, so there's always that I guess. But The Talisman also suffered from sins that neither writer would ever let slide in one of their solo efforts.
Both of these authors are experts at creating believable characters, but aside from Jack the characters here felt flat. None of them had any more depth than a character in a T.V. show. These weren't awful characters, but both authors can do so much better than the hammy villain Morgan Sloat or the one-note henchman, Sunlight Gardener.
And then there was Richard Sloat, who falls prey to one of the worst sins a character in a horror novel can commit: he repeatedly refuses to accept the facts around him, regardless of the amount of proof provided. Richard spends ninety percent of his 'screen time' insisting that he is having a vivid dream. I'm not a huge fan of From Dusk Till Dawn, but I've always appreciated George Clooney's line "And I don't want to hear anything about 'I don't believe in vampires' because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is f*ck*ng vampires!" Maybe Richard should watch that movie.
Though I wasn't crazy about the characters, I really liked the name 'Jack Sawyer'. It's not a quirky name that would distract the reader, but 'Jack' is a name heavily wrapped up in fairy stories while 'Sawyer' of course makes me think of Tom Sawyer, America and 'lighting out for the territories' (which is also sort of the name of the first section of The Talisman). It gave me the feeling that Straub and King put some real thought into what they were trying to accomplish with the book.
However, for each admirable thing I found in The Talisman there would also be a stumbling block. Though I mentioned that it looked like the two authors put some real thought into their story, they would make glaring (to me) errors. One that really bugged me is that the story relied on characters acting illogically or hitting on huge coincidences to move the story along.
For instance, when Jack lights out for the Territories, he just sort of wanders off with very little real preparation. I kept wondering why fabulously wealthy Jack didn't just buy himself a bus ticket to California? I know he had to leave quickly and all, but the extra two hours spent on arranging a bus or plane ticket would have shaved weeks off of his trip.
I understand thematically why the book happens the way it does. I'm just surprised that King and Straub didn't offer any in-story rationalization of why Jack is behaving that way. It would have been so easy to have Jack's 'adviser' Speedy whip-up some reason that he had to make the journey by the sweat of his brow or something. But it is just never addressed.
I was also irritated when Jack is pulled into the dastardly Sunlight Gardener home for wayward boys. Now, to be fair, that section of the book is terrific, but later we find out that Sunlight Gardner is in cahoots with the bad guy. It just seemed hugely coincidental that Jack wound up at that home.
I remember Stephen King talking about his annoyance with the old T.V. series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, because Kolchak wouldn't be able to go on a cruise without coincidentally bumping into a group of Satanists.
To me, Jack's stumbling across the Sunlight Gardner Home was just as wildly coincidental as anything Kolchak hit upon. This could have been alleviated if it were implied that Jack's actions were being directed by some outside operator (or if it turned out that Sunlight Gardner was just a real prick, but not linked to the Territories), but as it was presented, it felt like one 12 year old boy is crossing two different countries and repeatedly bumping into the same couple of power players from the Territories.
For all my gripes (and I had quite a few) I did get into the book as it chugged along. The further into the book I got, the more engrossed I became with the story. Richard became a somewhat less irritating character. And though I always preferred Jack in our world to Jack in the Territories, I appreciated that the Territories were a fantasy world with no elves or dwarfs. At least King and Straub's fantasy world didn't feel like a Tolkien clone. I appreciated all the thought and little details they put into their fantasy land, like how their money works or their religious views (God pounds his nails), but I still enjoyed it more when Jack was dodging monsters in the good old US of A.
I'm of two minds on this one. A lot of it was admirable. I really enjoyed the blending of the two authors styles. I thought the pacing was handled very well, always keeping the story moving (which is a feat for a 700 page book) and I did enjoy aspects of the fantasy world. The problem is, for every plus, there is a strong minus. In the end, the minuses outweighed the pluses. Though I didn't hate the book, I don't see myself wanting to read it again.
