The Talisman

By: Stephen King, Peter Straub

Narrated by: Frank Muller

Length: 28 hrs

Publisher's summary

On a brisk autumn day, a 13-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: His father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America - and into another realm.

One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother's life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin....

©2001 Simon & Schuster; 2001 Stephen King and Peter Straub

Critic reviews

Audie Award Winner, Fiction (unabridged), 2002

"A classic...rare and dazzling...a journey to rival the greatest adventure stories ever told." ( New York Daily News)

"Extraordinary...makes your hair stand on end." ( The Washington Post)

Still Good

I read this book when it first came out in the 80s. This was before the sci-fi world took the theme of multi-dimensionality to it ad-nauseumal limit. (I know, not a word.) Even so, it's still an excellent story by these two excellent authors.

I love the fact that when you read these reviews you get both ends of the spectrum and everything in-between. One compared this to Beyond the Dome which I thought doesn't even come close to The Talisman.

I also suggest Audible listeners get used to Frank Muller. He's all over this place and you're going to miss out on a lot of great books if you try to avoid him. His style always puts me off at first, but it always ends up growing on me.

What a story!

This story is entertaining from the start to the end! I know little of Straub and only bought it because of King but this book has me wanting to know more about him. I would love to tell you about the story but it would be unfair as it would likely rob the book of vital moments, so I will just say that in my opinion this book will be LOVED by any fan of King and Muller. Not only loved but read again and again in due time. I know, it's alot of hours to pledge to a book but as always King never wastes our time and always rewards us for the lost sleep. What a story!

Great Book!

I think this by far one of Stephen King's greatest books. Teamed with Peter Straub,Stepen King wrote a story that grabbed at the begining and never let you go.I was sorry to see it end!The hero of the story was couragous,likeable,andwell rounded.The villians were hatefull and their descriptions were fanstatic. I reccommend this book to everyone!

Could not get into it

King has a big name, and I really enjoyed Frank Muller's work on 'Silence of the Lambs', so I decide to read this book. Frank is not at the top of his game here and second I didn???t care for the style of writing either. I found that story was jumping all over the place and I did not find it to be enjoyable read. Perhaps I will try some other King book, but not anytime soon.

Classic Stephen King

I have to start by saying I am a long time "Constant Reader" of Mr.King but have only recently taken up audio books. His books are very easy to start and stop which works out very well for me as I tend to only listen during my commutes to work. The Narrator does a nice job of giving life to each character and you are drawn into the experience. I am 15+ hours into the book and still have 13 more to go so you feel you do get your moneys worth out of His books. I am looking forward to The Dark House.

The Talisman

King and Straub collaborate to give the firmament a good shaking. They do a credible job of creating the "regions", a parallel reality. They are less successful in a belated effort to expand the theme to include an infinite number of parallel realities. While I generally look down my nose at abridged books, this is one that could be improved by lopping off 14-16 hours of banal, self-indulgent and often redundant writing. No doubt King and Straub would be offended. While suffering through the last chapter as it dragged on and on and on, it occurred to me that these guys had recently concluded that "By Jason, we're great together. Two great writers". All that bloat was a gift. Thanks.

Yes, Frank Muller has an irritating tendency to squeeze the last word of each sentence until it gasps. Fortunately, this tendency only appears in fits. Muller, however, has many compensating talents. His rendering of "Wolf", the most intriguing character in the novel, is wonderful.

The plot moves too slowly to entertain most of us in a car or on a plane, but it may be an excellent choice for multitasking. I used it to varnish my boat. If I missed a few words from time to time, no worries. I'd hear a paraphrase in few minutes.

The Talisman - thumbs up

Awesome story with a great narrater Frank Muller. You can't go wrong with this one.

If you liked The Stand, you'll like this.

This is only my third Stephen King book, so I'm no expert on his writing, but I very much enjoyed this book-for the most part. There were definitely stretches where it felt like King was being paid by the word, i.e he wrote in 20 pages what could have been written in two or three, but for the most part I was very interested in what was going on and what was coming next. I thought the relationship between Jack and Wolf was reminiscent of the relationship between Nick Andros and Tom Cullen in The Stand. That's not necessarily bad; at least he was influenced by his own work. There were other similarities, but I won't give too much away. In the end I did not feel cheated by this book. The ending was satisfying to me. I'll definitely keep reading/listening to Stephen King's books.

Good

incredibly good book kind of connected to the Dark Tower butt dips in the middle, but if you stick to it is pretty damn good.

Rather good, but not much build up.

To me it seemed like this story was the beginnings of The Dark Tower before he had fleshed out what The Dark Tower would be. Very similar to The Dark Tower, but not quite as compelling. If you like The Dark Tower, you might enjoy this.