Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, is about to begin a most fantastic journey - an exalting, terrifying quest for the Talisman. Only the Talisman can save his dying mother and defeat the enemy who is out to destroy them. But to reach his goal, Jack must make his way not only across the breadth of the United States, but through the wondrous and menacing Territories as well.

The Territories lie as firmly in the imagination as Atlantis or Oz; they are as real as every reader's own vision of that parallel world which can only be evoked in the mind's mysterious eye. In the Territories Jack finds a world little removed from the Earth's own Dark Ages: though the air is so sweet and clear a man can smell a radish being pulled from the ground a mile away, a life can be snuffed out instantly in the continual struggle between good and evil. Jack discovers 'twinners', odd reflections of the people he knows on Earth - most notably the dying Queen Laura, the 'twinner' of Jack's own imperiled mother. But only a few can flip from one world to the other like Jack's late father, his malevolent uncle Morgan Sloat, and Jack himself.

As Jack makes his way westward towards the redemptive Talisman, a dual array of heart-stopping encounters challenges him every step of the way - from a terrifying period of captivity in an orphanage run by a sadistic religious fanatic, to the sudden and murderous attack on the Territories by the enemies of the Queen.