However, this pretty much staggering tale features such a wealth of wonderful detail and richness of character that you’ll forgive the moments when Joe starts rambling just a little.
Arthur Oakes is a student and aspiring academic at Rackham College, Maine, back in 1989, and he’s friendly with: the wealthy and charismatic Colin Wren; the gorgeous but uncertain Alison Shiner; battling and biting twins Donna and (Dono)Van McBride; and the socially conscious Gwen Underfoot, who takes a while to be accepted by everyone (except Arthur). When circumstances lead to him being forced to pay off a debt to local drug dealers by stealing priceless books from the library, the gang drunkenly and jokingly (at first) set about summoning a dragon named ‘King Sorrow’ from the ‘Long Dark’.
Naturally, a real dragon turns up, although for much of the tale it’s only seen as a fiery eye, a claw reaching out from the shadows to terrify our heroes, or a grotesque, lolling tongue. When it finishes slaying Arthur’s enemies, the manipulative King then says that he’ll now expect an annual sacrifice every Easter, which means that, as the years go by (and by), the six-strong chums must keep drawing up a list of villains deserving to be burnt and/or chomped.
Quite the genre mash-up, this impressively leaps from savage horror, to wild fantasy, to character comedy, to tense suspense, to steamy romance, and, finally, to a sweeping satirical study of modern America in all its monstrous glory.
All hail the King. Or, actually, both of them.
King Sorrow
Joe Hill (Hachette Australia)
$34.99 (paperback)
