FAIRY TALE

By STEPHEN KING Hodder & Stoughton Charlie Reade looks like your regular highschool kid but he carries a heavy load – after his mom died in a road accident, grief drove his father to drink. Eventually, at his wits’ end, Charlie makes a promise to God: he will do good if his father stops drinking. His dad does get off the booze and life improves.

Then, when Charlie is 17, he saves the life of Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house and a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge.

When Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house and a cassette tape to explain how the shed is a passage to another world. This is a world of giants, talking horses, goose girls, intelligent crickets, gigantic cockroaches and where two moons race across the sky.

In this world, called Empis, Charlie will experience love and kindness but also horror and brutality as he strives to keep his promise to God.

As the title suggests, this is for the most part a fairy tale with lots of similarities to classic tales like Jack and the Beanstalk and The Wizard of Oz.

I’m a great fan of Stephen King and really enjoy his classic horror tales like It, Salem’s Lot, Pet Sematary and The Shining. But to be honest, I was a bit disappointed with Fairy Tale. It starts off really well and the first 200 pages showcase King’s incredible storytelling abilities but the last two thirds of the book are pure fantasy.

Unless you’re a fan of this genre, I’d suggest you’d be better off giving this one a miss.