Rating: 
Summary: Good. But Loses Steam halfway through
Review: Jack Sawyer is a precocious 12 year old who, while visiting a Coney-Island like resort town, meets an elderly African American janitor named (Speedy) who tells him of a fictional country called the territories. Speedy informs him that if he drinks a magic wine he can 'flip' into the territories, a fictional world where his mother is Queen. Jack believes Speedy, and goes on a quest to save his mother from his father's evil ex-partner and the ravages of cancer. I really enjoyed the first three-quarters of the Talisman. I liked the character of Wolf. But after awhile I found the writing became repetitive. I felt Jack was too mature to be 12. I also found his friend: Richard to be very annoying. Richard whines more than any character ever created by Anne Rice. Plus he was useless. Also, the ending was too surreal for me to find very interesting. I think the threat of Sloat could've been resolved in a different way. Peeves? What's with all Phallic imagery? It seems like every rock and tree is described as looking like an erect (you know what). This was done WAY too much. Surely the author could come up with some other less Freudian adjective? Overall, while this book started off well, it quickly lost steam. Would recommend for diehard fans.
Rating: 
Summary: My Favorite Novel ever Written!!
Review: As you can see from the Rating and the Title for this review I thought this was a great book. Ok. This is a large 700 page epic that is somewhat like the Lord of The Rings but it is MUCH different than that. At first when I picked it up I was worried about if I would hate it or like it. A lot of people said to me that you might not like it because it is a fantasy story and a lot of other people did not like it.
This is not a horror story, but it is a fantasy story yet it has some horror elements because King wrote part of it. In the genre category I would say it is fantasy/horror/drama. As most epics it has some drama. What I loved about this novel is the interesting touch of Peter Straub's terrific writing, but also my favorite aspect of it is how there is cliffhanger after cliffhanger. Most would say that a 700 page epic must contain a lot talk and unneeded material. That is not true here. Talisman is just pure story after page 90 or so. Also by the final scene of this book I was so attached with the characters that I could not let them go. The ending was not really sad but it was "beautiful", so I nearly cried(It is hard to make me cry).
I will give a summary with as much detail as possible but with no spoilers. It starts off with a boy named Jack Sawyer. Jack's mom is dying from the "Black Death" or Cancer. To add to his troubles his Dad died a few years earlier, and, guess what?
Jack is only 12 years old. Poor kid. While Lily Cavanaugh(Jack's Mom), Queen of the B's is dying with Cancer in a New Hampshire Resort with her only son, Jack meets someone mysterious on the beach near an amusement park. His name is Speedy Parker. Jack eventually spills out that his mother is dying and that he obviously is very sad. Speedy one day takes Jack up to his office and tells Jack his destiny. There is a Talisman in the west on the Pacific Ocean. Jack must travel there to get the Talisman. Speedy also introduces Jack to the "Daydream-land" or The Territories. Jack's nemesis in Morgan Sloat who worked with his dad Phil Sawyer. Morgan Sloat's Twinner(your other being in the Territories) is Morgan of Orris. Morgan of O wants the queen dead and she is already sick with Cancer. The Queen happen's to be Lily Cavanaugh's Twinner in the Territories.
As Jack travels he learns more about himself and about the Territories. Jack also learns dark truths about his family and Sloat(Morgan). In a land full of monsters and encounters of Sloat Jack makes his journey.
The Prize is Essential, but the journey means even more. Let The Quest Begin.....
Rating: 
Summary: A long freaking book
Review: The Talisman was a book that was written for people who like fantasy. This is not a darn horror novel. The book starts out boring and get's good when the character Wolf comes in. The hero of the book Jack was not a character I liked. When it came time to read about him most of the time I was bored out my brain.
Stephen King couldn't have written this book, it seems like Peter Straub wrote the bulk or this wordy book. A lot of the descriptions were not needed and 735 pages was not worth it. I liked reading about the character's Twinners. I also liked reading about Lily, Morgan sloat and Sunlight Gardner. I was dissappointed in Stephen King. This book took me 2 1/2 months to read and I won't be reading the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: A great pairing
Review: While this is a departure for both authors, the mixture of styles is both perfect and exciting. From page one until the end, you will be immersed in Jack's world.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: For those of you wanting a "Stephen King-y" book, you may be slightly disappointed. For those of you who might be turned off from the book because it might be "Stephem King-y", please read it. There is very little true horror/gore in this book, it is more fantastical. This is one of my FAVORITE BOOKS. And don't forget the sequel, "Black House". They are making this into a movie, (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE MOVIE "TALISMAN", which is not the same thing)...I'm praying they won't ruin it.
Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favorite books...
Review: Jack Sawyer is a thirteen year old boy who grew up dreaming of a magic place far away, but always wrote if off as make believe. Jack and his mother move to a beach front communnity on the east coast. This is where Jack meets a man named Speedy Parker. He tells Jack about the magic realm of the Territories, and that the dreams Jack has been having all his life are real. Speedy informs Jack that his mom is dying, and that he has to go into the Territories to get the only thing that can save her life - the Talisman! Unfortunately, Jack also has the fate of the Territories resting on his shoulders. The queen of the Territories is dying as well, and can only be saved by a human that manages to obtain the Talisman. Speedy warns Jack that monsters, demons, and people from both his own world and the Territories, will stop at nothing to make sure that Jack never gets his hands on the Talisman. Join Jack on his quest in this amazing story, as he faces numerous challenges and obstacles!! The Talisman in my opinion, is Stephen King's best book. The fact that Peter Straub was also involved, only made the book even better. The story unfolds like a modern day Lord of the Rings. King and Straub did such an amazing job with the description of the Territories and all of the evil that is encompased within. I also love the fact that Jack can travel in and out of the Territories at will. This also means that creatures from the Territories can travel into the real world, which means that he is never safe. The characters are incredibly written and they are one of the big reasons that the book is so appealing to readers. There are too many to mention, so I will cover only my personal favorites. Jack Sawyer is the best heroine that I have ever encountered in a novel. The main reason is due to the fact that he is only 13. But despite his age, he behaves like a man, never gives up, and shows incredible courage and determination. A werewolf from the Territories named Wolf, acts as Jack's guardian and his traveling companion. He is my favorite character of the novel, because of his struggle to adapt to Earth, and his constant battle with his animal instincts and urges to kill. The story's two main villans - Morgan Sloat, and Sunlight Gardner, are very menacing and dispicable. They add major suspense to the story. The Talisman does not receive the credit that it deserves. Many of King's popular novels, do not even come close. When reading The Talisman, you will laugh, you will cry, and the suspense will keep you on the edge of your seat. This amazing adventure will have you hooked from the first page, and I guarantee that you will not want to put it down!
Rating:
Summary: Tom Sawyer meets the Dark Tower
Review: Jack Sawyer is a 13 year old child living in Atlantic City. His father is dead and his mother is dying of cancer. He is enlisted to go on a trip across America through the Territories, an alternate world that's like a middle ages verion of the U.S.A. Everyone Jack knows has an alternate twin in that world, from his mother to his father's buissness partner. If his mission succeds, then Jack will get the talisman, a magical item that will restore his mother's health. This book has little to do with Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series; that connection is established in it's sequal, "Black House". Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Hucklberry Finn come to mind several times, even though Jack's adventures are not that kid friendly. The pirates and killer indians have been replaced by abusive bar owners and fanatical ministers. On that subject, 'Sunlight' Gardner is the most immpressive character in the book, he is a sadistic manager of a halfway home for boys where Jack Sawyer is sent. I liked this book a lot, but I am not sure who it is intended for. It is too intense for younger children, but too light for adults, though I had no problem with it at all. Stephen King and Peter Straub do an inpressive first collaberation, and you can tell who did what parts. Have a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Good joint venture
Review: This combination of skilled fantasy/thriller authors could hardly go wrong, and it didn't. "The talisman" is a quest story. Jack Sawyer is a twelve-year-old boy that must set on a western course through the USA and the fabled, dream-like Territories in order to retrieve the Talisman, an unidentified object that can save his dying mother and her "double", the queen of the Territories. Once again, Stephen King excells when writing about children. Jack Sawyer is the same age of the main characters in "It", and, although not as richly developed, a fantastic kid as well. There are other interesting characters in the story, good ones and bad ones alike. They are a little too stereothypic, but as this is a work of fantasy, it fits. In the end, "The Talisman" is a very nice book, predictable at times, thrilling at others, sometimes merry, sometimes sad. I don't think it was too long, I think the authors took their time to write a complete book while having fun at it. And they did a good job. In fact, I already bought "Black house", showing Jack Sawyer as a grown-up. On final word to Dark Tower fans: "The talisman" is a standalone, and has little to do with Roland's saga. The only thing in common is the fact that the "Territories" are medieval-like and desolate. Otherwise, "The talisman" has little to do with the Dark Tower. So far. As we can see, Stephen King, like Isaac Asimov, is linking all his fictional universes. Grade 8.0/10
