Like many Constant Readers, I knew what the title of Stephen King’s and the late Peter Straub’s third Talisman book signified. It was going to do things we always suspected and hoped for. It was going to tie itself in directly to King’s epic Dark Tower series, a story that serves to unite almost all of King’s work in some form or another. This may be the most unifying book in the King-verse, there are so many tales and worlds it brushes against.

Do ya.

Thank-ee sai.

Ka-tet.

19.

Wolfs.

Billy-bumblers.

The line of Eld.

Man, King pulls out all of the stops here, springing from an idea Straub shared before his passing.

Jack Sawyer is alive and living in Mid-World (the Territories, kennit?). It seems Ka isn’t quite done with him and some fellow ex-pats. Something horrible is sweeping the lands of Mid-World and Earth, and Jack finds himself caught up in events in both.

A pair of young killers, emulating the Starkweather killings, have found their way from America to Mid-World, passing through Todash Space (the between space from which the likes of It issued), and something has infected them and is spreading amongst the young, turning them brutal, violent and murderous – Discordia.

A rip in Todash space, that may once have been what Roland Deschain would have called a thinny, is spreading, and it is threatening not only Mid-Wold, but all worlds.

As echoes? twinners? pile up and Ka shows that is a wheel, Jack and his ka-tet, find themselves the only ones that may be able to do anything about it, but if Jack’s ka-tet is an echo of Roland’s ka-tet, what does that mean for those who travel with him?

Everything in this worked for me. And honestly, it was great to catch up with Jack Sawyer again.

I first read The Talisman when I was young Jack Sawyer’s age, twelve I came to Black House, older than him, but here, in Other Worlds Than These, we are close in age once again, and we have both aged into ourselves. I’ve always liked the character of Roland, but I would like to think I was always more like Jack.

Say true.

Jack has made choices, his lived a life, and is he ready to do what is asked of him? No. But he’ll do it. Because Ka.

The echoes running through the book, in terms of locations, people, moments, and even little pop culture nods, it all got me so jazzed. And when things go bad, and you know they are going to, ka-shume, all you can do is buckle up, and hope that the cost won’t wreck you completely.

This one put me through my paces, I laughed, I actually cried (billy-bumblers), I had happy and sad tears, and there were moments that terrified me – slow muties never bothered me in The Dark Tower, but there’s a moment in this one when that game changed real quick.

There are some great film nods, Close Encounters plays a part, as well as another couple of films, which I won’t mention to keep it less spoilery. And damn, that ending… echoes… which makes it perfectly played.

I loved this. I know want to go back and revisit not only the Dark Tower books, and all the ones even remotely connected to it, but the Talisman trilogy as well.

This is fantastic storytelling. Thanks, Uncle Steve.

Other Worlds Than These is available from Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster now.

All things serve the beam.