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A group of six oddball but brave youngsters fall into the way of a colossal and terrible supernatural evil that has infiltrated our world from the deepest abyss of darkness. They have no choice but to devote their lives confronting it, enduring one nightmare after another in the ordeal.

A Familiar Premise with a New Spin

This is the plot, in essence, of the master of horror’s iconic book It (arguably his finest; no arguments). It is also the plot of King’s son Joseph Hillstrom King’s new horror doorstopper, in which a band of six summon the ancient, utterly malevolent beast the Sorrowful Monarch from the Long Dark to help them defeat some villains. Needless to say, their supernatural ritual backfires.

Acknowledging a Authorial Legacy

The author started his career making great efforts to avoid any connection from his renowned parent, adopting the nom de plume he still uses today and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he bears a uncanny likeness to his dad). However, in his newest work, he leans into it. Certain passages that intentionally mirror some of the senior author’s well-known (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a incident that recalls a recurring theme in King’s works (a battle of wits). In this whopper of a novel, Joe Hill takes pleasure in his heritage, and the audience revels alongside.

Meet the Protagonists

Focusing on the companions: most are pupils at the made-up the esteemed institution in Maine. There’s Arthur, bookish and brilliant, cracking ancient puzzles in his free moments; Colin, wealthy, clever, and inclined to bulldoze anyone who stands in his way; Donna and Donovan; the beautiful the lovely Allie. And there’s Gwen, who isn’t their classmate, but assumes a vital role of their group as they dabble, partly convinced, half not, in supernatural practices.

The Fateful Summoning

The protagonist finds himself, as a result of external pressures, compelled to pilfer rare books from his beloved college library by a bunch of local criminals. This wounds his academic spirit, especially when he’s forced to acquire the library’s most valuable and unsettling work: the logbook of occultist this enigmatic character (condemned “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the binding is crafted from his flesh). These young investigators read the journal, discover they could summon what the author references as a armored demon” to aid our hero with his coercion issue – and devote the remaining story facing the fallout. King Sorrow will indeed rid them of those annoying regional antagonists, but they’ll have to choose a new sacrifice every twelve months or become his victim themselves. As Arthur later puts it: “You plant seeds of destruction, all you get is additional horrors.”

Narrative Dexterity and Creative Range

Moving through four decades, Hill also moves with effortless ease across narrative styles: as the friends endeavor to address the circumstances they find themselves in by, through diverse methods, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to offer up, or searching for methods to kill the dragon themselves, we move between suspense to shadowy tale, clandestine torment to romance to terror. My favorite genre switch was to a quest story, within the subterranean depths under the English county, a segment sprinkled with JRR Tolkien that was gloriously terrifying.

An Expansive Canvas of Fear and Hope

There are trolls – bridge-dwelling ones and digital trolls, genuinely frightening and superbly depicted. The story includes mystic weapons and betrayals, pulse-pounding sequences of valor and scenes of appalling malevolence, both human and supernatural. It stands as a masterpiece: a chilling book 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 Colin as the friends gather at the table, getting ready to invoke their dragon to life with the force of their minds.

In the author’s own words in his epigraph: “Hic sunt dracones”. Do not overlook this.