The Talisman [Hardcover]

Two great minds come together to make this GREAT book. I was a little worried that this wouldn't have the "Stephen King" feel since he was writting along side Peter Straub in this book. However it was actually very good. I strongly recomend this book along with the next one Black House. This is easily one of my favorite Stephen King books.

This is one of those books you wish was longer, because it is a true disappointment to have it end. The story is both a fantasy and a dark horror. Jack must go on a journey to save the life of his mother, he must make a journey from the east coast of the United States to California. However it is not as simple as it seems. I don't want to give away anything in this book, it's one of those books you can read over and over again and still see new things. If you are a King fan, you will not be disappointed.

The first time I read The Talisman, I had some trouble getting into it. Being primarily a fan of Stephen King, I noticed a different voice telling about half of the story. Plus, the exposition goes on a bit long, with many tedious details describing the setting. But once the narrative gets rolling, which happens when Jack finally embarks on his travels, it turns into a thrilling experience. The Talisman is a journey epic for the ages, the tale of young Jack Sawyer, an 12-year-old boy who must travel across the country on a quest to retrieve a magical object that will cure his mother's cancer. However, he soon discovers that his mission is far more important than that. He learns that our world has many parallels, and in those worlds many of us have Twinners who are nearly identical to us. In a vivid creation of fantasy by King and Straub, Jack discovers how to "flip," or journey from our world to a land called the Territories, which combines a landscape similar to that of Tolkien's Middle Earth with an early, undeveloped America. If he fails his quest, all of the worlds will fall to evil.

In the tradition of The Odyssey, Jack encounters numerous obstacles on his journey, hindered not only by the book's villain, Morgan Sloat, but by a variety of situations and adversaries. He becomes trapped in dangerous spots in our world, such as The Oatley Tap owned by Smokey Updike and the dreadful Sunlight Home of Morgan's right-hand man, Sunlight Gardener. He faces less ordinary dangers in the Territories, like living trees that like to eat people, as well as Morgan's Twinner, who tears through the sky itself and blasts lightning bolts at him. Jack grows as a character through these hardships, becoming much greater than the timid boy afraid to leave his mother at the beginning. As is so often the case in life, the cost of this growth is great personal sacrifice.

The plot is well planned, with the mystery surrounding the death of Jack's father underscoring the premise of Jack saving his mother and the Queen of the Territories. It isn't made clear exactly what the Talisman is, but given the connections this book has to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, it may be a magic ball from the Wizard's Rainbow, a group of powerful, colored orbs that can be used for seeing, traveling, creating, or destroying. Whatever it actually is, Jack's journey across worlds to find it is a compelling work driven by two of every boy's childhood fantasies; defeating the forces of evil and...what else?...saving your mother's life. If you have some patience with this book, you'll discover that it's a real treasure chest of creativity and imagination from two brilliant minds. For me, it's become one of those books I have to re-read about once a year, and it just seems to get better with age.