From our earliest days, we’re surrounded by fairy tales and storytelling. And while your mind might immediately go to Disney tales about Cinderella and Snow White, not all fairy tales are outdated, sanitized parables first told hundreds of years ago. They didn’t end with the Brothers Grimm. 

In fact, one of the most adapted and prolific authors of our time has been writing fairy tales for more than five decades—Stephen King. Yeah, the King of Horror. 

If you’ve never recognized King as a teller of fairy tales, his 2022 novel “Fairy Tale”—a sprawling fantasy epic about a battle between good and evil—makes that explicit. The title is a little on the nose, but that’s perhaps the point. The 600-page novel explores traditional storytelling, referencing well-known fairy tales and tropes, and at times upending them. 

A24 is currently adapting the book into a 10-episode series, with a script by Paul Greengrass and J.H. Wyman, as reported by Deadline in 2024. 

“Fairy Tale” tells the story of Charlie Reade, a 17-year-old who lost his mother to a hit-and-run accident and has a father who has turned to alcohol in the wake of her death. Charlie begins helping his elderly neighbor, Howard Bowditch, and taking care of his dog, Radar. 

When Howard dies, he leaves his home and Radar to Charlie and reveals to him a secret portal under his shed that leads to another world. “There are other worlds than these,” indeed!

Charlie and Radar find themselves in a magical kingdom complete with a cursed princess, a villainous overlord, and, of course, a battle between good and evil. Beyond the typical fairy tale tropes, King makes several references to specific fairy tales entwined in the cultural consciousness—at least in American pop culture. 

Charlie and his dog are transported to a strange world called Empis where they must make a journey to a central seat of power, collect companions along the way and then find their way back home. If that doesn’t scream “Wizard of Oz” to you, then the red poppy field they encounter at one point seals the deal. 

But in true King fashion, he corrupts the fairy tale. Instead of the glittering Emerald City, Charlie finds himself in the once-beautiful but now-decayed Lilimar. Instead of the friendly Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, Charlie encounters gritty characters with dangerous pasts. 

Like Toto, Radar is the emotional heart of the story, but unlike Dorothy’s return to a familiar home and comfort, Charlie experiences real violence, loss and lingering trauma. 

King peppers other traditional fairy tale references throughout the story, which is narrated by an adult Charlie who has become a professor of folklore. He mentions “Hansel and Gretel,” the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and “Rapunzel.” 

Most intriguingly, though, King, through Charlie, references his own lore. He’s spent more than five decades weaving together the fabric of his own interconnected universe of characters and stories to the point that they, themselves, have become the fairy tales of Charlie’s world. 

“Fairy Tale” calls to mind the story of Dorothy and the yellow brick road, but it also mirrors the gunslinger Roland and his companions—his ka-tet—as they quest to find the so-called Dark Tower in Mid-World to save all of existence from extinction. “The Dark Tower” series is an epic tale spanning eight novels, one novella and even a children’s book published between 1982 and 2012. 

It’s “Fairy Tale” on steroids—and way darker. 

The physical Dark Tower represents a connection to an infinite number of worlds, which is why, presumably, characters and references from this central franchise pop up regularly throughout other King books. Roland’s foe, Randall Flagg, first appeared in his 1978 novel “The Stand” and later in “The Eyes of the Dragon” (1984). It’s also possible the characters of Raymond Fiegler in “Hearts in Atlantis” (1999) and Richard Farris in the “Gwendy’s Button Box” trilogy are just different versions of the Flagg character. 

(Fun fact: In his introduction to “The Stand,” King said he “always thought Robert DuVall would make a splendid Randall Flagg” if the book were ever to be adapted. Alas, that never happened, but Jamey Sheridan and Alexander Skarsgard portrayed him in the 1994 and 2020 miniseries of “The Stand,” respectively. Matthew McConaughey played the role in the 2017 “The Dark Tower” film.)

There aren’t many explicit references to “The Dark Tower” series in “Fairy Tale,” though at one point Charlie mentions a quote his father read in a book: “Long days and pleasant nights.” This is a greeting frequently used by Roland and other figures in Mid-World in what’s described as “high speech.”

High speech is a sort of ritualized language used by Roland and other gunslingers, calling to mind the courtly language of Arthurian legend. 

What’s intriguing about this reference to high speech, though, is when you consider the book Charlie’s father got this quote from. Does his father exist in our world, and at some point he read Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series? Or does he exist in some other world where gunslingers and their way of speaking are a cultural mainstay the way the knights of the round table are for us? 

In any case, when we finally get to see “Fairy Tale” on screen, it’s sure to make for a visually stunning and epic story, like any good fairy tale. 

About the writer

Danielle Haynes is the co-founder and co-editor of Booked & Screened, covering book-to-screen adaptations, film and TV development. She and her cousin have a shared affinity for Stephen King, whose books on audio have accompanied them on hundreds of miles of road trips.