Stephen King opens up about his new novel and a new ‘Carrie’ series
Stephen King’s Final Collaboration with Peter Straub Gears Up for Oct. 6 Release
Maine‑born author Stephen King, who has sold more than 400 million books in a career spanning six decades, will see a post‑humous collaboration with fellow Maine writer Peter Straub published next month. “Other Worlds Than These,” the third installment in the long‑running “Talisman” saga, will hit shelves on Oct. 6 with Straub’s name listed as co‑author.
Straub, who passed away in 2022 at 79, had first met King in London in the late 1970s. The two co‑authored the original dark fantasy, The Talisman (1984), and its sequel, Black House (2001). In the months before he died, Straub sent King a letter brimming with plot ideas for a new book, along with a copy of Christian Patterson’s Redheaded Peckerwood, a photo‑essay chronicling the 1950s Nebraska killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. King says the material struck him so strongly that it became the backbone of the new novel, which also ties up threads from his Dark Tower series.
“I thought, ‘Oh man, this is just tailor‑made for a suspense novel.’ It really made me want to write this book,” King said. He added that the partnership had always seemed to boost his own writing: “He was so good. He was a better stylist than I ever was, and I thought this is going to make me look so good if I collaborate with him, and it really did.”
King has long lamented that a third book would have had to wait until after Straub’s death. He told reporters in mid‑September, “We kept saying we’re going to do it next year, but I had things to finish and he had things to finish. Then time just ran out.”
A New “Carrie” for Prime
Just one day after the book’s release, Amazon Prime Video will premiere a new limited series based on King’s 1974 debut novel, Carrie. Created and written by director‑producer Mike Flanagan, who has adapted several other King stories—including The Life of Chuck and Dr. Sleep—the show stars Summer H. Howell as the titular girl, Samantha Sloyan as her mother, and Matthew Lillard as the high‑school principal.
While the story remains set in a fictional Maine town, filming took place in western Canada, a decision that has frustrated Maine‑based film advocates. The province, along with states such as Massachusetts and New York, offers generous tax incentives that make it a cheaper location for big‑budget productions. King, who lives part of the year in Florida, said he was given the opportunity to approve casting and was credited as an executive producer, but he preferred to let filmmakers run their course. “Making a film is different than writing a book. My thought is, you do your thing and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
The series’ adaptation of the infamous gym‑shower scene has drawn particular praise from King. He highlighted how the new version captures the “supercharged” nature of modern bullying, with classmates recording the humiliation on their phones instead of the voyeuristic, male‑gaze‑driven depiction in the 1976 film. “Teenagers still bully each other, but with social media it’s supercharged,” King observed. “He really caught that idea with his shot of all these kids taking cellphone photos of this girl who’s in terror.”
King also appreciated that the core of the story remained unchanged, with a bullied teenager who discovers latent psychic powers. “It doesn’t reinvent the wheel. The prom scene, the pig’s blood, it’s all there,” he noted.
Straub’s Lasting Influence
Straub’s collaboration with King began in the 1980s, when The Talisman followed 12‑year‑old Jack Sawyer on a quest from New Hampshire to California to save his ailing mother, a journey that takes him into a medieval parallel universe known as the Territories. Black House picked up Sawyer as a police officer in Wisconsin,
