Rating: 
Summary: One of King's and of Straub's best
Review: Twelve-year-old Jack has to travel across the country and across worlds to save his mother's life. He is seeking the Talisman, an object of great power. Along the way, he encounters many allies and enemies --- as well as their counterparts --- in both worlds, and finds that his entire life has been leading up to this journey.
I absolutely loved The Talisman. It is one of my favorite books. I enjoy the idea of the alternate worlds, thought I realize that this execution of it doesn't hold up to logical examination (like most fiction that incorporates the idea of alternate worlds/realities), but is still very entertaining. The book has an interesting and well thought-out plot, and it doesn't suffer from as much excess verbiage as you would expect from a King/Straub collaboration.
Rating: 
Summary: Read This Before Black House
Review: The Talisman is the story of Traveling Jack, a boy who sets out on a long journey across the country to save his dying mother. At the same time, he wakes up to his ability to travel to an alternate world that is in desperate trouble. Several years later, the authors teamed up again to write a good sequel, the recently published Black House.The alternate world is populated by "twinners" of our world--people who are similar in personality, motives and looks as people in our world, but who are their own distinct person, mostly unaware that their twinner exists. Jack's twinner was murdered at an early age, which makes Jack very special. Most people die soon after their twinner dies. The two worlds are connected in other ways; something that happens in one world has an effect in the other world. In this world, Jack's mother was a B movie actress. She was a great actress but never quite got the right breaks. In the other world, she is a queen. Jack's mission, to go to a mysterious location in California to rescue a talisman will save both his mother and the queen, the mother of his twinner. King and Straub write extremely well together. It is hard to tell when one is writing or when the other is writing, or who suggested what idea. The alternate world they paint is quite interesting and well done. They also are able to maintain the child-like perspective of their main character, Traveling Jack. They also create a beautiful character in Jack's sidekick, Wolf, a good werewolf from the alternate world. Finally, despite the fact that it seems almost impossible that a child would be able to manage all of the adventures that Jack goes through in his cross-country journey, King and Straub are such good writers that you easily suspend your disbelief and read the story sharing in Jack's adventures and fears. This is a very good book. If you go out and buy the sequel, Black House, without reading this book, you will be missing something.
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic fireside read
Review: I finished reading The Talisman mere moments ago. I must say that I read those final pages with a smile on my face; following Jack Sawyer on his quest was a pleasure. I have always been a Stephen King fan and this book has done nothing to dissuade that opinion. Classic stories of good versus evil, as in this case, renew that childhood innocence that no matter how bad things seem everything will turn out for the best in the end. King and Straub have done a wonderful job of taking readers on the journey of a child that is forced to deal with adult issues - to adapt based on his own understanding of how the world works. Somehow the insights of the thirteen year old (Jack) see beyond the façades of people and into the truth in all realities. I don't wish to spoil the book for you - read and I promise you won't be disappointed. For those of you that only have a vague idea about what Stephen King books are like, don't expect a gory horror novel. King's stories usually involve a journey or an evolution for his characters; they are different people from whence they began. His stories do include some of the fantastic - but that magic is what reminds us of what it was like to be kids again ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: What were the writers thinking?
Review: Maybe I read the wrong book but I do not think that an overall mass rating of 4 is representative. Of course there are some aspects of the plot that were interesting such as the wolves or the morphing humans but I kept waiting for a big/important moment to occur as I trudged through this book. I found the latter part of the book extremely comical with the kids using some serious arsenal and the "fighting" scenes between Jack and other characters. There are certainly better alternatives out there for fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: This is what an adventure in a book should be.
Review: My idea of a great story. Real Adventure like I said. This feels more like a King Book than A Straub and I agree with a reviewer from before that it seems like you can tell who is who pretty well. Though if you did not know either author maybe it might seem seamless. That isn't a terrible thing in and of itself though. That said, This book is only enhanced by its sequel BlackHouse. If you can get through the first fifty pages and some oddities the next book is outstanding too I think. This one was similar for me. I had to read about fifty pages to care what happened. The book takes you on such a long journey and creates such characters that I really felt involved in the story by the end. It was engrossing. I didn't really want it to end at all, which is why the sequel was great. I was rereading the book when I found out about it. Anyway I think the characters are very enjoyable and the process of the story is the great thing. Unlike a lot of books, this has a very big process from begining to end. It moves from place to place, world to world, one set of people to the next but keeping certaing constants. Jack a mature 12 year old with the weight of the world [ and other worlds ] on his shoulders. The fact that the hero is a 12 year old being stretched far beyond his belief and what his seeming means are, is the magic of the story. The unique world that they create as a companion to their own is something that makes me admire their imagination. How you can smell a radish being pulled from the ground a mile away and so forth. I'm so glad that I read this book as most of my reading material comes from non-fiction. This is a real escape from the world yet it accurately describes day to day characters we all probably run into. You'll have to see what I mean by that I guess. But I recommend this book before any other of King's. Really I do. Straub I don't know so well, but this is a King Masterpiece to start with. There of course is a gross out or two in there, but the writing makes up for the obligatory guts that show up here and there. This is one of my favorites and one that you really can read over when ever. Take a trip with these extremely creative story tellers and you can experience what real fantastic story telling is I think.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Worst
Review: I just finished The Talisman, and, yes, I had to force myself to finish it. It was one of the worst Stephen King novels I have read (I'd say even worse than The Tommyknockers). It was wordy, the character development was terrible, it was, in general, a big snooze! I may be missing something "mythic"...but this was one bad book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Story
Review: Words cannot describe how wonderfully engrossing this book is. You immediately get caught up in the story, and it's a hard one to put down. Jack Sawyer is one of my favorite characters, and I've read this book so many times over the years that the pages are falling out! If you are a King or a Straub fan, you will like this book.
