Stephen King’s novel Doctor Sleep, child of The Shining, is a fun, inventive book that falls short of the abject terror for which its father is hailed.

The Shining terrified me when I first read it years ago, and it terrified me again when I reread it recently in preparation for the sequel. King has a knack for making human monsters, and often he makes monsters out of people we normally trust: fathers, neighbors, cops. The Shining does this traumatically, turning Jack Torrance, beloved father...