Doctor Sleep
King releases a highly-anticipated sequel to The Shining following Dan Torrance as a grown adult being haunted by the beings of the Overlook Hotel from the hellish childhood year he had spent there with his family. Doctor Sleep also follows a group of traveling gypsies that feed off of the steam released by people who have the Shining as they are slowly tortured to death. While traveling on a promotional tour, King asked his fans for advice about two potential projects he would be interested in working on.
I mentioned two potential projects while I was on the road, one […] a sequel to The Shining called Doctor Sleep. Are you interested in reading either of these? If so, which one turns your dials more? [We] will be counting your votes (and of course it all means nothing if the muse doesn’t speak).
Under the Dome
On a seemingly normal day, the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is encased in an indestructible dome that completely separates them from the rest of the world. King had originally gotten the idea for Under the Dome in the 1970’s, but scrapped the idea several times. After finally publishing the novel, he stated that a good idea never leaves your mind.
I thought to myself what an image that would make, the idea of the whole world watching these people who are as out of touch as people who are stranded on a desert island. They were all fun to write about, I love this book and I love the people in it.
Everything’s Eventual
King publishes a collection of 14 short stories with Scribner publishing called Everything’s Eventual. One of the tales is The Little Sisters of Eluria, an adventure of Roland pre-The Dark Tower series.
Black House
King and Straub team up again to release numerous novels that tie into the Dark Tower series. As a sequel to the Talisman, King publishes Black House about a series of murders that plague the town of French Landing, Wisconsin and Jack Sawyer has to reschedule an early retirement to stop the killer.
The Green Mile
King originally published The Green Mile as six shorter novellas. The tale of a former prison guard at a state penitentiary in 1932 who encounters a peculiar inmate, John Coffey, is categorized as magic realism after prison guard Paul Edgecombe begins to doubt that the kind-hearted Coffey actually committed his crimes.
There’s a feeling in the Green Mile that the human spirit is alive and well even under the most difficult of circumstances. I’ve heard sometimes the more difficult life becomes, the more the human spirit has a chance to shine, and I can’t think of a place where life is more difficult than on death row.
The Tommyknockers
After finding something mysterious buried in her back yard, Bobbi Anderson becomes obsessed with digging it up and discovering what it is. Soon, the town’s population becomes increasingly ill due to the appearance of the aliens known as the Tommyknockers.
After becoming discouraged with his progress, King parted with the manuscript, only to come back to it decades later.
That was another case of a book I tried to write a long time ago. I had the idea of the guy stumbling over the flying saucer when I was a senior in college. I had 15 or 20 pages and I just stopped. I don’t remember why.
Misery
After being saved from a car accident, novelist Paul Sheldon is taken in and nursed by his number one fan, Annie Wilkes. Under her care, he finishes the final novel in Wilke’s favorite series, starring a character named Misery. Wilkes becomes infuriated by Sheldon’s surprise death of Misery and keeps him captive until he writes another novel bringing Misery to life. King says the inspiration for Misery came from poor fan reception of his books that weren’t horror/thriller focused. It also came from King’s struggle to give up drugs and alcohol.
Take the psychotic nurse in Misery, which I wrote when I was having such a tough time with dope. I knew what I was writing about. There was never any question. Annie was my drug problem, and she was my number-one fan. God, she never wanted to leave.
Night Shift
King publishes his first collection of short stories in ‘Night Shift’. It includes his work originally published in Cavalier, Urbis, and Penthouse magazines, along with previously unpublished works.
It
Twenty-eight years after seven teenagers battled a haunting creature that preyed on children, the group returns as adults to finish what had begun nearly three decades ago as local children begin going missing yet again. They prepare to battle what is lurking in the sewer system as they try to make sure what they thought they’d defeated before was truly vanquished once and for all. In King’s It, the creature often takes form as a clown to attract children, making King one of the first people to paint clowns as a scary figure.
As I began to grow up I began to look at kids and I noticed that kids are all terrified of [clowns]. The parents say, “Aren’t the clowns funny, Johnny?”, and Johnny’s like “No! Get me the hell out of here!”
Pet Sematary
After moving from Chicago to Maine, Dr. Louis Creed finds a cemetery the neighborhood kids created for the countless lives of cats and dogs a local high way has taken. Close by, Creed finds another cemetery in the form of an ancient Native American burial ground. After losing his family cat, he learns the connection between the two spooky burial plots.
Christine
King publishes a thriller of a boy’s new girlfriend and his jealousy-driven car. Dubbed Christine by it’s previous owner, the car is a junker that Arnie fixes up, accidentally making the car fall for him and ultimately try to push away any other woman in his life.
Cujo
A once-friendly St. Bernard is bitten by a rabid bat and transformed into a murderous killing machine in King’s Cujo. King wrote the book during a period in his life of heavy drinking and recalls that he doesn’t remember writing the novel.
I wish I could remember enjoying the good parts as I put them down on the page.
The Dead Zone
A school teacher gains the ability of seeing a person’s future and past by simply touching them after awakening from a five-year coma. He sees the ability as a curse, but must decide if he should do everything in his power to change the future after shaking the hand of a renowned young politician.