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Six oddball but brave kids encounter the path of a immense and fearsome paranormal malevolence that has invaded our existence from the deepest abyss of darkness. They must devote their lives confronting it, facing terror upon terror in the struggle.

A Resonant Storyline with a New Twist

This is the plot, in essence, of the master of horror’s iconic book It (arguably his finest; undeniable). It is also the plot of the celebrated author’s heir Joseph Hillstrom King’s recent horror doorstopper, in which six friends call forth the ancient, infinitely malicious beast King Sorrow from the Abyssal Void to help them defeat some villains. Needless to say, their supernatural ritual backfires.

Acknowledging a Family Lineage

Joe Hill started his career going to great lengths to avoid any connection from his renowned parent, using the pseudonym he maintains to this day and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he bears a striking resemblance to his parent). Yet with this recent release, he fully acknowledges it. Several quotes that deliberately echo some of King’s most famous (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a moment that brings to mind a King plot point (a battle of wits). In this epic story, Joe Hill takes pleasure in his lineage, and the audience revels alongside.

Meet the Central Figures

Focusing on the companions: five of them are scholars at the imagined the esteemed institution in this northeastern locale. There’s Arthur, academic and brilliant, cracking Old English riddles in his leisure hours; the character Colin, rich, sharp, and known for crushing obstacles in his path; the twin siblings; the beautiful the lovely Allie. Additionally, Gwen appears, who remains outside their academic circle, but assumes a vital role of their circle as they toy, half believing, somewhat doubtful, in arcane arts.

The Fateful Ceremony

Arthur is, as a result of external pressures, forced into stealing rare books from his cherished academic collection by a group of neighborhood thugs. This tears at his bookish heart, particularly as he’s made to take the collection’s foremost and disturbing work: the journal of adept Enoch Crane (put to death “for dealing with infernal entities in 1703”; the cover is fashioned from his hide). These young investigators peruse the diary, learn they can invoke what the occultist details as a “proud worm to aid our hero with his extortion dilemma – and occupy the subsequent narrative facing the fallout. This ancient entity will certainly eliminate those troublesome local drug dealers, but they’ll have to choose a new sacrifice every twelve months or become his victim themselves. As Arthur later puts it: “You sow dragon’s teeth, all you get is additional horrors.”

Stylistic Fluidity and Inventive Range

Covering a generation, Hill also moves with effortless ease through various literary forms: as the allies endeavor to address the situation they find themselves in by, in different ways, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to immolate, or seeking means to kill the dragon themselves, we move between suspense to dark fantasy, black-ops torture to affectionate subplot to horror. My favorite genre switch was to a quest story, deep in the caves below Cornwall, a part infused with the Lord of the Rings author that was magnificently horrifying.

An Expansive Canvas of Horror and Courage

We encounter trolls – those living under bridges and internet antagonists, truly terrifying and expertly realized. There are magical swords and treacheries, heart-stopping scenes of bravery and ones of dreadful evil, 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 devotion and companionship. “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 assemble around a surface, getting ready to invoke their serpent into existence with the force of their minds.

As Hill puts it in his opening statement: “Here be dragons”. Do not overlook this.