Doctor Sleep

The Turning Point: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King By Marc D. Goldfinger “We stood at the turning point. Half-measures availed us nothing.” The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

I’ve been reading Stephen King since I was young. Let me make this clear: young is a variable for me. The first book I ever read by Stephen King was The Stand, a book of about 800 pages. It was supposed to be longer but King’s publisher didn’t think a book that ran over 1100 pages would sell, so they asked King to cut, cut, cut, but no pasting, until they felt it was marketable.

The ravaged version, which, by the way, was great, came out in 1978. Years later, when King’s popularity was peaking, they released the full version. This was in 1990. It is now 2013 and Stephen King, after completing his magnum opus called The Dark Tower, is at his best.

King’s newest book, Doctor Sleep, was just released (528 pages). Way back when King was starting out, he wrote a book called The Shining, which was later made into movie starring Jack Nicholson. My guess would be that more people saw the movie than read the book, although the book sold quite well. The Shining has 447 pages, which makes it one of King’s shorter novels.

To appreciate Doctor Sleep, one does not need to go back and read The Shining, however, it might add some flavor to the experience. Loosely speaking, they are sequential.

The main character in Doctor Sleep is Dan Torrance. He is in his early 30’s in Doctor Sleep; in The Shining Dan Torrance is a little boy who sees more than the normal person. To be hyper-aware is not always a gift. If you can shake someone’s hand and see their imminent death, it’s hard to smile and say, “Have a good day and it was nice to meet you.”

As an avid reader, I hate book reviews that spoil the fun, if that would be the proper word to use for one of Stephen King’s books. I find myself faced with a conundrum. I don’t want to spoil Doctor Sleep. But I do want to tell you why I think it is Stephen King’s best book.

It’s quite different than his 7 book Dark Tower series- which is the modern Lord of the Rings. But Doctor Sleep touched me in a very special way.

If you happen to be an alcoholic in recovery, you will love Doctor Sleep. Boy, I put myself out on a limb there, didn’t I? But really, I mean it. Even if you’ve never read a King book before, if you are in recovery, just pick it up and read the first ten pages, including the quotes at the beginning of the book.

I’ll go one step further. If you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict who is still using but doesn’t want to use anymore, pick up Doctor Sleep and read it. Then go to an AA meeting or an NA meeting. You don’t have to wait until you finish the book. After all, you’ll want to be sober enough to remember the damn thing, right?

Just like Dan Torrance had the Shining when he was a child, in Doctor Sleep there is a little girl named Abra Stone who Shines like the sun. She’s got some power, all to the good.

There are other folks cruising down the highways and byways of America. You’ve probably seen them in their big RV’s, mostly retired people who are past their mid-sixties. Looks are deceiving my friend. Just like there are motorcycle clubs called The Devil’s Disciples, it could be that not all of these old folks have warmth in their hearts.

There is a gang of them that calls themselves The True Knot and they hunger to live. What they need is children who Shine and, just like vampires drink blood, these folks drink the Essence of the children. No, no, the children don’t survive. The True Knot has been around a long time. They traveled in covered wagons back in the day.

And, just like true Bikers, these folks have names like Steamhead Steve, Black-eyed Susie, Diesel Doug, & Steve the Chink, who is not Chinese. Their leader is a big woman who wears a sinister top hat and they call her Rosie the Hat.

They don’t like dogs and dogs don’t like them but they love children. Children who Shine. You know that statement from the old rock songs, “you always hurt the one you love”. The True Knot does just that.

Abra Stone picked up on The True Knot when they were draining the Steam from this young man, about 12 years old and never to see another birthday—she hooked in on what they were doing with her Shining and began to scream as she pulled away.

Not quick enough. Rosie the Hat sensed her and knew that, whoever that young girl was, she was definitely a large store of food for The True Knot. And that’s all I can say about that because I don’t want to ruin the story for you.

Dan Torrance, who we talked about before, has a job to do. When the teacher is ready, the student will appear. That’s an old saying. I don’t even know where it came from but it definitely applies here. But this is enough about Doctor Sleep. I’ve probably told you more than you want to know. This is Stephen King at his best and his heart is really in this book.

All of us, one way or another, reach a turning point in our lives and we either take the path we were meant to take—or we slip down the dark road. I’ll have to say that I was lucky and took the right path after 30 years of dark road. But it’s never too late for anyone as long as they are alive.

Now I get to read and collect these books, of which Doctor Sleep is one. Even if you don’t like to read Stephen King, this is the book to jump on. If you like it, pass it on. If you don’t like it, well write to me and complain. I’ll hear you out.

But watch out for caravans of RV’s with those bumper stickers that say “Old but not dead, save Medicare, I’m a conservative and I vote.” You never know whether they’re out hunting or Sight-seeing.

Oh, Doctor Sleep works in a Hospice. We come to find that the ties that bind a family together are stronger than we believe. The truth is always just one stranger away.

