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Joe Hill is back with his first novel in nearly a decade, and he’s bringing the whole family – and half the fantasy canon – with him. King Sorrow, released on October 21, 2025, is a sprawling horror-fantasy that Hill says is “in conversation” with his father Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien, Donna Tartt, and even the TV juggernaut Friends.
The book follows a tight-knit group of friends who summon an ancient dragon, only to find themselves bound to a terrible bargain that demands a yearly sacrifice. Early readers have already compared its ensemble cast and decades-spanning dread to Stephen King’s It, positioning King Sorrow as one of the major horror releases of the year.
Family Easter eggs and a multigenerational conversation
In a conversation with CBC’s Q, Hill revealed that King Sorrow is packed with winks to his literary lineage. There’s a direct nod to John Smith, the psychic protagonist of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, and Hill admits he sometimes “echoed the language” of his father’s books just for the fun of it. As he puts it, fiction at its best is “in conversation with books that came before it.”
The tributes go beyond his dad. Each section of King Sorrow is named after a work by someone in Hill’s family: his own unsold novel The Briars, Stephen King and Bev Vincent’s anthology Flight or Fright, Owen King’s debut Double Feature, Tabitha King’s The Trap, and Kelly Braffet’s Save Yourself. It’s a quiet but pointed way of acknowledging the entire King-Hill-Braffet clan as a shared creative universe.
Hill, who once dropped the King surname to build a career on his own terms, now embraces the connection more comfortably. Today, his reputation stands on earlier hits like 20th Century Ghosts, Heart-Shaped Box, NOS4A2, and The Fireman, which critics note already showcased his blend of horror, fantasy, and emotional stakes.
From Tolkien to Friends: a dragon story with a twist
Hill is candid about the eclectic inspirations behind King Sorrow. Alongside Stephen King’s work, he cites Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Disney’s Pete’s Dragon, and even Friends as part of the book’s DNA. He jokes that the novel is like “a bonus season of Friends done as horror instead of comedy: ‘The One About The Dragon.’”
That playful high-concept pitch sits atop a more traditional dark-fantasy framework: a youthful mistake, a monstrous entity, and the way a single terrible choice echoes through a lifetime. Early coverage has highlighted how the book deepens themes familiar from modern horror-fantasy, drawing on the kind of large-cast, time-jumping structure that made King’s It so enduring. You can read more about the novel’s development and reception on its Wikipedia entry.
The release of King Sorrow comes as Hill’s broader career is also in motion. His earlier story collection 20th Century Ghosts is getting an anniversary edition, and his work on screen continues after the success of The Black Phone. He has been actively involved in adapting his own stories for film, including collaborations with director Scott Derrickson, as reported by GamesRadar and GameSpot.
The reviews have largely followed him. The Guardian called King Sorrow a “dragon-fired horror epic” and a tour de force, while Kirkus reads it as an extension of the horror-fantasy blend Hill built in Horns, NOS4A2 and The Fireman. His screen footprint has grown alongside the books, from The Black Phone and In the Tall Grass to the Netflix series Locke & Key.
More novels are coming. Hill has talked about a run of books over the next several years, including one titled Hunger, and he keeps taking screenwriting work partly to hold on to Writers Guild health coverage after his wife’s cancer diagnosis. He has also been willing to spend the visibility that comes with the name: in October 2025 he joined writers boycotting a British Library “Tales of the Weird” event in solidarity with striking staff, as The Guardian reported.
For readers, though, the headline is clear: King Sorrow is a major new novel that bridges generations of horror while staking out fresh territory. Whether you come for the King-family Easter eggs, the dragon, or the darkly comic “lost season of Friends” vibe, Hill’s return to long-form fiction is poised to be one of the most talked-about genre releases of the year.
