| Genre:Thriller, Horror Main characters: Jack Sawyer Summary: Jack Sawyer, the 12–year old boy who traveled into the Territories in The Talisman, is now grown up and a newly retired police officer. He buys a house somewhere in the country in hopes of peace and quiet, but the small community he’s now a part of is shaken by a serial killer’s horrors. As the police don’t quite have the situation under control, Dale Gilbertson, the chief, asks Jack for a hand and thus he becomes involved in a battle with a lot more at stake than any of them could imagine. |
As far as characters go I did like, of course, all the main ones. Jack Sawyer, the one knowing he’s in for more than he bargained, and also knowing he must still go on. Henry Leyden, the incredibly gifted blind man, with all these characters hidden inside him. Judy/Sophie (especially Judy), such a courageous woman. Also the Thunder Five, the “learned motorbikers”, so to speak, especially Beezer St. Pierre, their leader and father of the killer’s first victim. I admired each of these’s courage in those extraordinary circumstances.
As far as the plot goes, maybe it is a bit forced at times and maybe Speedy Parker intervenes a bit too many times for comfort (I’m sure no one likes it in books when the hero is caught in a sort of unavoidable serious trouble and then something supernatural happens and he’s home free; it’s neither enjoyable nor believable). A particular example would be that bouquet Speedy left in the police bathroom, one that not only calmed the angry mob but later its smell kept Tansy Freneau from the verge of lunacy and helped George Potter remember…
Also the final battle was a bit too easy because of that, some old effect from the once held Talisman killing the one that kept the children prisoners without the smallest effort? I mean hello, where’s the suspense in that?
I did like though the idea of some strange character from another world being the one pushing serial killers to do their deeds and the fact that some things in the latter’s behavior were repeating because of that. I don’t know why, it just seemed so mysterious at the time, seeing those coincidences 70 years apart and not knowing what to make of them :) However I found a bit over-the-top the idea of absolutely all the universes and worlds out there being at stake, I don’t know why, perhaps because it’s being a bit clicheistic after all the “hero the only one able to save the world” plots one meets everywhere.
I also liked the ending, both expectable and unexpectable (I did expect that it will end that way but not exactly that way if you know what I mean :) ). It also amused me a little, the way the authors alluded at some unknown problem in the Territories that would need to be solved, thus hinting at a next book :)
All in all it was an okay book, even though I found it a bit dragging at first. I liked The Talisman way more though.
Also written by Stephen King:
Under the Dome
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