If you prefer the Dark Tower (and related) books to King's 'regular' horror novels, then you will probably groove on The Talisman. I don't like those books myself and didn't especially like The Talisman. But I did like the combination of King and Straub's writing. The book wasn't terrible, just not my thing.
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LibraryThing member garethmottram
For me, the best bits about this book were the excellent locations - a creepy, out of season hotel and its fantastical, horrific 'opposite', a deserted theme park (always a winner!) and a slow, open train ride across a dangerous wasteland. There were also some original and very memorable supporting
It misses out on the final star only because, for me, it was a little too long and I didn't really warm to the main protagonist as much as I would have liked.
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characters and the flipping between parallel worlds was consistently well realised.It misses out on the final star only because, for me, it was a little too long and I didn't really warm to the main protagonist as much as I would have liked.
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LibraryThing member Jane-Phillips
When two masters of horror team up you get a masterpiece such as The Talisman. I've actually never read any of Peter Straub's work however am a big Stephen King fan. The Talisman is the story of 12 year old Jakc Sawyer's quest to save his mother and his journey across America and it's twin
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dimension The Territories. I found this book to be more dark fantasy than horror, however it had its horrific elements as you would expect from the the authors. Truly, the most horrific parts for me were the more human aspects, but this is typical for King at least. Show Less
LibraryThing member SevsOnlyGirl
Stephen King and Peter Straub are two of my favorite authors. To see them write together was amazing. I read this book as a teen and have re-read it multiple times as an adult. It never gets old. If you look at YA books coming out now...a lot of the things in THE TALISMAN are in the current books.
Jack Sawyer is a 12 year old boy. His father is dead and his mother is dying of cancer. She takes him off to an almost deserted hotel while she lays dying. As Jack wanders the hotel and grounds, he starts to realize that he could possibly save his mother. His father and his father's best friend had discovered an alternate world - one called "The Territories". The people that live there are Twinners (parallel individuals) whose major life events mirror ours. You can 'flip' into the Territories and inhabit the body of your Twinner. But some people, like Jack, are 'singles'. He has to learn to flip back and forth by himself. He has no other body to inhabit.
My favorite group in The Territories are Wolfs. They are similar to Werewolves, but not as we know them. They are herdsman and bodyguards. Jack quickly becomes friends with one of them, whom he simply calls "Wolf". Wolf sees Jack as his flock, his responsibility, and cares for him and tries to keep him safe throughout his travels.
Jack's father's best friend is trying to steal their business from Jack's mother. In The Territories, the Queen lay dying - she is Jack's mother's Twinner. Jack needs to find the Talisman to save both of them and save their worlds from going swiftly downhill.
This is a really long book (as most Stephen King books are) but it is well worth reading. I still have my battered paperback copy from years ago and was overjoyed when BLACK HOUSE came out in 2000. That is the story of Jack Sawyer as an adult and involves The Territories again. There are, ofcourse, connections to the Dark Tower books also.
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We've got: an alternate universe, a kid saving the world...all the goodies.Jack Sawyer is a 12 year old boy. His father is dead and his mother is dying of cancer. She takes him off to an almost deserted hotel while she lays dying. As Jack wanders the hotel and grounds, he starts to realize that he could possibly save his mother. His father and his father's best friend had discovered an alternate world - one called "The Territories". The people that live there are Twinners (parallel individuals) whose major life events mirror ours. You can 'flip' into the Territories and inhabit the body of your Twinner. But some people, like Jack, are 'singles'. He has to learn to flip back and forth by himself. He has no other body to inhabit.
My favorite group in The Territories are Wolfs. They are similar to Werewolves, but not as we know them. They are herdsman and bodyguards. Jack quickly becomes friends with one of them, whom he simply calls "Wolf". Wolf sees Jack as his flock, his responsibility, and cares for him and tries to keep him safe throughout his travels.
