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Six unlikely but brave children fall into the way of a colossal and terrible supernatural malevolence that has invaded our world from the outer limits of darkness. They have no choice but to spend their lifetimes confronting it, facing one nightmare after another in the ordeal.

An Echoing Storyline with a New Approach

This is the plot, broadly speaking, of Stephen King’s seminal work It (arguably his finest; no debate). It parallels of King’s son Joseph Hillstrom King’s recent horror doorstopper, in which a close-knit group call forth the primordial, deeply sinister dragon the Dragon King from the Long Dark to aid them in overcoming some villains. Unsurprisingly, their supernatural ritual goes awry.

Embracing a Literary Lineage

Joe Hill launched his profession striving diligently to remain separate from his well-known dad, publishing under the pen name he still uses today and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he bears a strong similarity to his parent). However, in his newest work, he fully acknowledges it. Certain passages that intentionally mirror some of the senior author’s well-known (the famous Dark Tower introduction); a moment that brings to mind a King plot point (a battle of wits). In this whopper of a novel, Hill is delighting in his heritage, and readers share in the joy.

Introducing the Protagonists

Returning to the group: five of them are pupils at the imagined Rackham College in the New England state. There’s Arthur, studious and gifted, solving historical enigmas in his leisure hours; Colin, rich, astute, and prone to trampling anyone who stands in his way; the twin siblings; the beautiful the lovely Allie. Then we have Gwen, who remains outside their academic circle, but assumes a vital role of their band as they dabble, partly convinced, partly skeptical, in arcane arts.

The Fateful Summoning

Arthur is, due to circumstances beyond his control, forced into stealing rare books from his treasured institution’s archives by a group of neighborhood thugs. This tears at his bookish heart, especially when he’s compelled to seize the library’s most valuable and chilling work: the diary of practitioner the historical figure (condemned “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the book’s jacket is fashioned from his hide). Our Scooby gang read the journal, learn they can invoke what Crane describes as a armored demon” to aid our hero with his coercion issue – and devote the remaining story enduring the repercussions. The dragon will indeed rid them of those annoying regional antagonists, but they are required to pick a different victim annually or succumb to the dragon’s wrath. As Arthur later puts it: “You invoke terrible forces, all you get is additional horrors.”

Stylistic Versatility and Imaginative Scope

Moving through four decades, Hill also moves with natural fluency across narrative styles: as the allies strive to manage the predicament they find themselves in by, in different ways, picking people who are obviously evil to immolate, or seeking means to destroy the entity themselves, we move between suspense to grim fantasy, black-ops torture to romance to terror. A standout transition was to a quest story, within the subterranean depths beneath this UK region, a part sprinkled with JRR Tolkien that was magnificently horrifying.

A Detailed Canvas of Fear and Courage

The novel features trolls – those living under bridges and online ones, truly terrifying and superbly depicted. There are magical swords and deceptions, heart-stopping scenes of valor and instances of terrible wickedness, both human and otherworldly. It stands as a masterpiece: a frightening tale that is above all a tribute 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 Colin as the allies gather at the table, getting ready to invoke their beast to life with the force of their minds.

In the author’s own words in his opening statement: “Here be dragons”. Don’t miss them.