Books: Black House (Book Two) by Peter Straub and Stephen King (2001)

 

“Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her Territories "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, WI. A few years earlier, Jack cooperated with the local cops in French Landing (a fictionalized version of Trempealeau, Wisconsin) involving a farm insurance salesman who was also a killer. While in Wisconsin, Jack is irresistibly enraptured by the natural beauty of the Coulee Country, echoing his reaction to The Territories as a child. 

When a series of gruesome murders begin occurring that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams –if that is what they are- of robins' eggs and red feathers? Is there a connection, as well, to the events that forced him leave Los Angeles? Quickly it becomes clear there is more to these cases than murder, and Jack must retrieve his childhood memories to rescue the latest victim, someone who is coveted by the killer's evil overlord, a powerful entity from End-World, in the Dark Tower continuity. And someone King’s Constant Reader has encountered before.” 

As I mentioned in The Talisman re-read review, that 1984 book was never intended to include the Dark Tower, mostly because King really had not started to connect the dots (and he would recton some stuff, like Pennywise the Clown in IT). The Black House does work as a standalone sequel, though, but in the seventeen years between them, the Dark Tower universe began thread its way through King’s book regular titles, most notably 1994’s Insomnia (here is the unseen overreaching antagonist in 1982s The Gunslinger, Wizard and Glass, The Song Susannah, as well as the novella Low Men in Yellow Coats in The Hearts in Atlantis collection). What makes this work as standalone sequel is that the Territories has very minor role in this book, serving as both a Red Herring to Jack before the larger the full plot is revealed, with the Fisherman's significance is explained to him. The authors’ drop enough information so reading The Talisman is not a huge necessity (though is highly recommended).

While I remembered some of this books actions – especially the motorcycle club and the connections to the Dark Tower- I forgot the ending. It’ll be interesting to see how this now plays out in the upcoming third and final book, Other Worlds Than These. 

Beyond the Crimson King –spoken about, but not seen and the Territories -the books other DT references include Little Sisters (Little Sisters of Eluria) The Beams, Ka, Gilead, Ted Brautigan, Roland Deschain, and Roland's ka-tet are all explicitly mentioned. How Black House is connected to the Dark Tower universe is that The Furnace Lands are located in End-World, possibly implying that the Territories (also called the Borderlands) may exist on the same level of the Tower as Mid-World. The Territories are said to be in the Inner Baronies, suggesting it is part of In-World. The Big Combination is the Forge of the King that Susannah sees glowing red in the sky from the ramparts of Castle Discordia. When Susannah and Roland and Oy near the Tower, they see that the glow from the Forge has gone out now Finally In The Dark Tower, Walter/Flagg dons the same metal cap as he one the Fisherman puts on Tyler Marshall. Flagg describes the cap as having been "borrowed from a certain deserted house in the town of French Landing, Wisconsin."

Books: The Talisman by Peter Straub and Stephen King (Book One) 1984

“On a brisk autumn day, a thirteen-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America–and into another realm.” 

The Territories, for the few who’ve not read this book in the last forty-two years, is a parallel world physically smaller than the world from which Jack comes. Throughout the novel, Jack uses the size differential to travel quickly across the country. The eastern region, corresponding to the Eastern Seaboard, is the most densely populated and is governed under a feudal system headed by the Queen. The central regions, roughly corresponding to the American plains, are a grain growing area known as "the Outposts." Beyond them, the western region of the Territories is a destroyed area known as "the Blasted Lands" (analogous to the American Southwest – primarily New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was tested). It was apparently wrecked by radioactivity and has dangerous mutants and occasional fireballs. 

Jack begins his quest at the New Hampshire hotel called the Alhambra (a notable location in King's novel The Tommyknockers), where he meets Speedy Parker who tells him he must go on this quest to save both his mother and Queen Laura. So Jack sets off to seek the mystical Talisman in this parallel world, with help and encouragement from Speedy Parker. Parker warns young Jack that Morgan of Orris, the enemy of the free people of the Territories, will be after him, as will his uncle in the real world, Morgan Sloat, the business partner who probably caused Jack's father's death, who wants Jack dead. So both versions of Morgan are hunting for Jack, and both are aware of his nature, as well as their own.  

Back when King and Straub wrote The Talisman, I do not think King intentionally connected this book to the wider DTU. The Gunslinger had been released in 1982 (which was a combination of five short stories he wrote between 1978 and 1981 and The Drawing of the Three was still five years away). However, there are many things within this book that would be revisited in many of King’s other books, just not the Dark Tower (the idea of the train and the blasted lands would be reused in King’s fourth Dark Tower Universe book Wizard and Glass). 

Consciously or not, there are many references throughout the book that make rereading this novel feel like The Territories is just a small part of some bigger multiple universes. 

Even Jack’s Dad notes to his brother-in-law Morgan Sloat: 

“And should I tell you another crazy thing?”

“Why not?” Sloat answered.

“That’s (the Territories) are not the only world out there.” 

Another example comes from Wizard and Glass book again; where Roland’s ka-tet visits a version of the world has been depopulated by the influenza from the novel The Stand. As Jake points out in that book, in his version of 1980’s New York from which he comes from, they never encountered Captain Trips (this is also a clever way to explain the differences between King’s original version of the book, which is set in the late 1970s and the updated, extended version, which moved the dates up to 1986). Roland ponders that Jake’s universe is "another when. Then adds, “There are other worlds than these.”