Jack's father's best friend is trying to steal their business from Jack's mother. In The Territories, the Queen lay dying - she is Jack's mother's Twinner. Jack needs to find the Talisman to save both of them and save their worlds from going swiftly downhill.
This is a really long book (as most Stephen King books are) but it is well worth reading. I still have my battered paperback copy from years ago and was overjoyed when BLACK HOUSE came out in 2000. That is the story of Jack Sawyer as an adult and involves The Territories again. There are, ofcourse, connections to the Dark Tower books also.
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LibraryThing member mariebubblyster
This book is so beautifully written, it makes me want to cry.
The protagonist, Jack Sawyer is a 12 year old boy, who grows on you, and eventually you end up rooting for him through all his (mis)adventures,
both in this world and others.
King and Straub, make a fantastic partnership with both writers
Typical of both writers, there are excellent heart thumping moments, and times of scream-aloud(almost!) astonishment. Yet there is a definite portrayl of love, and the power of sheer grit and willpower!
An excellent read, one that I did not want to put down.
The protagonist, Jack Sawyer is a 12 year old boy, who grows on you, and eventually you end up rooting for him through all his (mis)adventures,
both in this world and others.
King and Straub, make a fantastic partnership with both writers
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writing styles merging in a very definite but homogenous flow.Typical of both writers, there are excellent heart thumping moments, and times of scream-aloud(almost!) astonishment. Yet there is a definite portrayl of love, and the power of sheer grit and willpower!
An excellent read, one that I did not want to put down.
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LibraryThing member CKmtl
Trying to finish The Talisman has been frustrating. I lost interest during the Blasted Lands and just haven't been able to get back into it. Perhaps I'll make it through some other time, but as it stands I have a To-Read pile to get to.
LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Summary: Jack Sawyer's mother, an aging B-movie actress, picked him up and moved him from California to a moldering hotel in an abandoned-for-the-winter East Coast tourist town. Jack knows there's something wrong, that she's very sick, even though she is doing her best to pretend that everything is
Review: There are books that have a time limit for me, or an age limit. I've read plenty of books and thought "That was okay, but I bet I would have loved it if I'd read it when I was eight/twelve/fifteen." Mostly these are mid-grade books that don't quite make the leap to adult readership, but in the case of The Talisman, it's more a function of my reading tastes changing over time. Because if someone had handed it to me when I was thirteen or fourteen, when I was in the throes of my horror-reading phase, and was devouring Dean Koontz and Stephen King like they were going out of style, I suspect I would have, if not loved it, at least had an easier time with it than I did as an adult.
Because damn, this book was a tough slog for me this time through. It was slow reading, the pacing seemed really terribly off, it rarely drew me in enough to want to go back to it, I didn't get along with the prose style, I didn't really care about most of the characters, I was put off by both the horror/gore and some of the implicit social attitudes in the book, and I knew the quest was going to work out - since that's how these books go - so I wasn't particularly curious about the ending. In fact, I almost DNFed the book despite having committed several weeks to it, and already being 80% of the way through. Instead, I buckled down to some serious skimming to get through the last section (which, unsurprisingly, played out very much like I was expecting.)
I think the pacing was the biggest problem. The Talisman is structurally similar to The Odyssey, with the protagonist on a quest, but he keeps getting sidetracked/stuck along his journey. Conceptually, I have no problem with these kinds of road-trip novels, but in the case of The Talisman, the time spent in the various side adventures seemed uneven relative to their overall importance to the story, and just out of balance in general. Fully two-thirds of the book is spent getting Jack from the East Coast to Springfield, Illinois, and then he covers the distance between Illinois and California in only a few chapters, and without any major adventure.
