In 1984, Stephen King and Peter Straub combined their talents to create The Talisman, an unforgettable epic of fantasy, adventure and resounding triumph. The book spent 12 weeks at #1 on The New York Times’ bestseller list. Seventeen years later, the duo returned with the sequel Black House, which received much critical acclaim and also reached #1 on the NYT list.
The Talisman
T welve-year-old Jack Sawyer embarks on an epic quest–a walk from the seacoast of New Hampshire to the California coast–to find the talisman that will save his dying mother’s life. Jack’s journey takes him into the Territories, a parallel medieval universe, where most people from his own universe have analogs called “twinners.” The queen of the Territories, Jack’s mother’s twinner, is also dying.
- Deluxe edition of 1,200 signed and numbered copies bound in white cloth. Signed by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
- Gift edition of 3,500 copies (includes BLACK HOUSE) in black slipcase. Signed by Peter Straub and Rick Berry. Published in 2002.
799 pages. ©1984
Rare and dazzling…a journey to rival the greatest adventure stories ever told.
Black House
In this sequel to The Talisman, Jack Sawyer is now in his late thirties and has taken early retirement from the LAPD, retreating to a small town in Wisconsin. He has no memory of his adventures as a twelve-year-old boy, when he traveled into a parallel universe in search of the talisman that would save his mother’s life. A series of murders involving young children force him out of retirement. There is more to these cases than murder, though, and Jack must retrieve his childhood memories to rescue the latest victim, who is coveted by the killer’s evil overlord, a powerful force from End-World, in Roland the gunslinger’s universe.
- Limited edition of 1,500 signed and numbered copies in matching traycase. Signed by Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Rick Berry.
- Gift edition of 3,500 copies (includes THE TALISMAN) in black slipcase. Signed by Peter Straub and Rick Berry.
639 pages. ©2002
Today’s literature is plagued by sequelitis; plagued because many of the offspring are abominations. But here’s a marvelous exception. Seventeen years after King and Straub’s first collaboration, The Talisman, comes an immensely satisfying follow-up, a brilliant and challenging dark fantasy that fans of both authors are going to love.