It should go without saying that I am a huge Stephen King fan. I loved all things horror before he came along, but when I discovered his work it took on greater proportions. Each book over the years have been big life events.

Of course I heard about his latest book. I admit to some trepidation about the title: Fairy Tale. I'm not much of a fantasy fan. In fact I strongly dislike a lot of the genre. When it comes to writers like Jonathan Carroll, I love fantasy, but strories of imaginary worlds and fantastic quests hold little appeal for me.

I wished the novel was called Campfire Tale, and it dealt with urban legends like the man with a hook hand or the babysitter in the house with a killer. This didn't stop me from jumping right into Fairy Tale.

I got the book and I sat there with it, contemplating Stephen King's many years of storytelling. Stories upon stories upon stories have flowed out of him to the delight of a legion of constant readers. A touch of melancholy came over me. I wondered how many more times I would have this moment. How many more books are to come?

Fairy Tale is a love song to the act and art of storytelling. Of imagination, of magic. King has kept it alive in his heart. It's obvious he still loves his job. He loves telling stories, and he also still loves to read them. I think it's one of his great strengths.

I've known successful writers, damned good ones, who no longer seem to have such a strong passion for reading. A touch of cynicism has taken over. It affects their work.

I'll say it: Fairy Tale is marvelous. It's magnificent and beautiful. King takes the cliches of fantasy, which he clearly loves, and plays with them. It's part homage, with plenty of playful winks to readers along the way, but Fairy Tale is also a wonderful story on its own.

True fairy tales don't shy away from darkness, and Fairy Tale has scenes of horror that rival anything Stephen King has ever written. Decades of honing his dark magic skills have led him to this book.

When you think about it, Billy Summers is kind of an homage to the classic hard noir suspense thriller. The plot is familiar as hell, but King makes the story his own.

This novel has everything you could ask for in a fantasy: Giants, talking animals, magic spells and potions, evil and good princes and princesses. But it's more. King's themes are bigger than mere fantasy trappings. Storytelling is a metaphor for life and death, and all the journeys of the heart we all make in our short years.

Fairy Tale is dedicated to Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H.P. Lovecraft. Other writers sing in the pages, like Henry Kuttner, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many more.

The end of Fairy Tale is also a beginning. Stories go on forever, mutating and growing. King's work will outlast his physical days. He's our modern Aesop, a grimm writer who has delighted and terrified us all. His tales have brought meaning to our lives. They will be handed down, in books, and in the hands of visual storytellers. Writers will continue to tell variations of his stories, just as he has carried on the tradition handed down to him by hundreds of fabulists.

I was hesitant but Fairy Tale won me over. I fell in love with Charlie and Radar and the land of Empis, just as I did with Middle Earth and Narnia so long ago. Just as I did when I entered the world of The Stand and a haunted town called Castle Rock.

Stephen King has defining works: The Stand, The Dark Tower, It. I think Fairy Tale stands with the best of them. I honestly do not believe he has ever written a better novel.

Written by Mark Sieber

No comments

The author does not allow comments to this entry