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Six unlikely but resilient youngsters fall into the trail of a colossal and terrible otherworldly darkness that has infiltrated our realm from the deepest abyss of oblivion. They must devote their lives fighting it, enduring terror upon terror in the process.

A Familiar Plot with a Fresh Spin

This outlines the narrative, roughly, of Stephen King’s seminal work It (his best; undeniable). It similarly frames of King’s son Joe Hill’s latest horror doorstopper, in which a close-knit group invoke the ancient, utterly malevolent serpent King Sorrow from the Long Dark to help them defeat some baddies. Unsurprisingly, their arcane ceremony goes awry.

Acknowledging a Family Legacy

Joe Hill launched his profession going to great lengths to avoid any connection from his well-known dad, publishing under the pen name he continues to employ and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he exhibits a uncanny likeness to his father). Yet with this recent release, he leans into it. Several quotes that intentionally mirror some of King’s most famous (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a incident that recalls a King plot point (a battle of wits). Throughout this massive book, Hill is delighting in his family connection, and the audience revels alongside.

Meet the Protagonists

Focusing on the companions: five of them are students at the made-up Rackham College in Maine. We have Arthur, bookish and gifted, solving Old English riddles in his spare time; the character Colin, rich, sharp, and prone to trampling obstacles in his path; twins Donna and Donovan; the stunning the lovely Allie. And there’s Gwen, who doesn’t study with them, but emerges as crucial of their circle as they dabble, partly convinced, partly skeptical, in arcane arts.

The Pivotal Ceremony

The protagonist finds himself, for reasons we don’t need to go into, compelled to pilfer rare books from his treasured institution’s archives by a set of regional villains. This devastates his scholarly soul, especially when he’s compelled to seize the institution’s prized and disturbing title: the logbook of adept the historical figure (executed “for dealing with infernal entities in 1703”; the cover is crafted from his flesh). The intrepid group read the journal, learn they can invoke what the occultist details as a armored demon” to aid our hero with his extortion dilemma – and spend the rest of the novel enduring the repercussions. This ancient entity will undoubtedly remove those troublesome local drug dealers, but they must select a fresh offering every twelve months or fall prey to the beast. As Arthur later puts it: “You plant seeds of destruction, all you get is more dragons.”

Genre Versatility and Inventive Range

Moving through four decades, Joe Hill transitions with natural fluency across narrative styles: as the friends strive to manage the circumstances they find themselves in by, in different ways, choosing undeniably wicked targets to sacrifice, or searching for methods to kill the dragon themselves, we transition from suspense to shadowy tale, clandestine torment to romance to fright. One particularly memorable shift was to a adventure narrative, deep in the caves under the English county, a section sprinkled with the Lord of the Rings author that was gloriously terrifying.

An Expansive Canvas of Dread and Courage

The novel features trolls – the classic variety and internet antagonists, truly terrifying and expertly realized. We see enchanted blades and betrayals, breath-taking moments of valor and scenes of terrible wickedness, both earthly and supernatural. It stands as a masterpiece: a horror novel that is above all a tribute to the human inventiveness, and to affection and camaraderie. “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 allies gather at the table, preparing to summon their beast into existence with the force of their minds.

As Hill puts it in his epigraph: “Hic sunt dracones”. Ensure you experience it.