I also didn't really care for Jack as a character. I got tired of hearing about how the Territories were changing him to this serene, wise, beautiful boy, especially when I found his companions, Wolf and Richard, much more likeable and interesting, respectively. The rest of the characters didn't fare much better than Jack; particularly distasteful was the character of Speedy Parker, who sets Jack on his way to the Territories with a bottle of magic juice, and could be the model for the "magical negro" character that King's so fond of, complete with dialect. (Also, the shorthand of "casual use of cocaine = villain" got me thinking - that's a trope I remember from my teens, when I read a lot of books like this, but not something that I've seen at all recently. Is that still a thing in more current fiction?) The book shows its age in other ways, too, not only in outdated cultural references but also in some of the attitudes about race, women, and homosexuals that are implicit in the writing. (To wit: "These [sexual advances from grown men] were annoyances a good-looking twelve-year-old boy in Los Angeles simply learned to put up with, the way a pretty woman learns to put up with being groped occasionally on the subway. You eventually find a way to cope without letting it spoil your day." What the hell do King and Straub know about how a woman should react to being groped by a stranger?)
Basically, the whole book felt self-indulgent, both in terms of the prose and the plot, without a correspondingly interesting story or compelling characters to merit it. The story definitely has potential: I like the ideas of the Territories, and Twinners, and how actions in one world affect the other; I loved Wolf as a character, and Richard's contrast to Jack; and some of the individual scenes were very tense and compelling... but the bloat of the book quickly swamped out the good parts. I probably would have put up with it (or even eaten it up) as a teen, but I've gotten less patient in my old age. 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: It seems like there are plenty of people out there who liked this book a whole lot better than I did, so if you like supernatural horror and/or fantasy quest novels, particularly ones set in the real world, it might be worth a try. But for me, I think I've grown out of, or at least away from, this type of book, and King's style of prose.
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fine, and to make things worse, Jack's late father's business partner, Morgan Sloat, is harrassing their family, trying to get Jack's mother to sign over their half of the company. Jack must do something, but he doesn't know what, until a custodian at a local carnival tells him about the Territories - a magical parallel world, a world that Jack's father knew how to visit, and which Jack himself can learn to enter. The Queen of the Territories is also dying, and Jack must go there and retrieve the Talisman, a magical object that will heal both his mother and the Queen. But the Talisman is in California - or the Territories equivalent of California. And how can a twelve-year-old boy make it across the country and back, while being chased by Morgan's evil forces, before time runs out... in both worlds?Review: There are books that have a time limit for me, or an age limit. I've read plenty of books and thought "That was okay, but I bet I would have loved it if I'd read it when I was eight/twelve/fifteen." Mostly these are mid-grade books that don't quite make the leap to adult readership, but in the case of The Talisman, it's more a function of my reading tastes changing over time. Because if someone had handed it to me when I was thirteen or fourteen, when I was in the throes of my horror-reading phase, and was devouring Dean Koontz and Stephen King like they were going out of style, I suspect I would have, if not loved it, at least had an easier time with it than I did as an adult.
Because damn, this book was a tough slog for me this time through. It was slow reading, the pacing seemed really terribly off, it rarely drew me in enough to want to go back to it, I didn't get along with the prose style, I didn't really care about most of the characters, I was put off by both the horror/gore and some of the implicit social attitudes in the book, and I knew the quest was going to work out - since that's how these books go - so I wasn't particularly curious about the ending. In fact, I almost DNFed the book despite having committed several weeks to it, and already being 80% of the way through. Instead, I buckled down to some serious skimming to get through the last section (which, unsurprisingly, played out very much like I was expecting.)
I think the pacing was the biggest problem. The Talisman is structurally similar to The Odyssey, with the protagonist on a quest, but he keeps getting sidetracked/stuck along his journey. Conceptually, I have no problem with these kinds of road-trip novels, but in the case of The Talisman, the time spent in the various side adventures seemed uneven relative to their overall importance to the story, and just out of balance in general. Fully two-thirds of the book is spent getting Jack from the East Coast to Springfield, Illinois, and then he covers the distance between Illinois and California in only a few chapters, and without any major adventure.
