Number of Pages: 485
Genre: Science-fiction, thriller, horror
Deep in the Maine woods is a top-secret Government facility known by staff and inmates alike merely as "The Institute". Children are abducted from all over the Unites States and imprisoned in The Institute where they are subjected to a battery of brutal medical tests, designed to increase and harness their latent powers of telekinesis and telepathy. After weeks of tests, the children are brought to the sinister "Back Half" of The Institute, and are never seen again. Twelve year old Luke Ellis is The Institute's latest inmate. Luke is not just smart, he is an actual genius, but his intelligence is not what The Institute is interested in.
This is less a horror novel and more of a science-fiction/thriller, with the monsters being all too human, and disturbingly convinced that what they are doing is right. While it is not one of Stephen King's best, it is still an exciting, page-turning thriller. The story covers a lot of ground, and has a lot of characters, particularly towards the end when there are about three different plotlines running concurrently, but he manages to balance them them like a maestro. The book doesn't exactly break new ground, psychic children in particular being a recurrent theme in King, and some of the smaller characters feel a bit interchangeable. That being said, though, King fans are bound to lap this up, and it should also please anyone looking for an exciting thriller.
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