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A group of six oddball but resilient children encounter the trail of a colossal and fearsome otherworldly darkness that has invaded our realm from the outer limits of oblivion. They must spend their lifetimes battling it, experiencing terror upon terror in the ordeal.

A Resonant Plot with a Distinctive Approach

This describes the premise, broadly speaking, of the master of horror’s novel It (arguably his finest; no debate). It is also the plot of King’s son Joe Hill’s recent chilling tome, in which six friends call forth the primordial, deeply sinister dragon the Dragon King from the Long Dark to help them defeat some villains. Unsurprisingly, their arcane ceremony backfires.

Embracing a Authorial Heritage

Joe Hill started his career making great efforts to remain separate from his famous father, adopting the nom de plume he continues to employ and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he possesses a strong similarity to his father). But in this latest novel, he embraces it. Certain passages that consciously reflect some of King’s most famous (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a moment that recalls a recurring theme in King’s works (a battle of wits). Throughout this massive book, Joe Hill takes pleasure in his lineage, and we delight along with him.

Introducing the Central Figures

Focusing on the companions: five of them are students at the imagined Rackham College in Maine. There’s Arthur, academic and intelligent, solving Old English riddles in his free moments; Colin, rich, sharp, and inclined to bulldoze anyone who stands in his way; twins Donna and Donovan; the stunning the lovely Allie. And there’s Gwen, who isn’t their classmate, but assumes a vital role of their band as they experiment, half believing, partly skeptical, in arcane arts.

The Fateful Ritual

Arthur is, as a result of external pressures, obliged to take rare books from his cherished academic collection by a bunch of local criminals. This tears at his bookish heart, especially when he’s forced to acquire the library’s most valuable and disturbing title: the diary of practitioner this enigmatic character (executed “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the book’s jacket is crafted from his flesh). The intrepid group read the journal, learn they can invoke what Crane describes as a armoured devil” to help Arthur out with his coercion issue – and spend the rest of the novel facing the fallout. The dragon will certainly eliminate those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they must select a fresh offering annually or become his victim themselves. As Arthur later puts it: “You sow dragon’s teeth, all you get is additional horrors.”

Narrative Versatility and Inventive Breadth

Covering a generation, Joe Hill transitions with seamless grace through various literary forms: as the friends attempt to deal with the predicament they find themselves in by, through diverse methods, picking people who are obviously evil to immolate, or hunting down ways to kill the dragon themselves, we move between page-turner to grim fantasy, black-ops torture to romance to horror. My favorite genre switch was to a heroic journey, deep in the caves under the English county, a segment sprinkled with the Lord of the Rings author that was magnificently horrifying.

An Expansive Tapestry of Dread and Hope

We encounter trolls – the classic variety and online ones, genuinely frightening and superbly depicted. The story includes mystic weapons and treacheries, heart-stopping scenes of valor and ones of terrible wickedness, both earthly and supernatural. This is a remarkable achievement: a horror novel that is above all a paean to the human inventiveness, and to affection and camaraderie. “We longed for a tale to embrace and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says the wealthy student as the companions assemble around a surface, getting ready to invoke their serpent to life with the force of their minds.

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