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Six quirky but brave kids fall into the way of a vast and dreadful paranormal evil that has invaded our world from the outer limits of oblivion. They have no choice but to spend their lifetimes battling it, facing horror after horror in the process.

A Familiar Storyline with a Distinctive Twist

This describes the premise, in essence, of Stephen King’s novel It (arguably his finest; no debate). It parallels of the celebrated author’s heir Joe Hill’s recent chilling tome, in which six friends invoke the ancient, deeply sinister serpent King Sorrow from the Abyssal Void to aid them in overcoming some villains. Unsurprisingly, their otherworldly invocation goes awry.

Acknowledging a Authorial Lineage

The author launched his profession going to great lengths to remain separate from his famous father, using the pseudonym he still uses today and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he possesses a uncanny likeness to his parent). Yet with this recent release, he leans into it. Several quotes that consciously reflect some of King’s most famous (that classic opening line); a moment that brings to mind a recurring theme in King’s works (a riddling contest). Throughout this massive book, Joe Hill takes pleasure in his lineage, and the audience revels alongside.

Introducing the Protagonists

Returning to the group: five of them are scholars at the imagined the esteemed institution in this northeastern locale. We have Arthur, bookish and intelligent, solving Old English riddles in his leisure hours; another key figure, wealthy, clever, and known for crushing obstacles in his path; twins Donna and Donovan; the beautiful Allie. Then we have Gwen, who remains outside their academic circle, but emerges as crucial of their group as they toy, partly convinced, partly skeptical, in supernatural practices.

The Critical Summoning

Our hero becomes, for reasons we don’t need to go into, obliged to take prized manuscripts from his beloved college library by a set of regional villains. This wounds his academic spirit, particularly as he’s forced to acquire the library’s most valuable and chilling title: the diary of practitioner this enigmatic character (condemned “for trafficking with the devyll in 1703”; the cover is made from his skin). The intrepid group peruse the diary, realize they are able to call forth what Crane describes as a “proud worm to aid our hero with his extortion dilemma – and spend the rest of the novel facing the fallout. This ancient entity will certainly eliminate those troublesome local drug dealers, but they are required to pick a fresh offering every twelve months or succumb to the dragon’s wrath. As Arthur later puts it: “You plant seeds of destruction, all you get is more dragons.”

Narrative Fluidity and Creative Range

Spanning forty years, the author shifts with effortless ease through various literary forms: as the friends strive to manage the predicament they find themselves in by, through diverse methods, choosing undeniably wicked targets to sacrifice, or searching for methods to slay the beast themselves, we go from page-turner to shadowy tale, covert operations to love story to terror. A standout transition was to a heroic journey, within the subterranean depths under the English county, a section sprinkled with JRR Tolkien that was gloriously terrifying.

A Rich Canvas of Dread and Courage

There are trolls – those living under bridges and internet antagonists, properly scary and expertly realized. There are magical swords and treacheries, breath-taking moments of valor and scenes of appalling malevolence, both earthly and extraterrestrial. It stands as a masterpiece: a frightening tale that is chiefly 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, making preparations to call forth their serpent into existence with the force of their minds.

As Hill puts it in his epigraph: “Here be dragons”. Don’t miss them.