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Six unlikely but doughty kids confront the trail of a colossal and terrible otherworldly darkness that has entered our world from the outer limits of oblivion. They have no choice but to devote their lives fighting it, enduring one nightmare after another in the ordeal.

A Familiar Premise with a New Approach

This outlines the narrative, roughly, of Stephen King’s iconic book It (his best; no arguments). It parallels of the celebrated author’s heir Joe Hill’s latest massive horror novel, in which six friends summon the primordial, utterly malevolent serpent the Dragon King from the Endless Night to assist them in vanquishing some villains. As one might expect, their arcane ceremony has unintended consequences.

Acknowledging a Authorial Lineage

Joseph Hillström King launched his profession striving diligently to avoid any connection from his well-known dad, using the pseudonym he continues to employ and avoiding meeting his agent (he exhibits a strong similarity to his parent). Yet with this recent release, he fully acknowledges it. Certain passages that deliberately echo some of the senior author’s well-known (that classic opening line); a moment that evokes a recurring theme in King’s works (a battle of wits). In this whopper of a novel, Hill is delighting in his lineage, and readers share in the joy.

Introducing the Main Characters

Back to those friends: five of them are scholars at the made-up this academic setting in Maine. We have Arthur, studious and brilliant, solving ancient puzzles in his spare time; the character Colin, rich, astute, and inclined to bulldoze anyone who stands in his way; the twin siblings; the beautiful Allie herself. Additionally, Gwen appears, who isn’t their classmate, but becomes a key part of their circle as they experiment, half believing, somewhat doubtful, in the occult.

The Critical Ceremony

The protagonist finds himself, due to circumstances beyond his control, forced into stealing valuable volumes from his treasured institution’s archives by a set of regional villains. This wounds his academic spirit, notably because he’s made to take the library’s most valuable and disturbing title: the diary of adept Enoch Crane (condemned “for dealing with infernal entities in 1703”; the binding is fashioned from his hide). These young investigators peruse the diary, realize they are able to call forth what the occultist details as a cunning serpent to help Arthur out with his coercion issue – and devote the remaining story reaping the consequences. The dragon will indeed rid them of those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they must select a different victim each year or succumb to the dragon’s wrath. In the character’s own words: “You invoke terrible forces, all you get is further monstrosities.”

Narrative Fluidity and Imaginative Range

Covering a generation, Hill also moves with natural fluency between genres: as the allies attempt to deal with the situation they find themselves in by, variously, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to sacrifice, or hunting down ways to slay the beast themselves, we transition from thriller to grim fantasy, covert operations to romance to terror. My favorite genre switch was to a heroic journey, deep in the caves beneath this UK region, a section sprinkled with JRR Tolkien that was gloriously terrifying.

A Rich Mosaic of Horror and Optimism

We encounter trolls – those living under bridges and online ones, properly scary and expertly realized. The story includes mystic weapons and deceptions, heart-stopping scenes of valor and ones of terrible wickedness, both mortal and otherworldly. It’s a tour de force: a chilling book that is primarily a tribute 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 this character as the allies gather at the table, preparing to summon their dragon into existence with the force of their minds.

As Hill puts it in his opening statement: “This is dragon territory”. Don’t miss them.