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A group of six quirky but doughty children confront the trail of a vast and dreadful supernatural malevolence that has entered our realm from the farthest reaches of darkness. They have no choice but to devote their lives battling it, experiencing terror upon terror in the process.

A Resonant Plot with a Distinctive Approach

This is the plot, in essence, of the master of horror’s seminal work It (arguably his finest; no arguments). It is also the plot of King’s son Joe Hill’s latest horror doorstopper, in which a band of six invoke the ancient, deeply sinister serpent the Sorrowful Monarch from the Long Dark to help them defeat some villains. Needless to say, their supernatural ritual has unintended consequences.

Embracing a Family Legacy

Joseph Hillström King started his career striving diligently to distance himself from his famous father, using the pseudonym he maintains to this day and avoiding meeting his agent (he exhibits a uncanny likeness to his dad). Yet with this recent release, he fully acknowledges it. There are lines that deliberately echo some of King’s most famous (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a scene that brings to mind a King plot point (a battle of wits). In this whopper of a novel, Hill is delighting in his family connection, and the audience revels alongside.

Meet the Main Characters

Focusing on the companions: the majority are students at the made-up Rackham College in Maine. First is Arthur, bookish and gifted, solving historical enigmas in his free moments; Colin, wealthy, sharp, and prone to trampling anyone who stands in his way; Donna and Donovan; the beautiful the lovely Allie. Then we have Gwen, who doesn’t study with them, but emerges as crucial of their band as they dabble, partly convinced, partly skeptical, in supernatural practices.

The Fateful Ceremony

Our hero becomes, for reasons we don’t need to go into, forced into stealing prized manuscripts from his beloved college library by a set of regional villains. This wounds his academic spirit, notably because he’s forced to acquire the library’s most valuable and disturbing title: the journal of occultist the historical figure (condemned “for dealing with infernal entities in 1703”; the cover is crafted from his flesh). The intrepid group read the journal, learn they can invoke what the occultist details as a “arrogant beast to assist Arthur with his coercion issue – and occupy the subsequent narrative facing the fallout. This ancient entity will indeed rid them of those troublesome local drug dealers, but they are required to pick a different victim each year or fall prey to the beast. In the character’s own words: “You sow dragon’s teeth, all you get is more dragons.”

Stylistic Fluidity and Imaginative Scope

Spanning forty years, Hill also moves with seamless grace between genres: as the allies strive to manage the situation they find themselves in by, variously, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to immolate, or searching for methods to kill the dragon themselves, we move between suspense to shadowy tale, black-ops torture to affectionate subplot to terror. A standout transition was to a heroic journey, far beneath the surface below Cornwall, a segment sprinkled with the fantasy maestro that was gloriously terrifying.

An Expansive Mosaic of Horror and Optimism

The novel features trolls – the classic variety and digital trolls, truly terrifying and expertly realized. There are magical swords and treacheries, pulse-pounding sequences of bravery and scenes of dreadful evil, both mortal and supernatural. It’s a tour de force: a chilling book that is primarily a tribute to the imagination, and to devotion and companionship. “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 companions sit around the table, getting ready to invoke their serpent into being with the strength of their collective will.

As Hill puts it in his introductory quote: “Hic sunt dracones”. Do not overlook this.