A review by guywho_reads
The Talisman by Peter Straub, Stephen King
4.0
The Talisman is about a young boy who sets out on an epic adventure into a parallel universe to save his dying mom. Jack Sawyer has the ability to ‘flip’ into an alternate universe called The Territories where there are evil twinners of all the people he is closest too (think Coraline). As the journey progresses on Jack teams up with unlikely hero’s like a repair man named speedy Parker, a friendly wolf man, and his cousin Richard. He is determined to reach the Black Hotel and capture the Talisman before evil reaches it first.
As always with King, the novel has excellent world building and incredibly written characters. It reads as dark high fantasy not exactly horror. Flipping through the different worlds is clear and not as confusing as I anticipated. The story is tense and builds yet does not leave out any action. Wolf is one of the best written character not only in this book but the King universe thus far. I thought all the hints to ‘shining’ are awesome ! Lost a star for the ending, found it to be kinda anticlimactic. I don’t often hear/see this novel getting any attention and that is a huge mistake. It was intriguing but will I pick up The Black Hotel (sequel)? TBD
As always with King, the novel has excellent world building and incredibly written characters. It reads as dark high fantasy not exactly horror. Flipping through the different worlds is clear and not as confusing as I anticipated. The story is tense and builds yet does not leave out any action. Wolf is one of the best written character not only in this book but the King universe thus far. I thought all the hints to ‘shining’ are awesome ! Lost a star for the ending, found it to be kinda anticlimactic. I don’t often hear/see this novel getting any attention and that is a huge mistake. It was intriguing but will I pick up The Black Hotel (sequel)? TBD