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Six unlikely but resilient youngsters fall into the way of a immense and dreadful supernatural evil that has entered our world from the farthest reaches of oblivion. They must spend their lifetimes battling it, experiencing terror upon terror in the ordeal.

A Resonant Storyline with a New Spin

This describes the premise, broadly speaking, of Stephen King’s seminal work It (a standout in his career; undeniable). It similarly frames of Stephen King’s offspring Joe Hill’s new horror doorstopper, in which a close-knit group invoke the ancient, infinitely malicious beast King Sorrow from the Abyssal Void to aid them in overcoming some baddies. Needless to say, their arcane ceremony has unintended consequences.

Embracing a Authorial Heritage

Joe Hill started his career striving diligently to avoid any connection from his famous father, publishing under the pen name he continues to employ and avoiding meeting his agent (he exhibits a strong similarity to his parent). But in this latest novel, he leans into it. There are lines that consciously reflect some of his father’s iconic (that classic opening line); a scene that recalls a King plot point (a game of puzzles). In this whopper of a novel, Hill is delighting in his heritage, and readers share in the joy.

Meet the Protagonists

Back to those friends: five of them are scholars at the imagined the esteemed institution in Maine. There’s Arthur, studious and intelligent, cracking historical enigmas in his spare time; another key figure, affluent, clever, and inclined to bulldoze anyone who stands in his way; Donna and Donovan; the beautiful Allie herself. And there’s Gwen, who doesn’t study with them, but assumes a vital role of their band as they dabble, half believing, partly skeptical, in arcane arts.

The Critical Ceremony

The protagonist finds himself, due to circumstances beyond his control, compelled to pilfer prized manuscripts from his treasured institution’s archives by a group of neighborhood thugs. This wounds his academic spirit, especially when he’s made to take the library’s most valuable and chilling publication: the logbook of practitioner the historical figure (condemned “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the binding is fashioned from his hide). These young investigators read the journal, learn they can invoke what Crane describes as a clever snake to aid our hero with his coercion issue – and spend the rest of the novel facing the fallout. King Sorrow will certainly eliminate those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they’ll have to choose a fresh offering each year or become his victim themselves. As our protagonist states: “You invoke terrible forces, all you get is further monstrosities.”

Stylistic Fluidity and Imaginative Breadth

Covering a generation, Joe Hill transitions with effortless ease through various literary forms: as the companions attempt to deal with the predicament they find themselves in by, variously, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to immolate, or seeking means to destroy the entity themselves, we go from thriller to dark fantasy, black-ops torture to love story to fright. One particularly memorable shift was to a adventure narrative, deep in the caves below Cornwall, a segment infused with the Lord of the Rings author that was gloriously terrifying.

A Rich Tapestry of Dread and Hope

We encounter trolls – bridge-dwelling ones and internet antagonists, truly terrifying and superbly depicted. We see enchanted blades and treacheries, pulse-pounding sequences of bravery and scenes of dreadful evil, both human and supernatural. It stands as a masterpiece: a frightening tale that is primarily a paean to the creative spirit, and to affection and camaraderie. “We longed for a tale to embrace and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says this character as the allies gather at the table, getting ready to invoke their beast into being with the force of their minds.

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