So prior to reading “Fairy Tale”, my only experience with King was his memoir “On Writing” and “Carrie”. When I picked up “Fairy Tale”, his recent portal fantasy, I expected it to be like “Alice in Wonderland”, but like, if Stephen King had written it.
I was so wrong.
There were parts that were definitely Lovecraftian (which I loved) but it was genuinely such a wholesome, funny, delightful fantasy romp & I couldn’t believe that Stephen King had written it.
Highly recommend to anyone that loves a slow-burn portal fantasy and fairy tales of old.
by RovingVagabond
5 Comments
I read the first half of it and the just sorta stalled out. I really need to sit down and just finish it
>I couldn’t believe that Stephen King had written it.
Then you need to read more King.
I really liked it as well. Not exactly a regular Stephen King story but very enjoyable and as always, well written.
It’s a’ight, but I do think it losses a significant amount of steam when >!they get to Flight Killer’s tournament.!<
That section felt overdrawn and pretty unnecessary to the conclusion >!(beyond introducing what a creep Flight Killer is)!<. I think King went a little too heavy on >!taking care of Mr. Bowditch!< and that didn’t leave enough room for >!exploring the Other World. It’s pretty much just the road to the Kingdom, the deserted kingdom itself, and the tournament grounds.!<
I think this story would have worked better if the focus had just been on >!taking care of Mr. Bowditch and Radar OR throwing Charlie into the Other World to explore fantastical shit. Once Radar is healed, the story does nothing with her at all…which isn’t good when you still have +250 pages to go.!<
Feels like two very compelling stories tripping over each other’s feet.
It’s funny, one place I really thought it fell short was on the fairy tale part. I felt like King didn’t really understand fairytales… Or maybe it wasn’t meant to be literal, but especially as the MC is literally being showered with advice and items that he needs, without doing anything particularly difficult or virtuous, there’s not much congruence with actual fairytales. It worked as a portal story for me, and King writes teen boys well, but it weren’t for the title I would never have thought about fairytales reading it.