The Shining is still one of the greatest horror novels of all time and we found out a while ago that FTN favourite Stephen King has a sequel – Doctor Sleep – coming soon, well now we know we haven’t too long to wait…

Yes, the story of young Danny Torrance didn’t end when his father died 36 years ago in the original Shining novel. Oh no, his story will be continued on 24th September 2013, according to King himself.

The original novel – perhaps best known for its movie adaptation by Stanley Kubrick which was actully vastly different than King’s story – was King’s third novel and told the story of Jack Torrance who took his family to stay at the Overlook Hotel during off-season. But when the ghosts at the hotel start coming out, they turn Jack into a dangerous man who is a threat to his family, it’s all made worse because Danny, Jack’s son, is a strong psychic and can see the horrors that live in the hotel. Classic stuff.

But the sequel – King’s first direct sequel (we’re not counting The Dark Tower series) – will, according to publishers Hodder and Stoughton, follow Danny, now a fully-grown man who ‘ has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence’ and it 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’.

Danny has settled in a New Hampshire town, where his ‘shining’ psychic ability is used to provide final comfort to the dying. Known by the townsfolk as Doctor Sleep, he comes into contact with a 12-year-old girl, Abra Stone, whose shining is “the brightest ever seen”, and must fight a terrifying tribe of quasi-immortal beings who live off the “steam” which children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death. Hmmmmmm… looks like King is continuing to tie it all together.

Listen to King reading the first chapter from Doctor Sleep here