I don’t know how many of you have seen The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode that spoofs Stephen King’s The Shining but this news hit me like a go-crazy-Homer-with-an-ax this morning. King has apparently been working on a sequel to what is probably his most famous book. It’s going to be called Doctor Sleep. Hit the jump to read the synopsis. If you dare.

StephenKing.com released the information about Doctor Sleep a few days ago. The novel will see the return of Danny Torrance, the child from The Shining, only this time he’s middle-aged and going by Dan. There will also be a “very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.”

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

So, definitely a departure from the Overlook Hotel, although, King hasn’t forgotten it or what it did to Danny.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Ahh, seems good ol’ dad’s alcoholism rubbed off on the kid but prescient cat? That’s something.

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

I don’t know how I feel about this. I mean, I filed it under “Bad ideas from smart people,” but who knows, it could be great. I just think of The Shining as a modern classic and a book that’s pretty much perfect the way it is. Going back to it, especially after 35 years, just feels weird to me. At least it seems like it’s really a whole new story about Danny, sorry, Dan and although King will probably be touching on it a lot, not revisiting the same territory as the first book. What do you think? Doctor Sleep should be in stores 2013.

I’ll leave you with this, just because I can…

(via MTV Geek)

Previously in Stephen King

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