The story that Stephen King and Peter Straub started in 1984’s The Talisman and continued in 2001’s Black House will come to an end this fall.
Other Worlds Than These, the final entry in the horror fiction titans’ Talisman trilogy, will be published on October 6 via Scribner.
King penned the 624-page horror fantasy novel based on a concept by Straub, who passed away from complications of a broken hip in 2022.
The book also wraps up the fate of the worlds in King’s beloved Dark Tower series. “I wanted to go back to Mid-World, which was always the Territories by another name,” said King.
Other Worlds Than These follows Jack Sawyer, whom readers first met when he was 12, crossing America and “the territories” to save his mother’s life, and met again as an adult facing a child killer and the Crimson King, among other evils.
In the new adventure, Jack must stop a rampaging gang of infected teenagers from America-side, and the forces of the mysterious Gullet at the edge of Mid-World, before it destroys our world and all worlds. Jack is older now; his Ka-tet is fraying; and his task, nearly impossible.
Described by the publisher as “magnificent, riveting, full of heart, and humor,” Other Worlds Than These features 30 black-and-white illustrations by Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key).
Steven Spielberg has owned the film rights to The Talisman since the ’80s, attempting to get several adaptations off the ground in the years since. Most recently, “Stranger Things” creators the Duffer Brothers were attached to turn it into a Netflix series, but it never made it through development.
