Just Finished Rereading The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub

I first read The Talisman, a 1984 collaborative novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub, several years ago but had since forgotten the general thread of the story...so I read it again.  As is the case with most of Stephen King's works (I can't speak about Straub, not having read his books), there is here a great clash between the forces of good and those of evil, perhaps more than usual.  The Talisman is a quest of sorts, set in the current time and covering the breadth of the United States and a parallel, alternate universe called "The Territories".  Young Jack Sawyer, only twelve, is given the task of recovering something called the "Talisman" from a sinister building on the West Coast.  The stakes are high: his mother, a cancer-ridden retired movie star, is dying of the ailment while her "twinner", i.e. the corresponding personality in the Territories, is its queen and also dying.  The enemy is "Uncle" Morgan, the greedy and power-hungry former business partner of Jack's diseased father who has access to both worlds and is exploiting the Territories for his own material gain.  Who will end up controlling  the Territories, will Jack's mom survive...heck, will Jack even survive his difficult journey?  That's something that you, the potential reader of this book, will have to discover for yourself...

There are some interesting characters in The Talisman, notably Speedy, the aged blues artist who gives Jack his quest, and Wolf, a young "good" werewolf from the Territories who travels with Jack into the "real" world.  I also liked how King and Straub depicted a phony, cultish religious leader who takes advantage of the tolerance and acceptance of his professed faith by society in order to subjugate and profit from it.  And as I said before, this story more than anything is a showdown between the good and the bad...not the best book I've read from Stephen King, but it's okay.  I also read the 2001 sequel to The Talisman, titled Black House.  I forgot what happened in that one, too, so I guess I'm going to read it again as well...