how they are perceived by their fellow villagers. But when tragedy strikes, the young boy will have no choice but to flee and try to survive as best he can. Then the story shifts to another POV, that of Ragen, a retiring Messenger about to pass his route to his ward, Arlen Bales. When Ragen received a letter revealing that the son of an old friend may have survived a tragedy that killed the rest of his family, he sets out to attempt to rescue him. Elissa, his wife, doesn't get her own point of view, but she plays an important role in this tale. Sadly, I found her a bit too clichéd, what with the loving but tough woman act.

The other two novellas gave Brett a chancetravel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old 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