{"id":21309,"date":"2026-10-06T12:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=21309"},"modified":"2026-10-06T12:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:30:12","slug":"bev-vincent-explores-other-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/bev-vincent-explores-other-worlds\/","title":{"rendered":"Bev Vincent explores Other Worlds Than These by Stephen King and Peter Straub"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

I See What You Did There<\/h1>\n

There\u2019s an old saying that goes like this: \u201cGive me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.\u201d It\u2019s also the thematic statement used by the British documentary series that began with Seven Up!<\/em><\/p>\n

While we know some things about Jack Sawyer from when he was seven, we first really got to know him when he was twelve, in 1981. We spent a few exciting months with him that fall\/winter, ending with his thirteenth birthday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Seventeen years\u00a0 later (in our world), we rekindled our relationship with Jack, who was a retired policeman living in western Wisconsin. He was about thirty-four (time moves differently in his world). We were with him for a few eventful days on that occasion, until Wanda Kinderling pumped him full of bullets. Speedy Parker took him to the Territories, where we were assured he would heal. However, he would not be able to return to this world for any great length of time.<\/p>\n

\"\"Now, in 2026, Jack is 57 and starting to show his age. He’s living in a terraced town on the coast of the Clean Sea in the Barony of Mejis. Yes, that Mejis. As we learn early in Other Worlds Than These <\/em>(OWTT, aka T3), the Territories and Mid-World are one and the same, something that was first implied in a crucial scene in Black House<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We know very little about what happened to him since he recovered from his injuries other than the fact that he married Sophie, the former Queen of the Territories, and they moved to Dezi at some point. We do not know who\u2014if anyone\u2014replaced Sophie after she abdicated; however, Jack’s reputation as the spouse of the Shadow Queen grants him special treatment whenever he travels in Mid-World.<\/p>\n

As you may recall, Roland Deschain and his ka-tet were in the middle of their quest to save the Dark Tower during Jack’s final days in French Landing. Although that was only a couple of decades ago in America-time, their exploits have become the stuff of legends. The Tower (if such a thing even exists, which many doubt) is holding strong and directions have stabilized. Songs have been written about Roland and Susan and there are other remembrances of the gunslinger’s daring deeds, but they are regared more as myth than history. Sophie regaled Jack with tales of Roland\u2019s exploits while they traveled to Dezi.<\/p>\n

Until Speedy Parker and his Twinner Parkus forced Jack to remember what happened when he was twelve, he had whitewashed that experience. He even told himself his mother was never ill at all. After he and his first ka-tet defeated the evil entity driving the serial killer known as the Fisherman, he once again forgot most of his heroic journey. He tried to regain his memories by writing about them in a journal that has Sophie\u2019s name on the front, sections of which he read to her, but he is still vague about what happened when he reached California. Striving to regain these memories is a big part of Jack’s struggle. Jack rereads this memoir during the events of OWTT, which also serves to remind readers about what he experienced, and to fill anyone in who may not have read The Talisman<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Things are relatively peaceful in Mid-World these days. There is some petty crime in Dezi, but crime isn’t Jack\u2019s business. He is no longer a coppiceman. Instead, he lives a life of relative luxury near the top of the town\u2019s terraced hillside. The only person who lives above him is the capricious Edward Youngblood, a tin-pot dictator addicted to kitsch. Jack\u2019s importance to Youngblood—who he refers to as BK or Big Kahuna—stems from the fact that he can flip to and from America at will to purchase the things Youngblood craves. Coca-Cola, currently, along with signed pulp crime novels and novelty items. Jack’s power lies in the fact that BK thinks Jack can return permanently to America any time he wants, so BK tries to keep him happy.<\/p>\n

\"\"Another of Jack\u2019s responsibilities\u2014self-appointed\u2014is to keep an eye on the other five Americans living in Dezi. They are his herd, kidnapped one at a time from 1976 Manhattan by Youngblood\u2019s factotum, Ayden Hestin, to perform specific duties for the self-appointed mayor and governor. There\u2019s George Elgin, the accountant; Ryall Connors, the enforcer; Mary Klee, the seeress; Payton Orville, the court jester; and Larry \u201cSpinner\u201d Magruder, whose skillset will not be revealed until later in the story. We learn about their lives before they were press-ganged into BK’s service, and how they have survived in this strange new world. They are every bit as complicated and sharply drawn as Roland’s rag-tag group of followers. Jack thinks of them as a ka-tet of losers.<\/p>\n

If any of them fail to perform to the governor’s liking, though, Youngblood will kick them to the curb. Mary has already been deemed surplus to requirements because her psychic abilities don’t work on demand, and George\u2014who billed himself as an efficiency expert\u2014turns out to be only a moderately capable accountant. Payton\u2019s juvenile, Vaudevillian comedy is starting to wear on Youngblood\u2019s nerves, too, which is why BK tells Jack to take him with him on his next shopping expedition. Jack decides to bring Mary along as well rather than leave her for days with no one to look out for her.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that Jack can take Payton and Mary back to America. Although he was once able to flip Richard Sloat and Wolf with him, he can no longer take passengers. Hestin is the only one who can use the magic doorway in Youngblood\u2019s garden through which he acquired these involuntary servants, and he warns that anyone else who tries to use it will end up in todash space, so they are trapped in Mid-World.<\/p>\n

Jack prefers to flip from Pernil, a rough-and-rowdy town three days away by trolley, because it takes him close to Hemingford Home, NE, where his friend Dale Gilbertson is now the county sheriff. Dale is the only person from his old life he stays in regular contact with. This time, when Jack returns from Nebraska, he\u2019s been instructed to continue west beyond the Blasted Lands to find out what he can about a phenomenon known as the Gullet. No one knows what it is, but rumors say it\u2019s growing and may pose a great danger. (King says the idea for the Gullet was inspired by the novel The Three Suns of Amara<\/em> by William F. Temple.) Few people go beyond Pernil these days, but there are stories about the perils anyone who chooses to venture that way might encounter.<\/p>\n

While Jack is in Nebraska, he learns about a pair of teenage spree killers who are modeling their crimes after those of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. (King and Straub were both obsessed with the Starkweather story when it was happening. King kept a scrap book about it at the time.) Sheriff Gilbertson is on the case, trying to anticipate where the killers will go next based on events from 1958. His colleagues are concerned, though, because they\u2019ve lost contact with Dale. Jack wishes he could stick around to help, but his time in America is limited. If he stays more than a couple of days, he becomes grievously ill thanks to his old injuries. Besides, his sudden reappearance after his remarkable disappearance from French Landing a quarter of a century earlier would raise problematic questions.<\/p>\n

\n
\n