I also didn't really care for Jack as a character. I got tired of hearing about how the Territories were changing him to this serene, wise, beautiful boy, especially when I found his companions, Wolf and Richard, much more likeable and interesting, respectively. The rest of the characters didn't fare much better than Jack; particularly distasteful was the character of Speedy Parker, who sets Jack on his way to the Territories with a bottle of magic juice, and could be the model for the "magical negro" character that King's so fond of, complete with dialect. (Also, the shorthand of "casual use of cocaine = villain" got me thinking - that's a trope I remember from my teens, when I read a lot of books like this, but not something that I've seen at all recently. Is that still a thing in more current fiction?) The book shows its age in other ways, too, not only in outdated cultural references but also in some of the attitudes about race, women, and homosexuals that are implicit in the writing. (To wit: "These [sexual advances from grown men] were annoyances a good-looking twelve-year-old boy in Los Angeles simply learned to put up with, the way a pretty woman learns to put up with being groped occasionally on the subway. You eventually find a way to cope without letting it spoil your day." What the hell do King and Straub know about how a woman should react to being groped by a stranger?)
Basically, the whole book felt self-indulgent, both in terms of the prose and the plot, without a correspondingly interesting story or compelling characters to merit it. The story definitely has potential: I like the ideas of the Territories, and Twinners, and how actions in one world affect the other; I loved Wolf as a character, and Richard's contrast to Jack; and some of the individual scenes were very tense and compelling... but the bloat of the book quickly swamped out the good parts. I probably would have put up with it (or even eaten it up) as a teen, but I've gotten less patient in my old age. 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: It seems like there are plenty of people out there who liked this book a whole lot better than I did, so if you like supernatural horror and/or fantasy quest novels, particularly ones set in the real world, it might be worth a try. But for me, I think I've grown out of, or at least away from, this type of book, and King's style of prose.
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LibraryThing member andreablythe
Jack arrives at the Alhambra hotel in New Hampshire with the knowledge that his mother is sick and probably dying. In the slow season for the tourist town, no one is around and Jack spends his days wandering around empty beaches and an old abandoned amusement park. His only friend is Speedy Parker,
Though firmly rooted in fantasy, with our young hero going on a quest for a magical object that can defeat evil in the name of a good queen, the novel also presents numerous horror tropes, including lots of blood splatter, popping eyeballs, grotesque creatures, and other moments of gore and the macabre, as well as the occasional gratuitous allusion to sex.
The first chunk of 100 pages or so were slow going for me at first. One, because there's the long build up before Jack finally takes action (he's a kid, so I can forgive him his indecision). And two, because the character Speedy Parker (a.k.a. the "Magical Negro") annoyed me from the get-go, because he's just such a caricature of a person without much (or any) depth beyond giving Jack a boost into his adventure and show up at opportune times to keep him going. King is kind of known for using the "Magical Negro" trope in several of his novels, so I'm not surprised to see it, but still.
Anyway, after those first hundred pages, I was into the story enough that it all began to flow and it carried me easily through the bulk of the story. I simultaneously loved and was annoyed by the character Wolf, as I was with the character Richard. The villains are all ugly and villainous, with not much dimension to them beyond their desire for power and their delight in cruelty. The good guys are very good and the bad guys are very, very bad and there is no in between.
Jack is the only one that was fully and complete character. You get to see him grow from a very young boy into an early adulthood by the end of the book. He has moment of darkness and cruelty in him, while all the while striving to be brave and noble and good. He's very, very different by the end of the book than he is at the beginning.
It's interesting that this was cowritten by King and Straub, because it was so cohesive that I couldn't tell who wrote what. However, the moments of sheer gore certainly had King's particular flair and in general this seemed a King sort of book, so much so that I didn't see much of Straub in it (maybe it's because I haven't read enough Straub, but based on what I have read he seems more multidimensional than this).
So, I guess my final analysis is that I really, really enjoyed this book with some rather strong reservations.
