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Six oddball but resilient kids confront the trail of a vast and terrible otherworldly malevolence that has invaded our realm from the farthest reaches of oblivion. They must devote their lives confronting it, enduring terror upon terror in the process.

An Echoing Plot with a Fresh Approach

This is the plot, roughly, of Stephen King’s seminal work It (arguably his finest; no arguments). It is also the plot of the celebrated author’s heir Joseph Hillstrom King’s recent horror doorstopper, in which a close-knit group invoke the age-old, utterly malevolent dragon the Sorrowful Monarch from the Abyssal Void to help them defeat some baddies. As one might expect, their arcane ceremony has unintended consequences.

Embracing a Authorial Lineage

Joseph Hillström King began his writing journey going to great lengths to avoid any connection from his renowned parent, publishing under the pen name he continues to employ and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he possesses a striking resemblance to his dad). But in this latest novel, he embraces it. There are lines that deliberately echo some of his father’s iconic (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a incident that evokes a signature King element (a game of puzzles). In this whopper of a novel, the author rejoices in his family connection, and the audience revels alongside.

Meet the Central Figures

Returning to the group: most are students at the fictional the esteemed institution in Maine. There’s Arthur, academic and brilliant, solving ancient puzzles in his spare time; Colin, affluent, sharp, and prone to trampling those who oppose him; the twin siblings; the beautiful the lovely Allie. Then we have Gwen, who isn’t their classmate, but assumes a vital role of their group as they toy, somewhat credulous, partly skeptical, in the occult.

The Pivotal Ceremony

The protagonist finds himself, as a result of external pressures, obliged to take rare books from his beloved college library by a group of neighborhood thugs. This devastates his scholarly soul, particularly as he’s forced to acquire the collection’s foremost and unsettling work: the diary of occultist this enigmatic character (put to death “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the binding is fashioned from his hide). These young investigators peruse the diary, discover they could summon what the occultist details as a cunning serpent to aid our hero with his coercion issue – and occupy the subsequent narrative facing the fallout. The dragon will indeed rid them of those problematic neighborhood criminals, but they must select a new sacrifice every twelve months or become his victim themselves. As Arthur later puts it: “You invoke terrible forces, all you get is more dragons.”

Stylistic Dexterity and Creative Scope

Spanning forty years, Hill also moves with seamless grace between genres: as the allies attempt to deal with the situation they find themselves in by, through diverse methods, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to sacrifice, or hunting down ways to slay the beast themselves, we move between page-turner to shadowy tale, black-ops torture to love story to horror. A standout transition was to a heroic journey, far beneath the surface beneath this UK region, a section infused with JRR Tolkien that was magnificently horrifying.

A Rich Mosaic of Fear and Optimism

We encounter trolls – those living under bridges and digital trolls, truly terrifying and perfectly brought to life. We see enchanted blades and treacheries, pulse-pounding sequences of courage and ones of appalling malevolence, both earthly and supernatural. It’s a tour de force: a frightening tale that is chiefly a paean to the human inventiveness, and to affection and camaraderie. “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, preparing to summon their serpent to life with the power of their thoughts.

In the author’s own words in his introductory quote: “This is dragon territory”. Ensure you experience it.