Rating:
Summary: The transformation - an ordinary boy to a hero
Review: The Talisman, jointly written by Stephen King and Peter Straub, is the story of a twelve year old boy, Jack Sawyer, who after hearing of his mother's impending death from sickness must find a way to save her. Jack lives in a hotel near the beach in New Hampshire. Summer is ending and all the tourists are leaving the town. The boy's only friend in the lonely town is Speedy Parker, a sixtiesh black man who runs the arcade on the beach. After hearing of Jack's trouble Speedy shows Jack the territories - a parallel dimension where werewolfs and other inhuman creatures exist in an archaic world with midieval technology. Speedy tells Jack that in order to save his mother's life he must use the territories as a passageway to find the talisman - a magical thing that will heal his mother and save the world. Morgan Sloat, Jack's Nemesis, will take over the world if Jack is not successfull. So, Jack's mission is two-fold in that he must save the world as well. Peter Straub provides the detailed settings of the two parallel worlds as well as other things. Because the territories are so interesting this is the only thing that the two writers should have spent more time on is setting the action in the territories. King writes some strong characters in this one, especially Jack Sawyer and wolf. Wolf is a werewolf whom Jack meets in the territories on his way west. "Wolf" as he is so aptly named uses his incredible strength and endurance to help Jack along the way. "Wolf" is a very lovable character as he makes up for his lack of intelligence with an undying servitude to his flock as well as Jack himself. Jack later finds his longtime friend Richard Sloat at a private school somewhere in Ohio. Jack forces Richard to join him on his mission to the west. Richard has to deal with the fact that his father is Jack's enemy. He slowly warms to the idea that the territories exist and that his father has incredible powers and is an evil man. Some of the ideas within the novel are creative and cool. Jack actually must fight twice as many enemies because his two main adversaries have "twinners." These are replicas of beings in the real world translated into the territories version of them. The territories also are detailed in their realism as a parallel universe. The air is cleaner in the territories due to the lack of combustible engines, industrial factories, and for other reasons. Wolf, with his keen sense of smell, is the first to notice and his repulsion often results in something amusing happening. This novel is about many things, but mostly it's about a boy who must have courage to face his fears and endure the hardships in order to become a hero in the end. This novel is a very enjoyable read. At well over six hundred pages it is long but definitely worth it. Once you read the first few pages you can't put it down. You will come back to it every day until you have finished.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've ever read
Review: There were some who rated this book low because they couldn't understand the complex emotions and charatcer traits. Jack goes on an amazing journey to save his dying mother, and he meets turmoil, trial, friends, foes, and defeats his evil uncle morgan. He forces Richard to see the evil that lurks inside of morgan and his twinner. twinners are a persons double in the territories. This book is a superb read, and I recommend it to all.
Rating:
Summary: Skip it.
Review: Out of all his books he did a sequel from this mess? In "On Writing", Stephen King describes an equation to condense a book. I am convinced King / Straub put this book through the equation backwards. For the first 3/4 of the journey west, they describe in painful detail every step this kid takes. Can we get to a point? Somewhere? Please? Our dull hero Jack Sawyer allows (Wolf) a friend he meets on the way to be tortured. At that point, I lost all interest or caring for Jack. I wanted him to fail. I wanted him and the person he was traveling to save to die painfully for what he did. I wanted the book to be over already! sheez Along the way Jack hooks up with his "best friend" Richard ( These kids don't act much like friends, but we've already established by now Jack treats friends bad ) and continue on the trek. King/Straub tell us it is imperative Richard goes with Jack but when Jack finally drags his whiny / annoying "friend" (and we the reader along with them) to the goal, Richard plays NO part in achieving the goal!! He lays under a blanket and does nothing! Come on King / Straub, you waist how many pages on these to dull kids and THAT is the big pay off? I've enjoyed most of King's work. Sure Dark Half had a weak ending but I still enjoyed it. His 3 "i am woman" books Gerald's Game, Rose Madder and Dolores Claiborne (D.C being the best of these three) left something to be desired but only "Talisman" and "Dreamcatcher" were major disappointments. Skip them both. Go read "The Stand", "Pet Sematary", "It" or "The Dark Tower" series.
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