Stephen King closes Talisman trilogy with 704-page finale completed after Peter Straub's death

The Talisman story that started in 1984 has ended with a 704-page final volume published on 6 October 2026.

Other Worlds Than These is listed as the third book in the Talisman Trilogy — a trilogy, meaning a series planned in three parts — and as the work of Stephen King and Peter Straub Simon & Schuster. Jack Sawyer returns as its central character. Scribner is named as the publisher.

King and Straub first collaborated on the fantasy novel The Talisman in 1984 The Guardian. It follows 12-year-old Jack Sawyer, whose mother Lily is dying. Jack travels to a parallel world known as the Territories in search of a magical object called the Talisman, which might save her.

The partnership continued with Black House, published in 2001. In that book, an adult Jack investigates a series of child murders connected to the Territories.

Straub died in 2022, aged 79 and after a long illness. He was the author of the novels Julia and Ghost Story, and his obituary described The Talisman, written with King, as a bestselling novel.

The closing volume draws on material that predates his death. In 2013 Straub proposed an idea for a final book centred on a series of motiveless, brutal crimes in the Far West of the Territories. King later finished the saga after Straub's death, incorporating his late friend's ideas StephenKing.com.

In Other Worlds Than These, Jack is 57 years old. The title comes from a key scene in King's The Gunslinger. King, who was 79 at the time of the October 2026 review, contributes a valedictory afterword, a short closing note from the author, about tidying up.

The print edition runs to 704 pages. An audiobook edition, a recorded version of the book, arrived on 6 October 2026 with narration by Patton Oswalt.

On 7 October 2026, The Guardian published a review of the new book headlined as a self-indulgent finale to the Talisman trilogy. The newspaper had previously revisited the series in a Rereading Stephen King article on The Talisman on 26 March 2013.

What makes this stand out is the chain of custody. One character has moved from childhood to middle age across three books, two authors and four decades. The last link was completed by one partner working from the other's plan.