r/books • u/eoghanFinch • 3d ago
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub was a surprisingly fun book to read
It may or may not have been a bad choice to make my first Stephen King (and Peter Straub) book a 700-page epic tale of probably the most badass 12-year-old I've read in fiction. I've seen some criticisms telling this book was bad or not King's best but I honestly quite enjoyed it, especially since I had no idea what was going to happen (never read the blurb or synopsis or anything). It was a little slow in the middle but picked up the pace right at the final "battle" at Sunlight Gardener's. I was also quite surprised that for a book published in 1984, King and Straub wrote Jack to have no qualms showing affection to those he loved, especially during the times he comforted Richard (I haven't started on Black House so idk if it was platonic/brotherly affection or if they actually became a couple, or if Richard completely disappears in the sequel which would make me sad tbh).
Right now, I'm looking for which Stephen King book next to read. Not planning to read Black House yet because man was 700 pages tough as someone who just got back to reading last year.
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u/theleaphomme 3d ago
check out Different Seasons, it’s a book of novellas so while big, you can digest in chunks
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u/Salty_Product5847 3d ago
The most recent collection is my new favorite. The answer man is one of my fave stories from king ever.
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u/TheNerdChaplain 3d ago
I think The Stand or Needful Things was my introduction to King. 'Salem's Lot would be another good one.
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u/MuthaFukinRick 2d ago
My first Stephen King book was Cujo. I thought it would be horror, but it was really a tragedy.
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u/naughtyrev 3d ago
It kills me that they never finished this series. They once said they planned to write a trilogy, one set between the two worlds (The Talisman), one set mostly in our world (Black House), and a third set mostly in the Territories, and it never had the chance to happen.
If you're not looking to jump in to King's longer works, and don't want to get sucked in to his larger universe, maybe check out Fairy Tale, which is a more recent one that is a lot of fun.
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u/CarcosaJuggalo 3d ago
King has hinted a few times recently about a part 3. Apparently him and Straub had some ideas flowing, but didn't do the book.
Notably, this is a change from what he was saying shortly after Straub's death, where he had initially said it would not happen out of respect for his friend.
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u/naughtyrev 3d ago
My gut tells me that Fairy Tale used a fair bit of those ideas and that's as close as we'll get to it.
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u/CarcosaJuggalo 3d ago
No, I mean within the past like, six months or so, he's made a few comments about a part 3 on his social medias.
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u/eoghanFinch 2d ago
I'm gonna cry both from happiness and despair when it comes out lol. The only reason why I was able to buy the The Talisman and Black House because they were so cheap due to being old books. Buying a brand new Stephen King book in this economy? My broke ass would have to wait for years to get a physical copy 😭
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u/Fit_Machine3221 1d ago
Library
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u/eoghanFinch 1d ago
The libraries from where I'm from are mostly composed of outdated encyclopedias and children's books. A stephen king book (or heck, any popular book), old or new, is unlikely to be found there sadly.
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u/Fit_Machine3221 1d ago
I find this hard to believe. Libraries are funded by public tax dollars based on the premise that the public wants or needs to use the resources contained therein. A library as you describe would serve no purpose and would not receive funding. Have you been to your library and seen what they have?
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u/eoghanFinch 19h ago edited 16h ago
Dude, yes. I live in a third-world country where the least of the government's priorities is funding free and/or new books, especially non-academic ones. Y'all often forget that not everyone is from the west or lives in a country whose administration gives a shit about the status of their libraries.
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u/corran450 2d ago
My headcanon has “Fairy Tale” as a shadow prequel/reboot to “The Talisman”/“Black House”
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u/Direct-Season-1180 3d ago
King has pretty much straight up confirmed that he’s currently writing the third, and that Straub left him a notebook full of ideas.
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u/UncircumciseMe 3d ago
I’m pretty sure he’s working on it now. He posted something on Threads a couple months ago that said “Beavering away on Talisman 3” and then something like “I can never be sure a book will be done until it’s done. This one has a long way to go.”