Whether you are a friend of Bill’s or just a close cousin, this is not a book to miss. _”DoctorSleepBook.com”—SimonandShuster.com”

I've always thought THE SHINING was Stephen King's best novel. It was scary in ways that creep up inside your skin and just never let go. The ghosts in the Overlook Hotel may have been terrifying, but that's not what made that novel so chilling - no, it's what happened to Jack Torrance, a man who loved his son with his heart and soul, but still allowed the demons to use him against the boy. And it wasn't the ghosts that were the most dangerous; it was Jack himself, and the kind of demons so many of us have inside us. DOCTOR SLEEP, King's sequel to THE SHINING, brought me back to the Torrance family, back to Danny and Wendy and Jack, back to wonderful Dick Hallorann, chef of the Overlook and hero of Danny's childhood, and back to Tony, the imaginary friend who tried to help Danny through the worst of his nightmares. DOCTOR SLEEP reminds me of the "old Stephen King," the King of DEAD ZONE and `SALEM'S LOT and THE STAND. It's a great book with a big story, a story that reaches across America and highlights once more that there are such things as Good and Evil in the world, and that it is sometimes necessary to risk everything to stand for one and against the other.

In DOCTOR SLEEP, Danny Torrence is Dan, haunted by the horrors he experienced that winter in Colorado when he was five. He carries with him his father's legacy - a thirst for drink, and a temper that's hard to control. King fills in some of the story for us, about Danny's struggles in the years following his father's death (Hallorann helps with that), about Wendy's injuries that never quite heal, and about the mess adult Dan makes of his life, including his alcoholism, his self-destructive behavior, and his unrelenting depression. Then, he finds himself in a little town in New Hampshire called Frazier, and a familiar voice in his head suggests "this is the place." In Frazier he finds AA, forever friends, a job with purpose (using his "shining" to help hospice patients ease their way into death), and a girl named Abra who seems to "shine" brighter than even Dan did when he was young. But there is a group of deranged people out there called the True Knot (Dan calls them a "paranormal Manson family"); they want Abra so they can feed on her essence (or "steam," as they call it). Their leader, a woman called Rose the Hat, knows how strong Abra is, and how much "steam" she possesses. Can Dan help Abra fight Rose and the True Knot, or are his own demons too strong? And once the True Knot sets up camp at the location of the long-gone Overlook Hotel, will Dan's past rise up to hurt or to help him?

DOCTOR SLEEP, like THE SHINING, really is about inner demons. Some of them are of the paranormal kind (Dan works hard to shut away the ghosts from the Overlook and it isn't easy), but some are a part of us, our own weaknesses and failings that get in the way of our best selves. Those, Dan discovers, are much harder to defeat and take much greater courage. The book is also about finding your true place in the world (or purpose, perhaps) and about repaying debts. Hallorann helped Dan when he was a child; now Dan will help Abra. As King describes it, "Life is a wheel, and it always comes back around."

Those familiar with THE SHINING only through the Kubrick film would be advised to read King's book before reading DOCTOR SLEEP. The two novels are intricately connected, like woven strands of one story. There are also significant differences between the novel and the Kubrick film which might confuse readers picking up the sequel without having read the original - the biggest difference, of course, is Hallorann, who is abruptly killed in the film but proves himself a hero in King's novel). A bigger difference, however, is Jack Torrence's character - the scariest, most horrifying scene in THE SHINING is the one where Jack is chasing his son with an ax, raging at him to "take his medicine" but also desperately screaming for him to "run, run, run!" It's this internal conflict between the influences of Good and Evil that define Jack's character - and none of this is present in Kubrick's film. Since those same conflicts are so important in DOCTOR SLEEP, it would make sense to know what they're all about before diving in.

Reading DOCTOR SLEEP felt very much like curling up with an old friend. I admire King's ability to completely immerse his readers in his characters, his settings, and his stories - I didn't want to put this one down until I'd reached the final page. I also admire King's knack for combining cultural references (you'll find mentions of "Twilight," "Harry Potter," "CSI," and Nancy Grace) alongside surprising literary allusions (watch for nods to T. S. Eliot, Shakespeare, Malamud, and Dickens). And then there's one very minor character named for Jame Gumm's first victim in Harris's SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (King knows how to turn the screw before you even know he has a screwdriver in his hand!). This is a rich and satisfying novel that's both desperately sad and beautifully uplifting. I enjoyed every minute of it. Very well done, Mr. King.

I love Stephen King's classic early novels - Salem's Lot, Carrie and the Shining, and I think the Shining may be my favorite of the three. You can imagine my excitement at learning that Stephen King had written a sequel to the Shining.

Doctor Sleep is a great story. I don't think it is as good as the Shining, but it doesn't try to be, and that works. Much like a child who finds his own identity separate and distinct from those of his parents, Doctor Sleep is rooted in the Shining but quickly cuts its own trail. The story begins in darkness, finding the gifted young protagonist of the Shining all grown up and wandering the earth in haze of substance abuse and addiction. His protectors - Danny's mother Wendy and his mentor, Dick Hallorann - are dead and gone, leaving Danny alone to cope with his addiction and emotional scarring.

