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Six oddball but brave kids fall into the way of a vast and terrible supernatural malevolence that has infiltrated our existence from the outer limits of darkness. They are compelled to devote their lives battling it, facing terror upon terror in the process.

An Echoing Plot with a New Spin

This is the plot, broadly speaking, of Stephen King’s novel It (his best; undeniable). It parallels of King’s son Joe Hill’s new massive horror novel, in which a close-knit group summon the ancient, infinitely malicious beast the Dragon King from the Abyssal Void to help them defeat some villains. Unsurprisingly, their supernatural ritual has unintended consequences.

Celebrating a Authorial Legacy

The author launched his profession going to great lengths to distance himself from his renowned parent, adopting the nom de plume he maintains to this day and avoiding meeting his agent (he bears a striking resemblance to his father). However, in his newest work, he fully acknowledges it. Certain passages that consciously reflect some of his father’s iconic (that classic opening line); a moment that recalls a King plot point (a riddling contest). Throughout this massive book, Joe Hill takes pleasure in his lineage, and the audience revels alongside.

The Cast of the Central Figures

Returning to the group: five of them are students at the made-up this academic setting in this northeastern locale. There’s Arthur, bookish and gifted, cracking Old English riddles in his leisure hours; another key figure, rich, clever, and inclined to bulldoze those who oppose him; twins Donna and Donovan; the beautiful Allie. Then we have Gwen, who doesn’t study with them, but assumes a vital role of their group as they dabble, half believing, partly skeptical, in arcane arts.

The Fateful Ceremony

Our hero becomes, for reasons we don’t need to go into, obliged to take prized manuscripts from his beloved college library by a group of neighborhood thugs. This wounds his academic spirit, particularly as he’s compelled to seize the library’s most valuable and unsettling publication: the diary of practitioner this enigmatic character (put to death “for conspiring with dark forces in 1703”; the book’s jacket is made from his skin). Our Scooby gang read the journal, realize they are able to call forth what the author references as a “proud worm to help Arthur out with his blackmail problem – and occupy the subsequent narrative facing the fallout. The dragon will indeed rid them of those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they are required to pick a different victim annually or fall prey to the beast. In the character’s own words: “You sow dragon’s teeth, all you get is additional horrors.”

Genre Versatility and Creative Breadth

Covering a generation, Hill also moves with seamless grace between genres: as the friends strive to manage the situation they find themselves in by, variously, choosing undeniably wicked targets to offer up, or searching for methods to destroy the entity themselves, we transition from page-turner to grim fantasy, clandestine torment to affectionate subplot to terror. One particularly memorable shift was to a heroic journey, deep in the caves beneath this UK region, a section tinged by the Lord of the Rings author that was wonderfully frightening.

A Detailed Canvas of Fear and Courage

There are trolls – the classic variety and online ones, truly terrifying and superbly depicted. We see enchanted blades and treacheries, pulse-pounding sequences of courage and instances of appalling malevolence, both human and extraterrestrial. It’s a tour de force: a frightening tale that is above all a paean to the human inventiveness, and to love and friendship. “We required a narrative to trust and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says the wealthy student as the companions sit around the table, getting ready to invoke their dragon to life with the power of their thoughts.

As Hill puts it in his epigraph: “This is dragon territory”. Do not overlook this.