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)

Weird Story, Great Read, Gets Better, Interesting.

Since King wrote this with Straub, there are parts that obviously don't read like typical King writting and that's to be expected. Some of my issues with plot, flow, character development, etc may all stem from disjointed pacing caused by the dual author approach... or maybe some other reason. I just know that I have hang ups about certain mechanics of the writing in this story. I love a lot of writing by Stephen King. I recently enjoyed another book that he co-authored with his son entitled Sleeping Beauties. At the end of the audiobook version of Sleeping Beauties there is a brief word from the authors. Stephen and Owen talk about the writing process for Sleeping Beauties and how it differed from Kings experience authoring the Talisman series. if I remember correctly King and Straub trade off section by section. this might be the cause of some of my Hang-Ups.

Hang up number one is that the character of Jack Sawyer starts out as so two dimensional and flat. He is a whiny 12 year old boy and is not a very interesting character. after recently falling in love with the way King wrote about boyhood and being on the edge of adulthood in the first part of the book Hearts in Atlantis, I was greatly disappointed by the writing around the character of Jack in this story. Truly, the writing about being an 11 year old boy near the end of childhood in Hearts in Atlantis is nearly perfect and it was a horrible shock to go from some elegant, poignant, and nuanced writting in that story to the clumsy and almost flat way that Jack is presented in the beginning of this story in the Talisman. As Jack goes through the adventure of the story and experiences many hardships, his character begins to be more clearly defined and he seems less flat as the story unfolds.

Hang up number two: many of the other characters also seem flat, underdeveloped, or even like cartoonish parodies of what they could be.

Hang up number three, the pacing of the narrative itself seems a little awkward and disjointed.

Lastly, I will say that the book got increasingly better and better. It was a very rough start due to the almost directionless feel at the beginning of the narrative and the flatness of the characters. the characters did improve as each respective author got more opportunities to visit their development.

I love the narration as I love Frank Muller for ANY audiobook and after listening to the exceptional performances that he did for the Dark Tower series, I was happy to hear him read another interesting story from King. I've heard that the sequel to this story is better and even has some minor tie-ins to The Dark Tower universe. I will likely give the sequel a try and hope that it is more thought out, better developed, with less flat characters. overall the adventure of this story was fun and light. It got gory and serious at times but honestly played out like an action movie or a cartoon at times because of the overall presentation. It's GREAT of your in the mood for a boyhood adventure story as he embarks on a quest to rescue his mother (the queen) and vanquish the forces of darkness. It's less interesting if your looking for something deeper than raw entertainment in a cliche adventure format... these authors are excellent at what they do and find ways to spin old troupes and cliches into some fresh and interesting new angles, but it's still just an adventure story about a boy on a quest with almost comical villians.

Nicely done!

The Talisman is one of my favorite King books. I enjoyed listening to it being read aloud. The story still grabbed me. A fine coming of age story, with just enough horror and excitement. I plan on picking up the sequel, Black House, when my next credit is a available.

a suprising duo

Would you listen to The Talisman again? Why?

I would give this audiobook another listen one day. Frank Muller is the perfect person to narrate a stephen king novel. He adds another level of creepy to the King franchise

What did you like best about this story?

the suprise dark tower connections

What about Frank Muller’s performance did you like?

what is there not to love about this guy? he takes it slow when it needs to be and speeds it up when it may be a lull in the plot line.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

If you could listen to this long novel in one sitting, I worry about you :)

Favorite book ever!

❤❤❤ I was just a child the FIRST time I ever read this book, can't count how many times I read this book!!!

So many word whiskers, and a slow story

The book itself was uninspiring and way too long.

The narration was the Dark Tower all over again... I kept waiting for Roland to show up. Frank's incessant need to extend every sentence by elongating vowels was so distracting, it took several hours before I could ignore his reading style.

It is a lot like listening to Scott Brick, you have to train yourself to ignore the reader's style. Unfortunately the story was so slow that it was a constant battle.

Ups and Downs

The book is a rather classic tale of a young boy who is nearly an orphan who finds out his life and parents are not what he thought, but actually a magical world where things are not as they seem. He experiences life in this world as a young boy forced to be a man, posing as a runaway. Funny enough another book I read recently "The Lost Gate" seems to be a second hand version of this story. Expect that book was rather awful.

I am almost done with the first part of the book (3 parts) and I have had many times where it went slower than a turtle, and other parts where I just sort of tuned out and 20 minutes later realized I had not been paying attention. Then it picks up in other areas at other times. Normally I love Stephen King, but I don't particularly care for this novel so far. But as I mentioned it has portions that do pick up and get rather good, unfortunately there are too many low points that break it up.

But I have to agree with many reviews and say the reading really is distracting. The constant raspy and dragging phrasing becomes annoying. I won't say you "get used to it" like most people, but I would say "you learn to tolerate it"

If you want my opinion, it's not worth the credit (or money). If you want a wonderful Stephen King book buy The Shining, or The Stand, The Shawshank Redemption, or The Green Mile. This is not nearly one of his better works.

Enjoyed the book

I read this book several years ago when it first came out and was hesitant to re-read, but I am so very glad I did. You can't help but get caught up in this book and you care deeply for the characters. I enjoyed Frank Muller's reading of the book and found his ability to go from character to character and his at times his incredibly fast reading of the book to be quite remarkable. Yes, there were parts of the book that dragged but that is Stephen King's style. I encourage you to listen; I doubt you will regret it.

I love the book. But,

this is a great book but,
the narrator was too breathy sensual and seemed sexual even at times.
Every single sentence ended with a breathy emphasis that was incredibly unnecessary

What a Ride! Hang On.

Wonderful tale that keeps gaining momentum both in terms of the story and character development... UNTIL the seemingly endless battles with monsters, both real and imagined, in the final eight hours. Fortunately, King breaks with that senseless filler in time to save the novel!

A got to read book.

I loved it.
The whole book was great.
Wolf and Jack where a great team that had simular experience in different worlds.
When they paired up together their friendship became rock solid.