However, where Jack Torrance reacted to his addictions self-justified rage, Danny gives in to despair and hopelessness. He is fully aware of his life's downward spiral and all he can do is stand by and watch as he heads for rock bottom. In its darkest moments, Doctor Sleep seems even more personal and revealing than the Shining.

Despite this bleak hopelessness, however, Doctor Sleep is ultimately a story of redemption and in many ways, it feels like that redemption extends to the characters of all three of Stephen King's first novels. Although the protagonists of Salem's Lot and the Shining survive their respective ordeals, survival, it turns out, is a bittersweet victory. Families are torn apart, communities lost and lives altered forever. And of course, poor Carrie White didn't even survive her story. Doctor Sleep redeems all three by taking up their causes in the form of Abra Stone, a child who shines far brighter than even Danny. Gifted and extremely powerful, Abra is also compassionate and wise beyond her years. Unlike Danny and Carrie, Abra is largely spared the emotional wounds of childhood trauma. Her parents are loving and supportive (albeit in denial about her gift) and Abra is shockingly well-adjusted. Despite her talents, Abra is happy, has plenty of friends, does well in school and by all appearances, seems like an ordinary child.

Her shine enables Abra to develop a bond with Danny, who tries to become a mentor to her, just as Dick Hallorann was to him. Abra also attracts the attention of a traveling coven of serial killers who prey on those who shine. Calling themselves the True Knot, they travel the country, kidnapping, torturing and murdering gifted individuals (mostly children) to take their "steam" - their spiritual essence - as it escapes their dying bodies. "Taking steam" makes these killers immortal (and no longer human) - so long as they can find enough steam to feed. When the True Knot discovers Abra, they see an opportunity for an endless source of steam, with plans to hold her in captivity and slowly bleed the steam from her with torture.

Much like his mentor did for him, Danny finds himself rushing to rescue Abra from the True Knot. For him, it is as much about redeeming his soul, exorcising the memories of the Overlook and atoning for his own transgressions, as it is about saving Abra. Abra, however, is not necessarily a helpless child in distress. Under her cheerful exterior there is frighteningly intense, steely resolve. As the story reveals more of Abra's character, I began to wonder if this is how Carrie would have ended up had she grown up in a loving, accepting home. Or if this is what Danny might have become if not for his father's murderous rampage. Abra refuses to be a victim and takes on the True Knot, head on. Unlike Ben and Mark, who just manage to make it out of Salem's Lot alive, Abra isn't interested in just surviving - she intends to win.

The combination of these elements makes Doctor Sleep great fun. The battle royale finale alone is worth the price of admission. But don't come expecting the Shining. Doctor Sleep is its own novel and it makes no apologies for that.

First off: I promise, NO SPOILERS. I apologize if there is some vagueness as a result.

I'd like to write two reviews for Dr. Sleep: one on its stand-alone merits, and as a continuation of the story of the Shining, and one on its success as a continuation of the brilliance of The Shining. I'd give the first 5 stars, but the second only...3. Which is unfair, I guess, especially in light of Stephen King's afterward ("...people change. The man who wrote Doctor Sleep is very different from the well-meaning alcoholic who wrote The Shining, but both remain interested in the same thing: telling a kickass story. I enjoyed finding Danny Torrance again and following his adventures. I hope you did, too. If that's the case, Constant Reader, we're all good.")--which seems to say that my first 5 star review is the one King would care about, if I were to presume he cares what I have to say. And since I love Stephen King, that's what I gave it, officially, and that's the one I'll start with.

This book is SUCH a fun read! The best kind of King book, the kind that leaves you hungover in the morning because you were up much too late reading, and almost makes you miss your bus to work because you get engrossed in it again while you brush your teeth. Several times I got a big giddy grin on my face and even laughed aloud with ridiculous delight at a super stephenkingy turn of phrase, words I imagined gave him a similar satisfaction as they left his fingers for the page. Some of these were even scary-creepy things, but they were so perfectly done, they were thrilling on that second level, too. It felt to me like King had a lot of fun with a lot of this book, just reveling in his own GoodAtItNess, long passages spooling out with gleeful sprezzatura.

The story runs smoothly along, suspenseful questions answered with perfect timing, never leaving so much unknown at once that the complications are impossible to follow. The central characters are excellent. Grownup Dan surprisingly unlike 5 year old Dan in the way my own grownup children are surprisingly unlike their 5 year old selves--something of the little boy remains, but he didn't just stretch to man-size, he's a fully realized person, very changed. Abra is a great character on her own, and her relationships with Dan, her parents, and her friends, are all truthful and nuanced. Good on whoever talked King through the markers of early adolescent girlness that pepper her believability. The scary creepy horrors are scary, creepy, and horrible; turning off the light when I finally forced myself every night was just as unpleasant as it had been when I read The Shining.

