When you put aside the killer clowns, rabid dogs, and haunted hotels, Stephen King is known for his young protagonists. From a telekinetic prom queen and a little girl who can light fires with her mind to the brave and resourceful Losers’ Club, many of the author’s early novels star powerful kids who must battle a vast assortment of monsters.
But rarely do we get to see these children into adulthood. Though King’s 1986 masterpiece It sees our beloved Losers all grown up and Doctor Sleep features Danny Torrance as an older man, King leaves most of his young heroes in their adolescence. However, Constant Readers know that the author has been following one fictional child for the majority of his career. Other Worlds Than These gives us the final chapter in the story of Jack Sawyer, a singularly powerful child often tasked with saving the world.
In 1984, King collaborated with famed horror author Peter Straub on The Talisman, a fantasy adventure that sees twelve-year-old Jack traverse an alternate reality known as the Territories on a quest to save his dying mother. Without a twinner, or counterpart in the other realm, Jack has the unique ability to flip between worlds.
Seventeen years later, King and Straub would reunite to write Black House, a sequel story which sees an adult Jack as he struggles to make sense of his unbelievable past while solving a grisly string of child murders. Now twenty-five years later, King provides a conclusion to Jack’s story as he must defend the world against encroaching evil. Other Worlds Than These presents Jack with his greatest adventure yet while connecting multiple entries in King’s universe.
At first glance, readers might be confused to see Straub’s name gracing the cover of this new novel, particularly considering the accomplished author died in 2022. While The Talisman and Black House were equally written by both genre titans, Other Worlds Than These is a different sort of collaboration.
King remembers discussing this conclusion with Straub in the later years of his life, informally mapping out the final chapter of Jack’s strange journey. Though King fully authored this new novel, he recreates the previous chapters’ elaborate prose mixed with dynamic set pieces, extensive destruction, and occasional dips into outright terror. Straub can be felt on every page as King writes to honor his long-time friend.
Fans of Black House know that we leave our heroic Coppiceman on a deadly cliffhanger. Years after this devastating injury, we reunite with an aging Jack who must spend most of his time in the Territories. Just a few days spent “America-side” and Jack’s body will begin to decompose, the precursor to a gruesome death.
He supports himself by running errands to our reality for the amusement of a childish warlord. But on his latest jaunt to Hemingford County, Nebraska (a fun Easter Egg for dedicated Constant Readers), Jack learns about a pair of delinquent runaways terrorizing the area who may have murdered his dear friend Dale Gilbertson. These teenage killers seem to have found a passageway between worlds and are laying waste to both realities.
Though their crimes bring to mind Bonnie and Clyde, King names a different reference. The fictional Roy Kinneston and Tara Lynne Speckhoffer are directly inspired by Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, who went on a similar killing spree in 1957-58. King has long been fascinated with this teenage serial killer, and the duo’s murderous spree has inspired much of the author’s work, most notably the grim novella 1922 and Rage, the only novel King has pulled from publication. But this threat transitions from a pair of delinquent murderers to something else altogether.
Kinneston and Speckhoffer not only seem to be possessed by the spirits of Starkweather and Fugate, but their particular brand of corruption rapidly spreads through the Territories, with teenagers roughly dying their hair and massacring anyone who crosses their path. This coincides with the expansion of a black hole-like force which threatens to consume the very fabric of reality.
Rather than the central nature of Black House, which takes place mostly in western Wisconsin, Other Worlds Than These mirrors the structure of The Talisman. Tasked with defending both worlds, Jack embarks on another epic journey as he follows a wide path of destruction carved by the killer couple and their acolytes.
We revisit the Blasted Lands with its infamous Slow Mutants and remember beloved friends lost on Jack’s first epic journey. But these are not the adventures of a wide-eyed boy on a thrilling trip. This Jack is a hardened and lonely traveler, remembering his glory days while finding the courage for one last battle. King punctuates the story with journal entries that fill in the gaps of this sprawling story, making it accessible for newer readers.
In addition to this treacherous trip down memory lane, King makes frequent connections to more famous fantasy series. Considering its title — pulled from the shocking conclusion of The Gunslinger, the first book in The Dark Tower series — readers expected Other Worlds Than These to merge both epic sagas. While Black House lays out this connection with its talk of Breakers and the Crimson King, the newest installment becomes the lynchpin for holding King’s massive universe together.
Parallels and connections are fully fleshed out, and we revisit beloved characters from both literary worlds. It’s the closest King has ever come to confirming what Constant Readers have long suspected — the Master of Horror truly is writing one interconnected story.
When describing his own inspiration, King admits, “I wanted to go back to Mid-World, which was always the Territories by another name.” We can feel this longing as King relaxes back into familiar ground. We’re treated to sweeping descriptions of the countryside on both sides of the reality divide and luxuriant stretches of warm conversation as Jack connects with new friends. True to form, King peppers the story with moments of dark humor and gruesomeness.
The Speckhoffer gang may be some of the author’s most sadistic villains, and he doesn’t hold back when describing their horrific kills. Other moments highlight the terror of this unpredictable world as new monsters rear their ugly heads.
As Jack builds a second ka-tet to save the world, we’re reminded of another gunslinger’s epic journey. What begins as an older man hellbent on stopping a pair of teen murderers transforms into a poignant examination of the nature of chaotic evil. Some readers will be frustrated with a nebulous conclusion while others will find joy in the winding journey. Once again, King is less concerned with delivering a definitive ending than with pondering the cyclical nature of life itself.
Echoing some of his earlier work, like The Stand, Needful Things, and The Dark Tower, King reminds us that the true shape of evil never dies and the world can’t be saved by a singular battle. We must constantly be on our guard against new iterations of malevolence.
While Other Worlds Than These won’t be for everyone — Dark Tower haters need not apply — King’s latest novel provides a satisfying final chapter for one of his most relatable characters, pulling Jack Sawyer out of the shadows and into the spotlight once again. It’s a mature novel from a creator who is entering the final stages of a long and storied career. Intensely reflective and meta-textual, we feel King saying goodbye to Straub while revisiting his own literary life.
Disguised as a road trip adventure story, Other Worlds Than These is a gorgeous meditation on the beauty of life and the friends we love and lose along the way.
Other Worlds Than These by Stephen King and Peter Straub publishes on October 6.
