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A group of six oddball but brave kids confront the way of a colossal and terrible supernatural evil that has infiltrated our existence from the farthest reaches of oblivion. They are compelled to spend their lifetimes battling it, experiencing terror upon terror in the process.

A Familiar Plot with a Distinctive Twist

This is the plot, broadly speaking, of Stephen King’s seminal work It (his best; no arguments). It parallels of Stephen King’s offspring Joseph Hillstrom King’s new horror doorstopper, in which a band of six summon the ancient, infinitely malicious beast the Sorrowful Monarch from the Long Dark to aid them in overcoming some villains. As one might expect, their otherworldly invocation goes awry.

Embracing a Family Lineage

Joe Hill began his writing journey striving diligently to distance himself from his famous father, using the pseudonym he continues to employ and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he possesses a strong similarity to his parent). Yet with this recent release, he leans into it. Several quotes that deliberately echo some of King’s most famous (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a moment that recalls a recurring theme in King’s works (a riddling contest). Throughout this massive book, Hill is delighting in his family connection, and we delight along with him.

Meet the Central Figures

Back to those friends: five of them are scholars at the imagined this academic setting in the New England state. First is Arthur, studious and brilliant, solving Old English riddles in his spare time; the character Colin, rich, astute, and inclined to bulldoze obstacles in his path; Donna and Donovan; the beautiful the lovely Allie. And there’s Gwen, who remains outside their academic circle, but becomes a key part of their band as they experiment, half believing, somewhat doubtful, in supernatural practices.

The Fateful Ceremony

The protagonist finds himself, for reasons we don’t need to go into, obliged to take valuable volumes from his beloved college library by a set of regional villains. This devastates his scholarly soul, especially when he’s made to take the collection’s foremost and chilling work: the journal of occultist Enoch Crane (put to death “for dealing with infernal entities in 1703”; the book’s jacket is crafted from his flesh). The intrepid group peruse the diary, discover they could summon what the occultist details as a clever snake to aid our hero with his extortion dilemma – and occupy the subsequent narrative reaping the consequences. This ancient entity will undoubtedly remove those troublesome local drug dealers, but they must select a different victim every twelve months or succumb to the dragon’s wrath. As our protagonist states: “You invoke terrible forces, all you get is more dragons.”

Genre Dexterity and Inventive Breadth

Spanning forty years, Joe Hill transitions with seamless grace across narrative styles: as the companions strive to manage the circumstances they find themselves in by, in different ways, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to offer up, or seeking means to kill the dragon themselves, we go from thriller to shadowy tale, black-ops torture to romance to horror. My favorite genre switch was to a adventure narrative, far beneath the surface beneath this UK region, a section sprinkled with the fantasy maestro that was gloriously terrifying.

A Rich Tapestry of Dread and Hope

We encounter trolls – those living under bridges and digital trolls, properly scary and superbly depicted. We see enchanted blades and betrayals, pulse-pounding sequences of courage and instances of appalling malevolence, both mortal and otherworldly. It’s a tour de force: a horror novel that is primarily a tribute to the human inventiveness, and to devotion and companionship. “We required a narrative to trust and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says this character as the friends gather at the table, getting ready to invoke their dragon into being with the strength of their collective will.

In the author’s own words in his introductory quote: “Hic sunt dracones”. Don’t miss them.