Loose strings of the original plot are nicely knotted up. I'd have maybe liked to know more about Wendy, but real grown men--as Dan is, in this novel--don't have the kind of insight or, frankly, interest, in their mothers' inner lives. Even if they're psychic. So it works, as a function of Grownup Dan being well done. Less likely, I thought, was the way Dick was written out of Dan's life, but I have to admit that works too, in the sense that Dan grew up in ways that were unpredictable when he was five. Expository backstory from the first book doesn't get the clumsy treatment it normally does in sequels, but is dropped in usefully and gracefully throughout the plot. It was very satisfying to have some things I thought I understood about the Overlook, and Dan, and Jack, confirmed, and equally satisfying to have some new details mixed in to deepen and thicken that foundation of the story. The final revisitation from The Shining gets a muted, subtle treatment in the narrative, and I hope it's not just sentimental over-imagination on my part to think King let it be so simple because it might have been unbearably moving otherwise.

Five stars! Buy it, read it, you'll enjoy it!

Now then. The Shining is one of my all-time favorite books. It's the one I wax rhapsodic about when I'm making an obnoxiously over-thought case for Stephen King as an underrated capital G genius of American capital L literature. It's the one I compare to Dickens and the one I compare to Steinbeck and the one I say doesn't need to lean on those comparisons because it's capital G greatness all by itself. I like to make people listen to me say that the only reason The Shining is not a genuine masterpiece, recognized or not, is that King was young and still growing as a writer. And still not so market-proven that his (now routinely over-indulgent) editors gave him free reign. I have always assumed those factors caused the flaws (I apologize for my cheek, Mr. King; I know I'm unworthy, but for lack of a better, more obsequious term, I have to go with flaws) in The Shining, and I was unrestrainedly thrilled to hear a sequel unaffected by those was in the works. I refused to entertain fears that I wouldn't like it as much as the original, the way absolutely everyone likes the sequel less than the original; when the first reviews came out and I read that Barbara Kingsolver loved Dr. Sleep, I went directly to Kindle, did not pass go, and Amazon collected my seven dollars. And it was, as I've already said, money well and unregrettedly spent.

But this book isn't anything like The Shining. Not as a literary feat. Both books tell, as King says he intended, kickass stories. The Shining, though, spent its first half telling a fascinatingly ambiguous story, too. The Shining is about a man with demons we all recognize, and a lot of us live with intimately. For a good chunk of the beginning of the book, it is impossible to determine from the text alone whether or not those demons are the only demons in the Torrance family's life. The interplay between Jack and his family and the things in Jack's head is fantastic, and the aforementioned flaw is that the transition between "Is This Real or Is Jack Just Crazy" to "Oh, yeah, it's real. Jack's crazy, too, but that's secondary" is less smoothly done than the writing on either side of the divide. And Dr. Sleep has nothing at all like that. The kickass story is all out in the open and straightforwardly linear, as is the development of all the characters and the reader's understanding of who they are and what they're doing.

Dr. Sleep is extragood pop culture writing. The Shining was that, with unrecognized actual literature icing its cake. Without the icing, I give it three stars.

When I was a hyperactive and slightly crazed child I learned to read by reading comic books. And yes I'll admit that at first all I did was look at the pictures, but eventually I found myself running in to my parents to try and figure out what exactly Spiderman, The Hulk, The Avengers, and the X-Men were saying. The comic books instilled within me the desire to learn because I found them vastly entertaining and interesting. At the same time as this I was living out in the country and we only had four TV channels, ABC, NBC, CBS, and KTVU Channel 2 out of San Francisco. I know in this age where we have hundreds, upon hundreds of channels to choose from, that its hard to imagine just having four TV channels, but that's what I grew up with. One of my favorite TV Channels outs, of the big four I had to choose from, was the independent KTVU Ch.2 and the reason I liked it more than the others was that on Friday Nights they would have Creature Feature movies, which were hosted by a dude named Bob Wilkins, who had a great sense of humor and always had great intros to the movies he'd play like, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Werewolf, and a whole bunch of other great black and white horror films. I thought these films were just great because they opened me up to the wild world of horror.

And then somewhere around the seventh grade I discovered Stephen King and everything changed...

Stephen King took the horror that I saw on Creature Features and made it scary. The Stephen King novels were the first full length books that I read for pleasure. At the time I would have told you that it was the subject matter that drew me to the books, but as I look back now, I think it was more the way he told his stories. The Creature Feature Movies and the Comic Books were aimed at a more innocent audience, but the Stephen King books were aimed at scaring the hell out of adults, and as I was reading them, not completely understanding all of what was being said, I was thinking that I was being let into the world of adults, like I was pulling back a door and looking into a world I was not yet a part of. Stephen King wrote in such a way that it drew me in and made me a part of that horrific event at the center of each novel and in doing so he personalized it, he humanized the horrible, and that he made you feel each and every action that was perpetrated on his characters.

