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Six oddball but brave children confront the path of a vast and terrible supernatural malevolence that has invaded our existence from the deepest abyss of shadow. They have no choice but to wage a lifelong battle battling it, experiencing horror after horror in the process.

A Familiar Premise with a Distinctive Spin

This outlines the narrative, broadly speaking, of Stephen King’s seminal work It (his best; no debate). It similarly frames of King’s son Joseph Hillstrom King’s latest horror doorstopper, in which a band of six call forth the age-old, infinitely malicious dragon King Sorrow from the Endless Night to help them defeat some antagonists. Unsurprisingly, their arcane ceremony goes awry.

Celebrating a Authorial Legacy

The author launched his profession making great efforts to avoid any connection from his famous father, publishing under the pen name he still uses today and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he exhibits a uncanny likeness to his parent). But in this latest novel, he fully acknowledges it. Several quotes that deliberately echo some of the senior author’s well-known (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a moment that evokes a King plot point (a riddling contest). Throughout this massive book, the author rejoices in his heritage, and readers share in the joy.

Meet the Main Characters

Returning to the group: the majority are scholars at the imagined Rackham College in the New England state. First is Arthur, academic and intelligent, solving ancient puzzles in his free moments; another key figure, wealthy, clever, and inclined to bulldoze anyone who stands in his way; the twin siblings; the beautiful the lovely Allie. Then we have Gwen, who remains outside their academic circle, but emerges as crucial of their circle as they experiment, half believing, partly skeptical, in supernatural practices.

The Fateful Summoning

The protagonist finds himself, as a result of external pressures, forced into stealing rare books from his treasured institution’s archives by a group of neighborhood thugs. This tears at his bookish heart, especially when he’s made to take the collection’s foremost and disturbing title: the journal of occultist Enoch Crane (executed “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the binding is crafted from his flesh). Our Scooby gang read the journal, learn they can invoke what Crane describes as a cunning serpent to aid our hero with his coercion issue – and spend the rest of the novel enduring the repercussions. This ancient entity will undoubtedly remove those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they’ll have to choose a different victim every twelve months or succumb to the dragon’s wrath. As our protagonist states: “You sow dragon’s teeth, all you get is further monstrosities.”

Genre Versatility and Creative Range

Spanning forty years, Joe Hill transitions with natural fluency between genres: as the allies attempt to deal with the circumstances they find themselves in by, variously, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to sacrifice, or seeking means to kill the dragon themselves, we move between page-turner to dark fantasy, black-ops torture to affectionate subplot to fright. A standout transition was to a adventure narrative, deep in the caves below Cornwall, a segment infused with the fantasy maestro that was gloriously terrifying.

A Detailed Tapestry of Horror and Courage

There are trolls – those living under bridges and digital trolls, genuinely frightening and expertly realized. The story includes mystic weapons and treacheries, heart-stopping scenes of valor and ones of terrible wickedness, both earthly and extraterrestrial. This is a remarkable achievement: a horror novel that is primarily a ode to the human inventiveness, and to devotion and companionship. “We longed for a tale to embrace and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says the wealthy student as the companions assemble around a surface, getting ready to invoke their serpent to life with the strength of their collective will.

In the author’s own words in his introductory quote: “Here be dragons”. Do not overlook this.