Stephen King announces sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep

Horror writer Stephen King has announced (via his offical website) that a sequel to his best-known novel The Shining is set to be published in 2013, 36 years after the original first scared the wits out of readers.

The new book, Doctor Sleep, pits Danny Torrance - now middle-aged and known as Dan - against The True Knot, a group of quasi-immortal beings who live off the psychic “steam” produced by torturing to death children gifted with the Shining, the same psychic ability that Danny once possessed.

Having drifted for decades, “haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel” and “desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence,” Dan finds refuge in a New Hampshire town.

Working in a hospice, and “aided by a prescient cat”, he uses his remaining psychic powers to provide comfort to dying patients.

But then Danny meets 12-year-old Abra Stone, whose spectacular gift - "the brightest shining ever seen" - draws him into "an epic war between good and evil".

The Shining, King's third novel, has sold over a million copies since it was first published in 1977. In 1980, director Stanley Kubrick turned it into an acclaimed movie featuring a now iconic perfromance from Jack Nicholson (pictured) as Danny's murderous father.