I wasn't alone in feeling like this, because at that time Stephen King was the absolute Rock Star of writing, every single one of his novels was a blockbuster success, and they were all being made into movies, one right after the other. So it's fair to say that what I was feeling as a reader was what other were feeling too. But really when you look at what he was producing at that time, Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, Cujo, Christine, and Pet Sematary and you realize it is a succession of great books that tap into some of our deepest fears. I'm not sure which book I started with, but I think it was The Dead Zone. Today I understand politics, and how the wrong person in office can have dire consequences, but at the time I had absolutely no idea what any of that stuff meant, all I knew was that Stephen King made it scary as all hell and totally engrossing to read about. And from that point I was hooked. I went racing through the books as fast as my little mind would allow me to read. I remember it got so bad my mother would take the bulb out of my light at night so I wouldn't stay up reading too late, but I couldn't be thwarted, I got a flashlight and a bunch of batteries and just kept reading. King had that kind of effect on me, I felt compelled to keep turning the pages until I reached the cataclysmic conclusions of his books.

And then came The Shining...

Of all the books I read by Stephen King The Shining is the one book that made me sleep with a light on at night after I read it because it just terrified me. The Overlook Hotel, the snow, the moving hedge animals outside, the little girls, Room 217, all combined together in a nightmarish vision that frightened me half to death. I mean they were stuck, miles away from anything and anyone else, in a hotel filled with horrifying things, and that had this strangulating feel to it, like there was no possible way out, and everyone was going to get killed. Of all the books I've ever read that one made one of the deepest impression Ive ever felt.

It was hard to top The Shining. The Kubrick Movie left a bad taste. I started college. I moved on to Clive Barker, and I didn't read anything else from Stephen King...

And then came Doctor Sleep.

Doctor Sleep was the first Stephen King book I've bought since my last year of high school in 1984. It wasn't as good as The Shining, but it was still a pretty damn good book. More than anything, for me, it was like meeting up with a good friend, where you find yourself falling into the same patterns, and memories, and you walk away with a smile on your face because you remember just how much that friend meant to you. Stephen King ushered me from my childhood into the adult world of reading for enjoyment. He taught me that a writer could be a superstar, that his books could be made into a massive succession of movies and TV shows, and that a writer could have a deep influence on a persons life. Doctor Sleep brought me back to those thoughts. It gave me an idea what actually happened to Danny Torrence and his mother. It gave me new creatures to hate and fear. It gave me a new hero to cheer for. King gave me a story I could deeply enjoy like a fine wine that's been aged to perfection and is filled with all of those tastes that remind you of where the grapes were grown, what barrel it was aged in, and the person who made it. The story wasn't deeply original, and borrowed from a lot of sources, but it was very Stephen King and that was greatly satisfying for me.

As I begin my own writing career I've had a lot of influences in my life, my parents, Mr. Murphy in high school english, too many movies to name, a whole bunch of books, and Stephen King. I don't think my head would be filled with all the thoughts I have of writing glory if I hadn't started reading that first Stephen King book. If I hadn't watched Stephen king become a household name. If I hadn't read The Shining. As I went through college as an English Lit Major I remember teachers looking down their noses at what they called "populist writer" like Stephen King as they tried to get me interested in all of the greatest literature, and yes some of those books and plays were very good, but it was very wrong of them to do that. I don't care if it's Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, or Stephanie Meyer, if the books get people excited and make them want to read, then teachers should encourage that and they should embrace it. You never know where the next writer is going to come from or what is going to influence along the way.

Doctor Sleep is a very good followup to The Shining. I couldn't recommend it higher. But I make that recommendation with one piece of advice, read The Shining first, and make sure all the lights work in your house, because you might need to keep a few of them on.

Stephen King has done it again with this fascinating, new tale that reunites an old hero with new ones, who have to face a traveling band of creatures that only King could think up. This story involves a now grown Danny Torrance, one of the survivors of the ill-fate Overlook Hotel in Sidewinder, Colorado, and a band of monster hunters on the trail of supernatural RV folks known as “The True Knot.” These horrific creatures we have seen before traveling the highways and byways when we’re on the road. They have those all too familiar motor homes, truck campers and what have you vehicles designed for cross-country jaunts. They stay in those all too-familiar, and quite creepy-in-their-own-way locales where these seemingly ordinary vacationers stay. But, beware, these folks are true monsters in search of the life essence we all have; our life force if you will -- Our “steam,” as it were. Now, Dan, who has been battling his own demons of alcoholism for years has met a young girl who also has the “shine” to her, far more than even Dan has. The teen girl, named Abra Stone is very powerful, as well as desirable to The True Knot; who has made it a habit of killing hundreds; if not thousands of children over the centuries for their “steam,” and they want her badly. With Abra, however, the wicked band of traveling monsters are in for a surprise… This book pays homage to King’s great work, and one of my personal favorites: “The Shining,” and returns to it for some reference, though does not over use the past success of the novel to take over this story. Instead, the psychic events experienced by Dan earlier in his life, as well as the haunts at the Overlook are put into perspective, and as a source for explanation, offering the reader a foundation as to why some things happened, and how his father’s issues visited him. It also brings closure to the past characters and their fates. Dan chooses sobriety, and leads a life of helping those ready to pass on, offering them a chance to do so with dignity and compassion, the source of his true power and strength…A strength that will be put to the test. Now, Dan ultimately teams up with others to hunt down the band of monsters, giving a similar feel to a much older team of English monster hunters such as Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward and Jonathan Harker, or perhaps a more recent team of American monster hunters like Ben Mears, Jason Burke and Mark Petrie in our own little Jerusalem’s Lot. To be sure though, the hunt won’t be easy.

