The Talisman

The Talisman is a 1984 fantasy novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The plot is not a reworking of the earlier Walter Scott book also titled The Talisman, although there is one oblique reference to "a Sir Walter Scott novel." King and Straub followed up in 2001 with a sequel, Black House, that picks up with a now-adult Jack as a retired Los Angeles homicide detective trying to solve a series of murders in the small town of French Landing, Wisc... more

The Talisman is a 1984 fantasy novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The plot is not a reworking of the earlier Walter Scott book also titled The Talisman, although there is one oblique reference to "a Sir Walter Scott novel." King and Straub followed up in 2001 with a sequel, Black House, that picks up with a now-adult Jack as a retired Los Angeles homicide detective trying to solve a series of murders in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin. A third book is expected to follow. The Talisman was nominated for both the Locus and World Fantasy Awards in 1985. This book charts the adventure of a young teen boy named Jack Sawyer. The adolescent hero sets out from Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire in a bid to save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by finding an enchanted crystal called "the Talisman." The premise of the novel involves the existence of a parallel world to Earth, called "the Territories", a strange fantasy world with ties (though these ties did not exist at the time... less