Yesterday we let you guys in on the killer news that none other than Mr. Stephen King has an all-new novel heading our way this September called THE INSTITUTE (pre-order HERE). The book is being described as "as psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It…" FIRESTARTER meets IT? Sounds like a blast to me! If not a bit inspired by Josh Boone's unreleased X-MEN horror movie THE NEW MUTANTS.
Anyways, in yesterday's post, we didn't have much info to share with you guys on the upcoming 576-page novel other than the lengthy synopsis (which you can read again below). But today we have a fun first look at the book via EW, including the book's cover art and an excerpt to boot. Check both of them out below and then make sure to head on over to Amazon and pre-order your copy of the book today RIGHT HERE.
Here is the rundown on the new book from the official Stephen King site:
In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.
As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King’s gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don’t always win.
Excerpt via EW:
With the essay included, the SAT test lasted four hours, but there was a merciful break in the middle. Luke sat on a bench in the high school’s lobby, munching the sandwiches his mother had packed for him and wishing for a book. He had brought Naked Lunch, but one of the proctors appropriated it (along with his phone and everyone else’s), telling Luke it would be returned to him later. The guy also riffled through the pages, looking either for dirty pictures or a crib sheet or two.
While he was eating his Snackimals, he became aware of several other test-takers standing around him. Big boys and girls, high school juniors and seniors.
“Kid,” one of them asked, “what the hell are you doing here?”
“Taking the test,” Luke said. “Same as you.”
They considered this. One of the girls said, “Are you a genius? Like in a movie?”
“No,” Luke said, smiling, “but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.”
They laughed, which was good. One of the boys held up his palm, and Luke slapped him five. “Where are you going? What school?”
“MIT, if I get in,” Luke said. Which was disingenuous; he had already been granted provisional admission to both schools of his choice, contingent on doing well today. Which wasn’t going to be much of a problem. So far, the test had been a breeze. It was the kids surrounding him that he found intimidating. In the fall, he would be in classes filled with kids like these, kids much older and twice his size, and of course they would all be looking at him.
One of the girls—a pretty redhead—asked him if he’d gotten the hotel question in the math section.
“The one about Aaron?” Luke asked. “Yeah, pretty sure I did.”
“What did you say was the right choice, can you remember?”
The question had been how to figure how much some dude named Aaron would have to pay for his motel room for x number of nights if the rate was $99.95 per night, plus 8% tax, plus an additional one-time charge of five bucks, and of course Luke remembered. It was a slightly nasty question because of the how much factor. The answer wasn’t a number, it was an equation.
“It was B. Look.” He took out his pen and wrote on his lunch bag: 1.08(99.95x) + 5.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I had A.” She bent, took Luke’s bag—he caught a whiff of her perfume, lilac, delicious—and wrote: (99.95 + 0.08x) + 5.
“Excellent equation,” Luke said, “but that’s how the people who make these tests screw you at the drive-thru.” He tapped her equation. “Yours only reflects a one-night stay. It also doesn’t account for the room tax.”
She groaned.
“It’s okay,” Luke said. “You probably got the rest of them.”
“Maybe you’re wrong and she’s right,” one of the boys said. It was the one who’d slapped Luke five.
She shook her head. “The kid’s right. I messed up the fucking tax. I suck.”
Luke watched her walk away, her head drooping. One of the boys went after her and put an arm around her waist. Luke envied him.
One of the others, a tall drink of water wearing designer glasses, sat down next to Luke. “Is it weird?” he asked. “Being you, I mean?”
Luke considered this. “Sometimes,” he said. “Usually it’s just, you know, life.”
One of the proctors leaned out and rang a hand bell. “Let’s go, kids.”
Luke got up with some relief and tossed his lunch sack in a trash barrel by the door to the gym. He looked at the pretty redhead a final time, and as he went in, the barrel shimmied three inches to the left.
***
Stephen King's THE INSTITUTE hits on September 10th.