The audio book is great for those on the run like myself, and certainly makes the driving time go by faster, and certainly more entertaining. Read by one of my favorite actors Will Patton (Falling Skies), who acts out every character like a true thespian, this 15 CD set, or other delivery systems, and of course the book, will delight you in a way only Stephen King can: 10% intrigue, 10% levity and 80% terror, all delivered in strangely believable settings. An excellent story read by an excellent actor. I give it as many stars allowed by law…Can’t wait for the film.

If made for TV, maybe they can consider hiring Mr. Patton to play a part. As he can play good as well as evil with apparent ease, we might consider him for the part of “David Stone” (Abra’s father) or if playing the baddy, he would make a great “Crow Daddy.” For “Rose the Hat,” I get an image of Lucy Lawless (of Xena: Warrior Princess fame…God I love her), and when she turns into the monster that she really is; I would consider either Rosie O’Donnell or Nancy Pelosi…We need really evil women for that part. The other parts could vary depending on many things. The only other request is that if to made for TV, maybe it could be made on a better-than-average cable station like AMC, where you can show all the blood and guts that other stations won’t allow, as well as the proper language in order to reflect the book faithfully. If you add too much fluff to a King story, it takes away from the true girth that it was meant to be, kind a like drinking alcohol-free beer – What’s the point?

Stephen King's THE SHINING is a classic to which I never expected to read a sequel, yet DOCTOR SLEEP came seemingly out of nowhere and now that I've read it it's hard to imagine either complete without the other. This is a very different reading experience than the original, yet it dovetails beautifully with the first and emerges a modern epic that's so much more than the sum of its parts. Far more than a simple horror story, it picks up with Dan Torrance from childhood after his fateful winter in the Overlook (odds are, you already know that story), the follows him through the lowest rock-bottom of his young adulthood, to unexpected heroic redemption as he confronts the demons of his past. Ultimately the continuing history of Torrance family and their troubled history (both in battles with inner demons in the form of alcoholism and apparent weirdness-magnetism through the gift-curse of the shining) offers both a ripping modern supernatural adventure yarn while giving the original tale some extra full-circle closure and extra emotional resonance it (and a certain character who gets an unexpected final-say appearance) always deserved. In addition to further development of Dan Torrance up through middle age (with a welcome early reappearance by Dick Halloran), Abra Stone and Rose the Hat of the True Knot become equally fleshed-out, fascinating characters you will never forget. One of King's most fascinating (and often darkly comical) accomplishments is how in many ways the villains here become as fleshed-out and -in many ways--likeable as our heroes Dan and Abra. He never lets us forget that the Knot is a pack of corrupt monsters who need to be stopped, and their arrogant aloofness amidst the suffering they inflict calls to mind the hubris of society's all-too-real empowered, self-entitled villains. Yet evil people don't think of themselves as evil, something of which King is clearly maturely aware. Within their closed society, perpetuating their semi-immortality by torturing and murdering us "steam-head rubes" is as normal as eating a cheeseburger, and their interpersonal squabbling, their shared daily joys and sorrows, are as real as those between you and your own closest friends and family. When they suffer loss among their own, you feel the grief with them accordingly. That's not to be mistaken for King dealing in "moral ambiguity". You won't hesitate to cheer for for Dan and Abra as they learn together to embrace their power and take the bastards down. It must be addressed, much of King's work (particularly his later stuff, and there I'll largely be the first to agree) has been called to task for a self-indulgently bloated style, as though at some point he went "To hell with listening to an editor; I'm Stephen Freaking King!" Such is not the case here - This is a hefty chunk of reading, but make no mistake, there's no wasted space. King found himself a lot of story to tell here, and the gears click into place as they need to, a step at a time while at a snappy pace. There are lengthy asides of supporting character development, where a lesser writer would have me going, "Okay...okay...why exactly do I need to know all this?" yet King merely spurred me to turn the pages faster, eager to learn how this complex tapestry all ties together. That's how you know you're in the hands of a master. This is a tale rich in all the nuance and detail a great epic character-driven story needs, with nothing it doesn't. There's not much more I can tell you without giving too much away, but suffice it to say, by the ending of this, I could stand to spend another book or two with some of these characters. Certainly it's reminded me why I've loved Stephen King since I was Abra's age. This book shows him in top form, and it's a masterpiece.

