The More We Know's video: Master Of Horror Stephen King Presents His New Novel Doctor Sleep

The "Master of Horror" is out to frighten his German readers. U.S. best-selling author Stephen King on Wednesday (November 20) introduced his latest novel "Doctor Sleep" in Hamburg after a reading in Munich on Tuesday. It is King's first ever visit to Germany. "Doctor Sleep", a sequel of King's 1977 novel "The Shining" tells the story of Danny Torrance, son of Jack Torrance who in "The Shining" loses his mind during one winter, working as a maintenance man at the remote 'Overlook' hotel. Speaking at the presentation of "Doctor Sleep" in the northern German city, King said he was at first not convinced about writing a sequel as he regarded it "the last resort of a failing creative impulse." But as Mark Twain created Huckleberry Finn as a sequel to Tom Sawyer, he decided: "'Well, if Mark Twain can do it, at least I can take a shot at it. So I did." In his new novel, Danny, who has been battling his traumatic past with alcohol and drugs that also help him dim his special ability, the "shining", moves to a small town after one particularly low point in his career as an alcoholic. He finds a new job and starts fighting his addiction. Just when he starts thinking his life might resemble normality for the first time, he meets Abra, a little girl whose gift of the "shining" is even stronger than his. Together, they have to fight a seemingly hopeless battle against evil forces who threaten to destroy not only Abra's life. King, whose first claim to fame was his 1974 book "Carrie", is no stranger to addiction problems himself: he has battled alcohol, cocaine and drug addiction and, as a recovering alcoholic, still attends meetings of "Alcoholics Anonymous" on a regular basis. King, who has to date sold more than 400 million books that have been translated into more than 40 languages is one of the world's most successful authors. He is mainly known for his horror novels such as "Carrie", "Christine", "Pet Cemetery", "It", "Misery" and "Cujo", many of which have also been adapted for cinema and television. Asked about being horrified by his own novels, he said: "There have been a couple of other times too, where I scared myself, you know, but mostly I feel in control and I have this satisfactory feeling of 'I am passing the scares on to my reader'. And it's a little bit like getting rid of a bad thing and passing it on to somebody else and the crazy thing about it is, I do that and people pay me to do it. So it's great." King is also the author of novellas such as "Stand by Me", "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile", all of which were turned into critically acclaimed movies. His most elaborate work to date is the "Dark Tower" series, an eight volume fantasy epos which he worked on for almost 30 years. King is married to writer Tabitha King with whom he has three children, two of whom are also writers. More than his great success as a writer, Kings describes his marriage as the one thing that makes him feel successful in life. "I think if I had to pick one thing that makes me happy, that makes me feel successful, it would be staying married over a long period of time, because that's not easy. The Amish have a saying 'Kissing don't last, cooking do' and romantic love while it never disappears completely over a long course of time where you share the same house and the same bed and the same kitchen table, those things can get a little bit thin, so I'd say 'staying married'," he said. To date, King has published more than 40 novels, more than 100 short stories, many novellas and multiple screenplays. He has also written poems, essays and non-fiction.