High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Talisman is a 1984 fantasy novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The plot is not related to that of the 1825 Walter Scott novel of the same name, although there is one oblique reference to "a Sir Walter Scott novel." The Talisman was nominated for both the Locus and World Fantasy Awards in 1985. King and Straub followed up in 2001 with a sequel, Black House, that picks up with a now-adult Jack as a retired Los Angeles homicide detective trying to solve a series of murders in the small town of French Landing, Wisconsin.