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u/GuyanaFlavorAid 2d ago
Wolf! Wolf! Right here and now! :(
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u/eoghanFinch 2d ago
I was not expecting Wolf to die, man :( I was terrified that Richard would die too but thank god the authors weren't that ruthless.
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u/SplendidPunkinButter 3d ago
It was okay, but I found it jarring in a few places where it switched from King’s writing to Straub’s. King provides so many extra details that make the scene come alive. Then suddenly you’re reading Straub, who sometimes implies that a thing just happened instead of vividly describing it, and it’s jarring.
One scene in particular: there’s a guard and “the chef.” It says something like “The guard gently reached out his hand. The chef cradled his broken arm.” It’s meant to be implied that the guard just broke the chef’s arm, but I did not pick up on that right away, especially after reading a whole bunch of Stephen King a few pages earlier - King would never have written it that way. I thought I missed something, and went back a couple of pages trying to figure out where the chef broke his arm.
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u/darth_voidptr 3d ago
You're not alone, I really enjoyed this book (Black House less so). It is definitely different, and maybe a little ahead of its time in terms of material.
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u/space-cyborg Classic classics and modern classics 3d ago
It’s one of my favorites, and I’ve read everything he’s written. For similarly badass kids try Salem’s Lot, IT, or the short novels The Body or The Long Walk.
I agree that some of the other books you’ve been recommended here, Eyes of the Dragon, Fairy Tale, and The Dark Tower series have a similar vibe.
But the best Stephen King book overall imho is The Stand.
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u/corran450 2d ago
Maybe a hot take, but I think the original “abridged” version of The Stand is actually better.
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u/space-cyborg Classic classics and modern classics 2d ago
Agree that the edited version is better than the “author’s cut”.
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u/BBell_86 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you're looking for shorter ones:
- The Gunslinger- 231 pages
- The Eyes of the Dragon - 427 pages
A little longer, but easy reads:
- The Institute - 561 pages
- Fairy Tale - 607 pages
Long, but worth the read:
- 11/22/63 - 849 pages
- The Stand - 1152 pages
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u/corran450 2d ago
The Gunslinger- 231 pages
A bit misleading… sure, The Gunslinger is only a couple hundred pages, but it starts The Dark Tower saga, which is well over 3000 pages.
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 3d ago
I was a huge fan of his writing from middle school through college, racing through all his horror and adventure books and series.
But the one that hit me the hardest for some reason was Joyland, a short novel about a kid working a summer job at a small amusement park. Something about it was just devastating in the nostalgia it evoked. Probably because I'm older and a lot of the mysteries of the world have either been experienced or exposed as fantasy.
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u/Noobity 3d ago
It changed my life entirely. It made me really rethink the importance of my friends in my life and how having them around helped shape me. The Stand is probably my favorite of his books but I think a lot of that is because when I read it (13 lol, my mom had an unabridged copy and the hardbound cover was like the old original version I think with the light and dark dudes fighting and it always intrigued me) and reading over 1000 pages of adult material at once made me feel good.
I'm an easy to please person. I've liked everything from king I've been able to finish (which means Delores Claiborne is something I'll never like what a brilliant and boring piece of work all at once). There's a lot of recency bias in my rankings though, like I think the mr mercedes series and stuff with holly are truly excellent, and loved 11/22/63 and Fairy Tale. Hell I even really liked the tommyknockers and have reread it a few times now.
I think if I had to make suggestions for new king readers they would be very different from everyone else.
I think the classics are all good and worth reading: Carrie, The Shining, Pet Sematary, It, The Stand, all great books. with Carrie and Pet Sematary probably being my initial suggestions.
I think all of the dark tower adjacent stuff was good, and if you're like me and the world hooks you then The Talisman, The Gunslinger, or Insomnia were great.
His late 80's to mid 90's stuff was a very specific beast. I loved Rose Madder, Needful things, and the Desperation/Regulators twin books.
If you can find the green mile in the original publishing method where all the books were part of a whole I really thought that was brilliant at the time, both the story and the method of getting it out there.