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an old jazz musician turned custodian, who sends him off on a journey between world in search of a magical talisman that can save his mother's life. The story is epic in scope, jumping between this world and an alternate parallel world, each presenting their own unique horrors, as Jack travels across the U.S. Though firmly rooted in fantasy, with our young hero going on a quest for a magical object that can defeat evil in the name of a good queen, the novel also presents numerous horror tropes, including lots of blood splatter, popping eyeballs, grotesque creatures, and other moments of gore and the macabre, as well as the occasional gratuitous allusion to sex.
The first chunk of 100 pages or so were slow going for me at first. One, because there's the long build up before Jack finally takes action (he's a kid, so I can forgive him his indecision). And two, because the character Speedy Parker (a.k.a. the "Magical Negro") annoyed me from the get-go, because he's just such a caricature of a person without much (or any) depth beyond giving Jack a boost into his adventure and show up at opportune times to keep him going. King is kind of known for using the "Magical Negro" trope in several of his novels, so I'm not surprised to see it, but still.
Anyway, after those first hundred pages, I was into the story enough that it all began to flow and it carried me easily through the bulk of the story. I simultaneously loved and was annoyed by the character Wolf, as I was with the character Richard. The villains are all ugly and villainous, with not much dimension to them beyond their desire for power and their delight in cruelty. The good guys are very good and the bad guys are very, very bad and there is no in between.
Jack is the only one that was fully and complete character. You get to see him grow from a very young boy into an early adulthood by the end of the book. He has moment of darkness and cruelty in him, while all the while striving to be brave and noble and good. He's very, very different by the end of the book than he is at the beginning.
It's interesting that this was cowritten by King and Straub, because it was so cohesive that I couldn't tell who wrote what. However, the moments of sheer gore certainly had King's particular flair and in general this seemed a King sort of book, so much so that I didn't see much of Straub in it (maybe it's because I haven't read enough Straub, but based on what I have read he seems more multidimensional than this).
So, I guess my final analysis is that I really, really enjoyed this book with some rather strong reservations.
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LibraryThing member karieh
Ahhh - Traveling Jack and the Territories...now THERE is some good reading. 5 times? 6? I've lost count.
LibraryThing member klarsenmd
This is an amazing story that is full of emotion and turmoil. I couldn't pu it down. Better than the sequel Black House.
LibraryThing member andyray
the new york times called this an "epic" when it came out and it fulfills all the criteria for that nomenclature. the journey is across the united states and back, in two different worlds. centered on tom sawyer and huck flynn's adventures, 12-year-old jack sawyer is the hero who seeks and finds
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and uses the talisman to cure his mother of cancer, his friend, richard, from disease, and the end of all things. before this story, this reader thought that the biggest thing in the universe was, well, the universe. but the talisman has much more than that inside of it. the only reason the rating is 4 and 1/2 stars is because of the draaag of the storyline in the first half. we didn't need oatley or the bar at all, and the authors hammer too many nails to get their points across. the only reason i can think of that a movie hasn't been made of this is the technology needed to illustrate some of this story would just be too costly in money, time, and imagination. Show Less
LibraryThing member buckeyeaholic
I read this book twice. Back to back. I read it then told my boyfriend about it. He wanted to read it but really wasn't much of a reader. So I read it out loud to him each night during the summer while we listened to the baseball games.
LibraryThing member ct.bergeron
On a brisk autumn day, a thirteen-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack
One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, "The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother''s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. "Let the quest
begin. . . .
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everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America-and into another realm. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, "The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother''s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. "Let the quest
begin. . . .
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LibraryThing member bookishbunny
A well-crafted, suspenseful adventure. An epic quest, the battle of good vs. evil, friendships new and old, redemption and love...what more could you want?
LibraryThing member thioviolight
When I began this book, I was daunted by the number of pages and the rather small print. However, just a few pages into the book and I was quickly hooked by the story! The Talisman is an exciting and fascinating adventure, and I found myself easily relating to Jack Sawyer and becoming quite
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involved in the tale. Show Less
LibraryThing member TexasTam
I really enjoyed this book. It kept my interest during the whole book.
