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Six unlikely but brave youngsters confront the path of a colossal and fearsome paranormal evil that has entered our world from the farthest reaches of darkness. They have no choice but to spend their lifetimes fighting it, facing one nightmare after another in the ordeal.

A Resonant Storyline with a Fresh Spin

This is the plot, broadly speaking, of the master of horror’s novel It (arguably his finest; no arguments). It is also the plot of King’s son Joe Hill’s new massive horror novel, in which a close-knit group invoke the age-old, infinitely malicious beast King Sorrow from the Endless Night to assist them in vanquishing some baddies. Unsurprisingly, their otherworldly invocation has unintended consequences.

Celebrating a Authorial Legacy

The author launched his profession making great efforts to distance himself from his renowned parent, using the pseudonym he maintains to this day and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he possesses a uncanny likeness to his parent). Yet with this recent release, he fully acknowledges it. Certain passages that consciously reflect some of the senior author’s well-known (that classic opening line); a moment that evokes a signature King element (a game of puzzles). In this whopper of a novel, Hill is delighting in his lineage, and readers share in the joy.

The Cast of the Main Characters

Back to those friends: five of them are students at the fictional Rackham College in the New England state. There’s Arthur, bookish and brilliant, cracking ancient puzzles in his leisure hours; Colin, affluent, clever, and known for crushing anyone who stands in his way; Donna and Donovan; the stunning Allie. And there’s Gwen, who remains outside their academic circle, but emerges as crucial of their circle as they toy, half believing, half not, in the occult.

The Critical Ceremony

The protagonist finds himself, due to circumstances beyond his control, compelled to pilfer rare books from his treasured institution’s archives by a group of neighborhood thugs. This wounds his academic spirit, especially when he’s compelled to seize the collection’s foremost and disturbing work: the diary of occultist this enigmatic character (put to death “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the cover is fashioned from his hide). The intrepid group peruse the diary, discover they could summon what Crane describes as a “arrogant beast to aid our hero with his blackmail problem – and devote the remaining story reaping the consequences. This ancient entity will undoubtedly remove those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they must select a different victim each year or fall prey to the beast. As our protagonist states: “You invoke terrible forces, all you get is more dragons.”

Genre Dexterity and Imaginative Breadth

Spanning forty years, the author shifts with natural fluency through various literary forms: as the companions endeavor to address the predicament they find themselves in by, in different ways, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to sacrifice, or searching for methods to destroy the entity themselves, we transition from thriller to dark fantasy, clandestine torment to affectionate subplot to terror. My favorite genre switch was to a quest story, within the subterranean depths below Cornwall, a section infused with the fantasy maestro that was wonderfully frightening.

A Detailed Mosaic of Horror and Courage

The novel features trolls – those living under bridges and digital trolls, truly terrifying and superbly depicted. There are magical swords and treacheries, heart-stopping scenes of courage and instances of dreadful evil, both human and supernatural. It’s a tour de force: a chilling book that is chiefly a paean to the human inventiveness, and to love and friendship. “We needed a story to believe and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says Colin as the friends assemble around a surface, getting ready to invoke their serpent into existence with the power of their thoughts.

In the author’s own words in his opening statement: “This is dragon territory”. Ensure you experience it.