Stephen King And Peter Straub Are Reuniting For A New Talisman Book, And It's Out This Month

A new installment in The Talisman book series is on the way from Stephen King and Peter Straub. King is the bestselling author of such iconic novels as Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, It, Misery and The Dark Tower. Straub, who died in 2022 at the age of 79, also wrote in the horror genre and published books like Julia, Ghost Story and Koko.

The two bestselling authors teamed up for the first time in 1984 when they published The Talisman, a fantasy story that centers around 12-year-old Jack Sawyer, who attempts to save his mother after she's diagnosed with cancer.

After entering a parallel world known as the Territories, the boy searches for a mysterious relic that's meant to help him in his quest. King and Straub collaborated again 17 years later for a sequel, Black House, that shows the protagonist as an adult.

A third book in the Talisman series, called Other Worlds Than These, is about to be released on October 6. This novel has been in the making for several years. Both King and Straub have made public comments over the years about revisiting that world. Other projects took up a lot of their time, and the novel was never written.

The year before he died, Straub admitted that health issues prevented him from working with King again.

However, since he had already tossed around ideas with his co-writer, King was able to proceed with the third Talisman book and sat down to write Other Worlds Than These in 2025. Halfway through the year, the author revealed he was close to finishing the manuscript.

Then in February 2026, Scribner officially announced the release date and other details about the third Talisman book, which is 704 pages long and features several illustrations created by Gabriel Rodriguez.

After saving his mother in The Talisman, Jack becomes a homicide detective and spends Black House assisting the police in their attempt to find a killer. Now, in Other Worlds Than These, he's pulled back into the action when the Gullet threatens to wipe out every single world.

After Black House, King went on to write additional Dark Tower books, along with Under the Dome, 11/22/63, Doctor Sleep, Mr. Mercedes, The Outsider, The Institute, Billy Summers, Fairy Tale and many others.

Now he's revisiting the world of The Talisman as his and Straub's idea comes to life in the pages of Other Worlds Than These, which is expected to be the final book in the series.

Other Worlds Than These will be released on Tuesday, October 6, 2026.