I really enjoyed this book, but perhaps I enjoyed it because I had different expectations than it seems some readers did.

First, I'm not particularly a King fan anymore. I loved his early work, and I believe The Shining is my favorite of his novels (followed closely by The Stand), but I haven't followed him much since, and some of his later books I have not enjoyed. I reread The Shining last year, and I think I maybe enjoyed even more than I did on previous reads, when I was younger and read it for horror rather than for what I now think of as the subtleties of the book. Like another reviewer here, I see The Shining as a novel of psychological horror even more than being a ghost story: to me the scariest parts were the ways in which Jack Torrance's rage and alcoholism destroyed himself and almost destroyed his family. That was a real horror to me. While I love the rest of the story, especially the scary hotel itself, it is the characterization and the portrayals of an alcoholic that really stuck with me. So I was actually quite pleased to see that Dr. Sleep does the same thing: it dwells on characterization, especially of Dan Torrance.

Another thing about me as a reader is while I enjoy some horror, I much prefer atmospheric, gothic horror to gore, and I tend to also be a reader of literary fiction. So I was not going into this novel looking for shocks or a certain kind of horror. I do see that this book is, perhaps, not typical of most horror novels, though, which was fine with me.

That said, I found much to enjoy in this book. What this book does well is characterization, and Dan Torrance was a complex character. As some readers have noted, the early chapters hit on tough subjects: child sexual abuse, extreme alcoholism, etc. Dan, like his father, Jack, was not likeable when he was drinking. I will say I was a bit worried by those first chapters: I thought that if the book had to much about child sexual abuse, I didn't want to read it. But that was one character's history, and while certainly what the True Knot did to children with the Shining was awful, it was not in that realm, and also, it was not so explicitly described that I felt it was too much. Once I got past the opening, though, and once Dan found stopped drinking, it improved. While some reviewers here said Dan was boring, I didn't think he was at all; I actually felt invested him in a character, and so I was also invested in his sobriety. I felt the same about the AA parts--it's not a world I'm familiar with, but I found it interesting, and believable and it made him more of a compelling character to me, and I liked to think that this might also be the writer's experience, and I like to see the way writers integrate their personal history and experiences into fiction. As for his role as "Dr. Sleep," that was one of my favorite parts of all; I found Dan's work as psychopomp moving and intriguing, especially because it was the dead who had caused him so much trouble as a child. For me, reading this book was much like it seems King meant it: I was getting to find out what happened to a character that was almost like an old friend, and for me it was wonderful to see what had happened to that brilliant, wounded child, and to see the man he grew into, even with his flaws. But then again, unlike some readers, I always have found Danny the more compelling character of The Shining; I never found Jack Torrance that sympathetic.

And as for villains, Rose and the True Knot were as good of villains as you may find, scary and rapacious. I do wish we could have found a bit more about their history through time, though. and I did love how King played with the idea of them being RVers....that was a witty touch. There were other witty touches too: references to other books and characters, and even authors--yes, we see their names. I'll always think of Eliot's "Hurry up Please, it's Time" in a different way now!

There were some things I had problems with though. I wanted to love Abra, but.....I had to make an effort. She was a bit too much: too perfect, too beautiful, smart, the warrior queen. Could she have had one flaw other than the temper, something which she actually needed? She was not as complex to me as some of the other characters, even as some of the more minor characters. I also found the plot a bit.....slack? It seemed in some ways not enough was on the line, and while I didn't know the specifics of the ending before reading it, the outcome seemed a bit obvious. I didn't need great chills and gore, but a bit more narrative tension would have improved things. And there was also one rather major plot detail that was just too much of a coincidence for my taste. I won't say what it is, but it's related to Abra's "theory of relativity." And finally, while Dan's "secret" was not something to be proud of, it didn't seem quite as horrible as he played it up. Of course that's part of the point; the shame he carries is a weight somewhat unrelated to the long past action. However, I still found it not as interesting as it could have been.

Some people have suggested it wasn't a sequel, which just puzzles me. Of course it was. It had many of the same characters, and knowing the first book (NOT the movie! You need to read the book!) makes this book much more powerful and resonant. No, we don't get some of the same characters/settings, but, um, the Overlook Hotel is gone, and of course it can't be the same.

Anyway, while it wasn't the best book I've ever read, and not as good as The Shining itself, it is still a novel worth reading if you enjoyed the first one, and for me it was wonderful to spend a day or two with Danny, who seemed like an old friend, and old friend who'd been through terrible hardship (some of his own making), but had come through it older and wiser, a flawed man who still had something to give.

One warm, clear fall afternoon in 1977 in the far northern super boonies' of Chicago, a friend--my next door neighbor--sat with me on my deck enjoying a beer. One thing we had in common was that we both enjoyed reading, and so as we sat there relaxing we shared some of our tastes in books and authors. As a boy, I always liked horror and science fiction, and cut my reading teeth on the likes of Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, and HP Lovecraft. Then, as a young adult, I graduated to Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Fredric Brown and William Peter Blatty. My friend inquired if I had ever read any books by a guy named Stephen King. No, I replied, Stephen King wasn't familiar to me. He spoke a little about Stephen King's first book, Carrie,' and then launched into a glowing description of King's then latest book `The Shining,' which he had just finished. He offered to lend me his copy. I accepted, and thus began my on-again off- again relationship with the works of Stephen King that has lasted from 1977 to this present day.

