Stephen King finishes Talisman trilogy with late Peter Straub's idea
Stephen King's new novel, Other Worlds Than These, comes out Tuesday and finishes the Talisman trilogy he began with Peter Straub in 1984. Straub, who died in 2022, sent King the idea in 2013, and King wrote it alone. Patton Oswalt narrates the audiobook.
Stephen King is closing a story he started more than 40 years ago. His new novel, Other Worlds Than These, goes on sale Tuesday, Oct. 6, from Scribner, and it finishes the Talisman trilogy he began with the late Peter Straub, Esquire and the publisher reported.
The first book, The Talisman, came out in 1984. It followed Jack Sawyer, a 12-year-old boy who can "flip" between America and a magical parallel world called the Territories, on a quest for an orb that could save his dying mother. In the 2001 follow-up, Black House, Jack was a grown homicide detective in Wisconsin.
Straub died in 2022, but his name is on the new cover for a reason. He came up with the idea for the book and emailed it to King in 2013, Esquire's Anthony Breznican wrote, and King later finished the story alone.
In the new book, Jack is 57 and still hurt by a gunshot wound from the last novel. He tries to stop a death cult that is tearing through the Territories and wants to open a sort of living black hole called the Gullet. Kirkus said Straub suggested building the book around the real 1950s killers Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, and King did so with two teenage killers, Roy Kinneston and Tara Lynn Speckhoffer, who rampage across Nebraska and turn up in the Territories, too.
Early reviews are warm but mixed. Breznican called the book a heartbreaking "roller-coaster ride" and said King, now 79, "still has his fastball," though he wished some new characters were better drawn. Kirkus said it was "neither King nor Straub at his finest" but added that there is "plenty to keep fans" entertained.
The audiobook is narrated by comedian Patton Oswalt, who told Esquire he first read The Talisman when he was 12 or 13. King has said Oswalt also inspired a jester character in the new book.
The title comes from a line in King's The Gunslinger, the first Dark Tower novel, and the trilogy has long been tied to that series.
What we know: The book is out Tuesday in print and audio.
What we don't: How King's longtime readers will judge the ending.
Where outlets agree Esquire and Kirkus both describe Other Worlds Than These as the final Talisman novel, which King completed after Straub's death in 2022.
Where they differ Esquire's Anthony Breznican calls the book an emotional triumph, while Kirkus says it shows neither author at his finest.