LibraryThing member joetivy
A favourite of my adolesence. What I can remember of it was a very ambitious, sweeping fantasy epic with a dual world thang going on.
Must read again.
Must read again.
LibraryThing member hemlockclock
My favorite of King's books, in my top ten of favorite books.
The story is amazing, bringing in the quest and otherwordly aspects of so many previous great writers (I think there is a definate Tolkien feel to this) plus Mark Twain's influence is highly noted (Jack Sawyer and a purely American
King and Straub pair to tell a story that grabs you by the throat at the beginning, keeps you with it even when you aren't reading,a dn when it ends you cry with Jack and wish you knew this kid in life.
Sort of inspires you to want to hitch hike across country, heh, just stay away from guys with the name Sloat and sketchy homes for boys.
The story is amazing, bringing in the quest and otherwordly aspects of so many previous great writers (I think there is a definate Tolkien feel to this) plus Mark Twain's influence is highly noted (Jack Sawyer and a purely American
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work). King and Straub pair to tell a story that grabs you by the throat at the beginning, keeps you with it even when you aren't reading,a dn when it ends you cry with Jack and wish you knew this kid in life.
Sort of inspires you to want to hitch hike across country, heh, just stay away from guys with the name Sloat and sketchy homes for boys.
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LibraryThing member fiddlersgreen
Really loved this one. Wolf? Oy gevalt. I'm so verklempt, I could plotz.
LibraryThing member santhony
As with many of King's works, I find his books that deal with real people to be far scarier and more entertaining than the books that involve supernatural (and many times silly) monsters and beings. Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, The Shining, Misery are terrifying without being ridiculous.
LibraryThing member nemesisDK
i really liked it. not your tippical SK book.
LibraryThing member Daniel.Estes
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub was my first journey into the world of Jack Sawyer and the Territories, and as a fan of King's Dark Tower series (of which this eventually became a companion novel), I was thrown back to a time when the Dark Tower universe was young and largely
Getting comfortable with Jack's world takes some time even though it's similar to our own. Mostly similar. It wouldn't be King without a few supernatural surprises. Fortunately, Jack has no idea what he's in for so we get to learn and grow with him.
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unexplored. Or as King might phrase it, much of the fossil had yet to be discovered.Getting comfortable with Jack's world takes some time even though it's similar to our own. Mostly similar. It wouldn't be King without a few supernatural surprises. Fortunately, Jack has no idea what he's in for so we get to learn and grow with him.
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LibraryThing member postscriptum
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub was one of the most dazzling fantasy adenture story I've ever read.
The story is filled with the childish desire for adventure and at the same time dipped in a meaningful outlook on sacrifice, friendship, life, and death.
This is one book you shouldn't
The story is filled with the childish desire for adventure and at the same time dipped in a meaningful outlook on sacrifice, friendship, life, and death.
This is one book you shouldn't
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miss! Show Less
LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
I took a break from Stephen King for a while after finishing his brilliant Dark Tower heptalogy (yes, I had to look that word up). Having heard that The Talisman dealt with similar themes, I decided to give this King/Straub work a chance. It was quite interesting.
If you're new to these works, the
There were moments that really shone, such as the depiction of ultimate evil as an evangelistic preacher and the sensation and subsequent rejection of being God.
As a stand alone book, it's a little weak—a bit of an overdone quest story. As someone in Dark Tower withdrawal, this novel brought me right back to the world of the gunslinger.
If you're new to these works, the
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theme centers on a plurality of worlds that some people can flip between. Traveling Jack, the hero of The Talisman is one such person.There were moments that really shone, such as the depiction of ultimate evil as an evangelistic preacher and the sensation and subsequent rejection of being God.
As a stand alone book, it's a little weak—a bit of an overdone quest story. As someone in Dark Tower withdrawal, this novel brought me right back to the world of the gunslinger.
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Pages
784