Quickie Book Review: The Talisman

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub.

Twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer needs to travel across the United States to retrieve a magical talisman that can save his dying mom. To speed up his trip, he travels back-and-forth to an alternative parallel universe (called The Territories) where he can move a little quicker from point A to point B. And he meets lots of bad guys along the way, both in the US and in the Territories.

The Good: It's Stephen King, so you know it won't be boring. The novel has a great plot with tons of suspense and surprises, as well as a handful of interesting characters. The Territories are sort of like a medieval fantasy land with a mixture of peasants, gargoyles, nuclear radiation, and werewolves. A very cool place, if you ask me.

The Bad: It's Stephen King, so you know it will be boring. (See what I did there.) My biggest complaint is that this book is just way too long. I'm not against a long book, either. The Stand and Atlas Shrugged are two of my favorites. It's just that in the case of The Talisman, way too many pages are filled with unnecessary detail after unnecessary detail after unnecessary flashback. This book is also way too slow. There were so many times, especially in the first two-hundred pages, where I found myself shouting "Something Happen, already!"

Closing: I originally read this book when I was a freshman in high school, so naturally, I remembered nothing about it. I did remember that I loved it back then and since King & Straub recently wrote a sequel to it (Black House) I figured I'd read it again so that when I finally got around to reading Black House, I'd have some sort of clue as to what was going on.  So would I recommend reading it? Probably not. Like I said earlier, it is a great story, but it's just so slow that unless you're a Stephen King completist or want to read it because you're planning to read Black House you could probably live without The Talisman. This book would be a prime candidate for a rerelease like The Stand, only instead of "Complete and uncut," they could make it "The Talisman: Cut." Take out about 300 pages and this novel would be gold.