Other Worlds Than These: A Talisman Novel
Stephen King, like the universe he’s constructed, contains multitudes. Every bit of praise bestowed upon his fiction is true; every criticism levied against it is also true. He has an innate gift for the machinery and momentum of storytelling that hasn’t faded over his long career. His characters are beautifully, sentimentally — and sometimes grotesquely — human ... But he’s also repetitive ... His nonwhite characters are benignly stereotypical at best and downright offensive at worst ... As the capstone to the Talisman trilogy, Other Worlds Than These is a middling success. It moves and entertains, but it’s perhaps too reliant on the audience’s assumed familiarity with the Dark Tower saga ... The resolution of his decades-long journey moved me almost to tears, which took me by surprise. I may have my complaints about execution, but right here and now, I’m just glad I got to travel with Jack one more time.
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[King] is still pushing himself, still experimenting, and still pulling from his own life to give us a story that is simultaneously an escape from real life and an insightful reminder of what matters ... The new novel itself isn’t melancholy or ponderous. It’s a roller-coaster ride, but among its stomach-dropping powers is the ability to make the world of the past reach out its hand to the present ... I was surprised by how emotional this new book was for me, and all I can hope is that other King readers feel the same.
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There are moments of shivering joy ... As befits King, there are moments of true horror too, and good ones, as the teenage infection spreads across the Territories. But I cannot recommend that anyone who is not a Constant Reader embark on this 800-plus-page tome. For one, it would be pointless to read it without previously having read The Talisman and Black House ... And even for the Constant Reader, this is really not vintage King. I would have said that I’d follow Jack Sawyer anywhere, but as Ole Travellin’ Jack crisscrossed his way across the dry desert land of the Territories, his journey started to feel endless, and endlessly repetitive ... Unlike its predecessors, Other Worlds Than These will not be going on my reread shelf.
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