Summary
In a world inwhich franchises like theMCUandDCUhave grown in popularity and size, the need for more interconnected stories in the media has hit the pop culture scene. Finding new stories and series to capture an audience’s attention is not always easy. Still, many studios have turned to authors in the literary space and their popular releases to bring these stories to life, something done even more now thanks to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. One such author’s works has grown in popularity in recent years: Stephen King.
The master of horror is well known for classicslikeCarrie,Salem’s Lot, andThe Shining, and those are mere drops in the bucket of his literary career. Yet the work he and so many loyal fans consider his magnum opus isThe Dark Tower, a series that blends fantasy, action, western, science fiction, and horror into one long epic. The tale follows a lone Gunslinger seeking to stop the fall of the Dark Tower, the epicenter of the entire multiverse. While many of King’s works have both direct and indirect ties to theDark Towerseries, there is one pair of books that has a series of connections to that franchise. Those books areThe TalismanandBlack House, co-authored by the late Peter Straub. These books would make the perfect prequel toThe Dark TowerTV adaptation.
The Talisman and Black House, Explained
The Talisman, published in 1984, follows a 12-year-old boy named Jack Sawyer. Living in a hotel room with his mother, he discovers that she has developed cancer and that there is a powerful object known as The Talisman that has the ability to heal his mother. To get it, he must traverse both the United States and the otherworldly place known as The Territories. A man named Speedy Parker gives him instructions on how to use hisnatural ability to travel between worlds. Jack travels alone to get the Talisman, facing enemies who will stop at nothing to gain the power that the Talisman promises. Along the way, he gains and loses powerful allies and confronts his childhood memories and the mystery behind his father’s death years earlier.
Speedy informs Jack before his journey that he is unique, as his world and the Territories are connected by people and their “twinners,” or their alternate reality selves. When one of them dies, the other gains the ability to travel between both worlds. Parker’s twinner is a former gunslinger named Parkus, and Jack’s mother is the twinner of the Queen of the Territories. Jack is pursued by Morgan, his father’s old business partnerand a ruthless sorcererin the Territories who wants the Talisman for his nefarious purposes.
Meanwhile,Black Housetakes place decades later when Jack is grown up. Having repressed his memories of The Territories, Jack works as a star homicide detective who retires to Wisconsin. A serial killer begins operating out of the small town he now lives in, and he is forced out of retirement when the killer takes a fourth victim. The case turns out to be connected to the land he visited as a child, and his memories return, as does his ability to cross over into other worlds. Parkus warns Jack that this killer is an agent of The Crimson King, the villainof theDark Towerseries, and uses the killer to find children with psychic abilities that can help topple the Dark Tower. It is up to Jack and his allies to stop the killer and the Crimson King’s plans for the children.
The Talisman/Black House Connection to The Dark Tower
There are many ways in which these twobooks connect toThe Dark Tower. The Territories itself is a dimension directly connected to the Dark Tower. The small town inBlack Houseis also directly connected to the otherworldly place where the Crimson King keeps the children locked that he intends to use to bring down the Dark Tower. Speedy Parker’s twinner is Parkus, a former gunslinger. The Gunslingers are the knights of the world of the Dark Tower, and the protagonist of theDark Towerseries is Roland, the last of the Gunslingers.
The Crimson King is, of course, behind the actions of the serial killer inBlack House. A return to the Territories in Black House also reveals a mystery tent in the background, which any fan of theDark Towerseries will recognize as the tent belonging to the Little Sisters of Eluria, a sect of vampires Roland comes across in the short story collectionEverything’s Eventual. These are but a few of the tiny connections these stories possess, making these books perfect for a prequel toMike Flanagan’s upcomingDark Towerseries.
Netflix is currentlyworking with The Duffer Brothersto bringThe Talismanto life. Meanwhile, Stephen King remarked in the wake of Peter Straub’s passing that the authors had come up with a plan for a third book in the franchise. The stage has been set for both books and their stories to be told. The epic scope of theDark Towerfranchise needs a prequel to help flesh out some of the detailed, more pronounced elements of that mythology.The TalismanandBlack Housewould help do that for the Mike Flanagan-driven Stephen King franchise. It would also add more depth to the actions and scope of the Crimson King’s ambitions and organization, setting the stage for Roland the Gunslinger and his band of allies as they make their way to the Dark Tower and their destinies.
