There aren’t many parts of Stephen King‘s bibliography that you can realistically call “obscure.” As one of the most famous novelists on Earth, and perhaps the single most famous living horror novelist, even King’s lesser-known works are usually best-sellers.
However, King has dug into his back catalog for his next release. Other Worlds Than These, due out on Oct. 6, is the second sequel to The Talisman, a 1984 horror/fantasy novel that King wrote in collaboration with the late Peter Straub (Ghost Story, Mr. X).
Upon Other Worlds Than These‘s release, it will have been just over 25 years since the previous installment in what’s now become a trilogy. As the title suggests, this is related to King’s Dark Tower series, albeit a little distantly. If you’re a fan of those books but aren’t familiar with The Talisman, perhaps because you weren’t yet born when it was released, this is your window to get caught up before Other Worlds Than These drops.
Right here and now
The Talisman is set in 1981. Jack Sawyer is a 12-year-old boy whose mother, actress and “Queen of the B-Movies” Lily Cavanaugh, is suffering from terminal lung cancer. She’s recently moved across the country with Jack, from Los Angeles to a tourist town in New Hampshire. The town is important to Lily, who’s fading fast, but she’s also none-too-secretly trying to get away from Morgan Sloat, her late husband’s business partner. Sloat is untrustworthy, greedy, and almost isn’t bothering to conceal that he had Phil Sawyer killed.
Jack befriends Speedy, a local maintenance worker, who shows Jack how to see and reach another world. Speedy calls this new realm the Territories, which is a sort of magical, metaphorical reflection of our own. Everyone on Earth has a “twinner” in the Territories, aside from those, such as Jack, who have somehow managed to survive the deaths of their Territories duplicate.
Lily’s twinner, according to Speedy, is Queen Laura of the Territories, who is just as sick as Lily. However, there’s an artifact in the Territories’ equivalent to California that can cure both Lily and Laura. Jack, armed by Speedy with the ability to “flip” between Earth and the Territories, sets out on a trip across the United States to claim the Talisman and save his mother.
2001’s Black House is a direct sequel to The Talisman, and is set in the fictional town of French Landing, Wisconsin. Jack is now an adult and a former homicide detective with the LAPD, who’s recently taken early retirement.
A series of recent child abductions has proven to be more than French Landing’s sheriff can handle, and Jack reluctantly agrees to assist the investigation. Jack quickly discovers that the abductions are related to not only the Territories, but the Dark Tower. If Jack can’t find and rescue the most recently taken child, the Tower may fall, which would take all of existence with it.
Both The Talisman and Black House, according to King’s afterword to the latter, were written by King and Straub taking turns. Straub would write “for a while,” then pass the book back to King. In the same afterword, King notes that the connections between Black House and the Dark Tower series were actually Straub’s idea.
In a 2010 Reddit AMA, Straub wrote that the initial outline for The Talisman was worked up face to face in Straub’s office in Westport, Connecticut. Subsequent drafts were either done in person, or passed laboriously back and forth via modem. (If you’re ever annoyed at modern communication, imagine trying to write a novel this way in 1983.)
Worlds enough and time
Almost as soon as Black House was released, King and Straub had both independently discussed the possibility of a third book in the Talisman series. They then spent the next 25 years unable to coordinate their schedules. Just before Straub’s death in 2022, he sent King a long letter about working on the book that became Other Worlds Than These. King proceeded to finish the novel on his own, using Straub’s notes and his own ideas to carry it across the finish line.
According to King’s own website, Other Worlds Than These pits an older Jack against a “rampaging gang of infected teenagers” on Earth, while he must simultaneously deal with a force from the Territories called the Gullet.
It’s worth noting that King ran a preview of Other Worlds Than These in Esquire earlier this year. You can read its first chapter right now if you like. However, that first chapter instantly spoils a significant part of the conclusion of Black House. You might want to read that novel before you check out Esquire’s preview.
Other Worlds Than These‘s first edition is planned to ship with 38 black-and-white illustrations by Gabriel Rodriguez, who previously collaborated with King on 2002’s Fairy Tale.
Multiversal constants
After The Long Walk finally reached movie theaters last year, a live-action adaptation of The Talisman now may be the Stephen King project that’s spent the most time in development hell.
Steven Spielberg has owned the rights to The Talisman through Universal Pictures for over 40 years now, and has made a couple of attempts to bring it to film and TV. Around 2009, Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment produced The Talisman as a six-hour miniseries for TNT, but that project fell through.
The most recent news on an adaptation of The Talisman came from Netflix. At one point, Matt and Ross Duffer (Stranger Things) were attached to create a TV show for Netflix based on The Talisman, but that deal had officially fallen apart as of December 2025. Now that the Talisman trilogy is finally coming to a close, that might reignite interest from Hollywood in an adaptation.
It’s actually a little hard to believe how old the Talisman books are, as both have turned out to be decades ahead of their time. The Talisman is specifically about the interplay between two alternate universes, in ways that recall both the Silent Hill franchise and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Likewise, much of both novels, especially Black House, is set in scenes that presage recent horror’s fascination with liminal spaces (i.e., Exit 8, The Backrooms).
Reading the books now feels like discovering a sort of lost ancestry, or a missing link. Maybe it’s not that this project’s been in development hell at all, but rather that it’s taken over 40 years for the rest of pop culture to catch up with them.
Other Worlds Than These is scheduled for release on Oct. 6.