Rating:
Summary: The Talisman: A Fantasy America Fever Dream
Review: In 1981, Stephen King and Peter Straub teamed up to create the first "dark fantasy" novel, two horror novelists' take on a classic adventure story of a child moving from the mundane real world to a larger-than-life fantasy world right next door, for the sake of a quest critical to the survival of each world. While the form is an old one, aside from Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" and L. Frank Baum's Oz novels, the genre is traditionally almost entirely British or European: Alice in Wonderland or through the looking glass, the British children entering Narnia through the wardrobe and painting and so on. More importantly, the actual consequences of such adventures are rarely dwelt upon to any degree: Twain's story is a comedy, Alice wakes up into the real world at the end of her adventures, and if the children forming a new Royal Family in Narnia has an repercussions, they aren't felt on this side of the wardrobe. In contrast, the repercussions of the adventures that take place before the opening of "The Talisman" - the adventures of the parents of the protagonists, to be specific - are what drives the action. The sins of the fathers become the problems of the sons, problems far beyond what any child should have to endure. That the adults could get so entranced with the magic of the Territories that they become drunk on it is part of the dark underside of fantasy, one rarely touched upon prior to the publication of "The Talisman." But while the fathers find the magical land of the Territories - a magical pseudo-medieval American colonies that never were, where an old blues player serves as the wise advisor instead of a white-bearded wizard - to be intoxicating and seductive, their children also see the terrifying side. Monsters even worse than those that exist in the real world - and the horror grounding of authors King and Straub clearly communicate an understanding of real-world evil - stalk back and forth between worlds, and young Jack Sawyer has to dodge shapechangers and carnivorous trees along with pedophiles as he hitchhikes across America and the Territories. The influence of Mark Twain's stories of child adventurers abroad - Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, of course - is strongly felt here, from the on-again, off-again presence of a strong adult black male in a world full of racism, to the unabashed adoration of a closely observed small town America, to the sly sideways look at American follies, both personal and public. (After this book, Jack Sawyer even grows up to become a detective, much as Tom Sawyer does in Twain's fiction.) But if the form is classic fantasy, and the content in the vein of Mark Twain, the style is distinctly modern horror, as one might expect from King and Straub. Events that might be magical in the hands of other writers - voices coming from small funnels in the sand, talking animals, animated trees - takes on a hallucinatory, runaway feel, like the reader is falling down a well, or riding a roller coaster no longer under the control of the operator. While the adventure may have begun, in part, with self-determination on the part of 12-year-old Jack Sawyer to save the life of his cancer-ridden mother, he soon is in over his head, sucked relentlessly from one danger to another, both mundane and magical. The violence and danger he faces are conveyed with a visceral reality, enough to make the reader flinch and wince in sympathetic pain. Countless dark fantasy writers have further explored the realms charted out by King and Straub in the years since, and both fantasy and horror novels have had their mutual boundaries smudged since - there are even romance novels that operate in this sort of milieu now - but to read "The Talisman" is to go back to the spring from whence the stream first began to flow. And like Jack Sawyer finds whenever he "flips" over to the Territories, all the flavors and scents are stronger here, of "such purity and sweetness that you might imagine a man could smell a radish pulled out of the ground a mile away." Strongly recommended to anyone who ever loved a fantasy adventure tale, even if - or perhaps especially if - you long ago put aside such childhood things.
Rating: 
Summary: modern day Tom Sawyer
Review: Although I didn't enjoy this novel as much as I did when I read it at 14, I still felt it was a great coming of age Sci-Fi novel. In short the story is about a young boy's travels across america and a parallel land called the territories. He's forced to make this journey in order to find a cure for his mother's cancer.
During his travels he incounters both fantastical and realistic evil. He also encounter allies within both worlds. The best part of this novel is the development of the young naive Jack (young lead character) to the strong and confident jack at the end. As the reader, I felt afraid for him in the beginning during this journey and wondered how could a young 12 year old boy survive? By the end, I felt completely confident of jack's abilities and didn't doubt that he would succeed. Although there have since been better sci-fi novels (Tad William's,, Otherland series). The Talisman is still one of the best novels to merge the coming of age story with science fiction.
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