King Sorrow by Joe Hill Review – An Fiery Horror Epic Is a Tour de Force

A group of six oddball but doughty kids confront the trail of a immense and terrible otherworldly evil that has infiltrated our world from the farthest reaches of darkness. They have no choice but to devote their lives battling it, enduring horror after horror in the process.

An Echoing Plot with a Fresh Spin

This is the plot, in essence, of Stephen King’s iconic book It (arguably his finest; no arguments). It parallels of King’s son Joe Hill’s latest chilling tome, in which six friends summon the primordial, infinitely malicious dragon King Sorrow from the Endless Night to help them defeat some villains. Needless to say, their arcane ceremony has unintended consequences.

Embracing a Literary Lineage

The author started his career striving diligently to remain separate from his well-known dad, publishing under the pen name he continues to employ and eschewing in-person meetings with his agent (he bears a strong similarity to his parent). Yet with this recent release, he embraces it. Several quotes that intentionally mirror some of the senior author’s well-known (“The man in black fled across the desert …”); a incident that recalls a King plot point (a riddling contest). In this epic story, Hill is delighting in his lineage, and readers share in the joy.

Introducing the Central Figures

Back to those friends: the majority are scholars at the imagined the esteemed institution in the New England state. We have Arthur, bookish and intelligent, solving historical enigmas in his spare time; another key figure, rich, clever, and known for crushing anyone who stands in his way; the twin siblings; the beautiful Allie herself. Additionally, Gwen appears, who isn’t their classmate, but assumes a vital role of their band as they toy, somewhat credulous, partly skeptical, in supernatural practices.

The Fateful Ritual

Our hero becomes, for reasons we don’t need to go into, compelled to pilfer valuable volumes from his cherished academic collection by a group of neighborhood thugs. This wounds his academic spirit, especially when he’s forced to acquire the library’s most valuable and unsettling title: the diary of practitioner the historical figure (executed “for conspiring with dark forces in 1703”; the book’s jacket is made from his skin). The intrepid group read the journal, learn they can invoke what the author references as a clever snake to assist Arthur with his extortion dilemma – and spend the rest of the novel enduring the repercussions. The dragon will indeed rid them of those troublesome local drug dealers, but they’ll have to choose a different victim every twelve months or fall prey to the beast. In the character’s own words: “You sow dragon’s teeth, all you get is additional horrors.”

Genre Versatility and Imaginative Range

Spanning forty years, Joe Hill transitions with natural fluency through various literary forms: as the companions strive to manage the circumstances they find themselves in by, in different ways, selecting clearly malevolent individuals to offer up, or hunting down ways to kill the dragon themselves, we go from page-turner to grim fantasy, covert operations to love story to horror. One particularly memorable shift was to a quest story, far beneath the surface below Cornwall, a segment sprinkled with JRR Tolkien that was magnificently horrifying.

An Expansive Tapestry of Horror and Optimism

The novel features trolls – the classic variety and digital trolls, genuinely frightening and perfectly brought to life. There are magical swords and deceptions, pulse-pounding sequences of courage and ones of dreadful evil, both mortal and otherworldly. It stands as a masterpiece: a frightening tale that is chiefly a paean to the creative spirit, and to love and friendship. “We required a narrative to trust and {now we’ve got one|presently we possess it|currently we hold it,” says this character as the allies sit around the table, making preparations to call forth their dragon to life with the force of their minds.

According to Joe Hill in his epigraph: “Here be dragons”. Do not overlook this.