WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the series premiere of NOS4A2, "The Shorter Way," which premiered Sunday on AMC.

Based on Joe Hill's 2013 novel, NOS4A2 in its series premiere teases a mythology in which the seemingly immortal Charlie Manx, the author's "Dracula of the American highways," prowls the country in a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, abducting neglected children to feed on their souls on the way to Christmasland. This is a world in which one young woman can summon a covered bridge to take her to lost things, and another can divine valuable information using Scrabble tiles. However, the new AMC series refuses to be limited to its own setting; it also extends its tendrils into not only Hill's other works, but also those of his father, Stephen King.

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In the pilot episode, Zachary Quinto's Charlie Manx returns from Iowa with poor Danny Moore as his passenger, growing younger even as the boy slowly withers in the back seat. However, he's awakened during a rest stop when he perceives protagonist Victoria "Vic" McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) halfway across the country, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, using "The Shorter Way," a dilapidated covered bridge she can summon to bring her to lost objects, or lost people.

Map from NOS4A2

Charlie pulls from the Wraith's glove box an aged, kitschy map, the kind that, in another era, might have pinpointed the storybook lands and other roadside attractions that once dotted the country. However, this one is far more specific, proclaiming itself the "Map of the United Inscapes of America: Showing All the Stops Along the St. Nick Parkway." An inscape, in Hill's novel, is a "world of thought," which becomes more understandable as the series continues. The St. Nick Parkway is, of course, a route Charlie travels that bisects the United States.

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As Charlie studies the map to determine what disturbed his slumber, we can make out a dot in New Hampshire designated as "The Treehouse in the Mind," a reference to Hill's 2010 Horns. In Massachusetts, there's "Lovecraft Keyhole," a nod to Locke & Key, the acclaimed comic book series by Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez. It's in that state "The Shorter Way" suddenly appears, pinpointing the location of Vic's bridge. However, for King fans, the location of the most interest is, of course, in Maine: "Pennywise Circus," an obvious homage to the terrifying dancing clown in the author's 1986 novel It.

NOS4A2

The connections are more vast in the NOS4A2 novel, which also drops references to the "Nightroad" from Hill's 2007 debut novel Heart-Shaped Box; "the doors to Mid-World," the setting of King's fantasy epic The Dark Tower; "Shawshank Prison," from King's 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption; and Derry, Maine, the setting of It. There are also allusions to characters, like Craddock McDermott from Heart-Shaped Box, and the True Knot, from Doctor Sleep, King's 2013 sequel to The Shining, as well as quotes from King's The Stand and The Dark Tower.

So, is NOS4A2, either the novel or the TV adaptation, set in the same world as King's own, interconnected novels? Not really. Hill has acknowledged that the references are, in part, an attempt to "goof on people’s expectations," to confront the comparisons to his father, head-on. However, they also play with the concept of inscapes, or inner landscapes, those imagined worlds that, in NOS4A2, certain people can will into reality.

Airing Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on AMC, NOS4A2 stars Zachary Quinto, Ashley Cummings, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Virginia Kull, Jahkara Smith and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.