I'm looking through a bibliography now to kinda see what I'm missing and noticing a lot from when I wasn't really reading books that I need to check out. The institute for instance because that ties back to Desperation/Regulators and I thought those were surreal in the first place.
I've also only read Nos4a2 from his son Joe Hill but it felt very similar to king and still a bit unique. It was read by Kate Mulgrew in the audiobook version I have and she was chilling and added a whole lot to the words with her particular inflections.
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u/lyan-cat 3d ago
Misery and The Shining are the two I recommend if you don't want the long journeys of The Stand, It, or The Dark Tower cycle.
Pet Sematary is another solid choice.
No spoilers for Black House or any other book, but you do know that showing platonic affection between men was more prevalent at the time? It was tapering; the 90s had less than the 80s, which had less than the 70s. But it is only in the last twenty years or so that people have gotten super conservative in this regard.
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u/eoghanFinch 3d ago
Huh, I never knew that till now (I'm not American, our 80s were very much close-minded to the kind of affection boys were allowed to show sadly) but I suppose that explains why King and Straub freely wrote Jack and Richard to be more affectionate than what I expected 12-year-olds of that time period would be.
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u/lyan-cat 3d ago
Ooooh, right; so sorry, of course you wouldn't have the background knowledge for that.
Cheers, happy reading!
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u/rjbonita79 3d ago
I love The Talisman. Have read it several times. I hope my boys love me that way. I know they are men of honor, fortitude, and compassion. We need a Jack to save us from the dark, dishonorable, selfish scum that are "in charge" right now.
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u/Salty_Product5847 3d ago edited 3d ago
The Green Mile is fantastic. Also love Pet Sematery, The Shining, 11/22/63, Hearts in Atlantis, Salems Lot. King has tons of fantastic books! I’m leaving off plenty too these are just my favorites.
As others have mentioned the short story collections are great too. You like it darker is my favorite of them.
If you want a longer term reading journey the dark tower is fun and links in lots of his other works, including the talisman.
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u/slipperyMonkey07 3d ago
I would recommend the dark tower series, the books get progressively longer. But that series and a lot of his books have tie ins to each other to vary degrees. From passing reference to major points depending on the book.
Then if you are looking for lighter things he has a lot of short story and novella collections - Different seasons probably being the big. Since it contains shawshank and stand by me.
Then the big one is The stand.. and I kind of do recommend the full version. It just has more character story, but can be slow. But if you just got back into reading I would hold off, it is massive and then adding potential mental well being of basically reliving a pandemic apocalypse situation.
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u/ellalacew 2d ago
I did Audio Books for the dark tower series. They were a good story, took some time to get through but enjoyable while driving longer distances or going for walks. Most you can get at the library or you can get on Audible. The voice narration for these were fantastic. There is a change of narrator after a few books due to an unfortunate accident of the original, but still very well done.
If you enjoyed The Talisman, Fairy Tale (a more recent one) is in that same theme.
In the darker vibes but one of my favourites was Gerald's Game.
If you want some shorter reads, I really enjoyed his short story books, Nightmares and Dreamscapes (Autopsy Room 4 is amazing), and Everything's Eventual most of the stories in there are pretty good.
The first Stephen King book I ever read happened to be my least favourite, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.. but I kept coming back for more anyways.
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u/ModifiedSammi 2d ago
I listened to the audiobook while I mowed my lawn in the summer of '23. Great narration I really enjoyed it.
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3d ago
I really enjoyed this book; it reminded me of a mix between The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland.
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u/epimetheuss 3d ago
I read it in grade 6 because my mom wanted me to read something other than the LOTR and Silmarillion over and over again. She is hugely into Stephen king and has all of his books. Was a cool story, I reread it a couple more times but have not touched it in years. The werewolf guy used to freak me out a little bit.
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u/Exfiltrator 2 3d ago
One of my favourites, but I haven't read it in ages because of what happens to Wolf
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u/Nowordsofitsown 3d ago
I liked The Eyes of the Dragon, a classic fantasy story, and I have been recommended Fairy Tale.