I liked The Shining' so much that I immediately started reading everything Stephen King I could get my hands on. That lasted for several years, until, in 1983, King published Pet Sematary', a book I did not enjoy at all. After that I was more off' with Stephen King than I was on. However, The Shining' along with The Stand' are the two Stephen King books that I enjoyed the most and consider to be his best.' I give those two books five stars. Every other Stephen King book that I have read--including `Doctor Sleep'--will of necessity receive fewer stars from me than those two.

Doctor Sleep' is a sequel' to The Shining' in a narrow sense: the little boy Danny Torrance featured in the earlier book has grown up to be an, forty-something Dan Torrance, who is still psychically gifted, but is now carrying around a head full of haunting, scary memories and some very adult appurtenant problems. Doctor Sleep' picks up many years after the end of the earlier book, and the story line and theme is entirely new.

King keeps the pace a little slow in the beginning of the book as he lays down the setup for the story. We see little Danny Torrance back in the Overlook Hotel, where his father is going homicidally insane, and we briefly see his terrified mother Wendy and--oh yes--the malevolent spirits that inhabit the Overlook. Then we jump to grownup Dan, haunted now by his past and his memories, drinking alcoholically in a vain effort to medicate them away . After that we meet the True Knot, a group of flesh and blood but almost immortal psychic vampires who travel around in RV's. While these folk look like harmless retirees, most of them are actually hundreds of years old. They avoid aging by preying on psychically gifted children whom they abduct, torture, and murder in order to release and consume their psychic energy or, as the True Knot people call it, `steam.'

Then we meet a very young girl named Abra who shines' bigger and brighter than Dan/Danny ever has. Abra is both telepathic and telekinetic--a composite of younger Danny and King's famous character Carrie'--and at a very young age, she finds' Dan telepathically and connects to him by telekinetically writing on a blackboard. As the story line unspools, Abra reaches adolescence, and her powerful shine' permits her to psychically witness, over a great distance, the True Knot in nefarious action. Of course, this gets Abra on the True Knot's radar screen, with just the kind of looming menace for Abra that readers of Stephen King expect. This is when `Doctor Sleep' really hits its stride as a page turner.

One of the joys of reading Stephen King for me is how well he lays out and develops his characters. Dan is very believable as a grown up Danny. He still has the shining' but it has matured and changed texture. I liked how Dan had learned from his old mentor from The Shining'--Dick Halloran--to cope with the spirits and visions that his shining brings him. Also, King, himself a recovering alcoholic, goes into some very descriptive nitty-gritty's of just how bad Dan's alcoholism became, and how Alcoholics Anonymous helped turn him around. Some may find that part of the story a bit of a digression, but it does make Dan's character seem much more human and real, and some of the characters from Dan's AA group play key roles later in the book.

The character of Abra is well developed and appealing. Her youthful exuberance and self confidence--indeed over confidence in her own ability--made her character come alive and also serve to put her increasingly in harms way as the story unfolds. Abra's overprotective parents, and her elderly grandmother were great foils for Abra as well. Unfortunately, the True Knot' characters fell a little short, and were neither as vivid or as menacing as some of the villains King has conjured up in other books. Just recall Randall Flagg and Trashcan Man in The Stand,' Jack Torrance in The Shining,' and Annie Wilkes in Misery.' The True Knot's bunch of older, gray haired retirees in Hawaiian shirts driving big expensive motor homes are a bit of a stretch to imagine transforming into creepy, vampire-like child murderers. The best of the True Knot characters is their leader, Rose, and King does make her memorable, but like the rest of the Knots, she needed a booster shot when it comes to creepiness and menace.

Even with the shortcomings of the True Knot, the story line of Doctor Sleep' holds together. The tension in the story is generated by the Knot's hot pursuit of young Abra and her big steam' and Dan's battle with his alcoholic tendencies. There is room for improvement--the story would have been better if King had let the True Knot's evil have more of a romp--but he keeps the story rolling right up until the book's end in fine Dan Brown page turning fashion. Some other reviews I have read complained that King telegraphs the ending of the story early on. I mostly agree with that criticism but it didn't detract bother me, because the way the book needed to end was obvious to me. King delivered the ending in a dramatically satisfying way, and tied up the loose ends quite nicely, leaving little on the table story-wise to serve as a jumping off point for any future book. Somehow, I doubt that King, now sixty-six years old, intends to revisit Abra thirty odd years later like he did with Danny/Dan.

To sum up, Doctor Sleep is not King's very best book--maybe not even in his top ten--but it is an entertaining and fun read, and well worth what I paid for the Kindle edition.