Stephen King's Shining Sequel Doctor Sleep Gets A Release Date

Three decades and change after publishing his 1977 classic The Shining (which made its way into horror movie history a few years later courtesy of Stanley Kubrick), Stephen King has set a release date for his Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. "Scribner and Hodder & Stoughton have established September 24, 2013 as the official first publication date," King's official website announced today.

In Doctor Sleep, King catches up with little Danny Torrance, who's now in his forties and uses his abilities to help the terminally ill in his work as a hospice caregiver. Also: Vampires are involved! Because of course.

Last fall, King gave a surprise reading from Doctor Sleep at George Mason University:

Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the 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.

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.”

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.

With the book hitting shelves in 2013, how long until we hear of movement on a Doctor Sleep film? That should go interestingly with the Shining prequel reportedly in the works, no?

[Stephen King official website via Allie is Wired]