Book Review: Fairy Tale by Stephen King

Stephen King's books are always a win for me - I've been a fan and Constant Reader since I first picked up a copy of 'Carrie' in a secondhand bookstore when I was 13. King doesn't dip into the fantasy genre very often, but when he does he does it well ('Eyes of the Dragon' and 'The Talisman' with Peter Straub being the chief examples). 'Fairy Tale' is no exception. It starts off with a charming story of a young boy befriending an old man and his dog, getting through his hostile exterior and learning about who he is and was, then gradually leads us down the rabbit hole (almost literally) into a whole other world of magic and monsters and princes and princesses - all with King's characteristic darkness beneath.

It's a fairy tale in the Brothers Grimm sense, rather than in the Peter Pan and Tinkerbell sense (although there is a mermaid), and I can't lie, I was slightly disappointed not to find any actual faeries in it! However the disappointment was short-lived once I got into the flow of the story in the Other world, and all the familiar fairytale archetypes began to appear, cleverly weaved into an epic and frightening story of adventure and rescue. There's even some old eldritch nightmares in there for the Lovecraft fans among us - as King obviously is. And the ending is suitably happy - though not TOO happy - for any fairy tale.

There's also a few nods to King's 'Dark Tower' series, which taught us all that there are other worlds than these. This is evidently one of them.