Title: Deadtime Stories #17 – Faerie Tale Author: A.G. Cascone, a.k.a. Annette and Gina Cascone Cover Artist: Mark Fredrickson Tagline: This is no tooth fairy!

Introduction

I recall seeing Faerie Tale in a used book store many years ago. I distinctly remember it because the cover artwork caught my eye. Sure, it’s ridiculous, but it’s clearly done by someone with a lot of technical skill. (To be precise, that individual was MAD magazine alum Mark Fredrickson.) For one reason or another, I decided against buying it at the time. When I eventually looked it up on online, the prices were outrageously high.

A few weeks ago, while perusing ye olde Amazon, I noticed that the cost of this book had dipped. I was able to pick a copy for cheap. After making my purchase, the price (temporarily) ballooned to over $800. As of the time when I’m writing this, Faerie Tale is still listed for more than $60.

Now, I realize that these prices were likely determined algorithmically by bots that simply can’t distinguish “obscure” and “valuable” items. Still, this book’s apparent rarity certainly adds a sense of allure to it. Could this book really be worth $800 to any buyer? I started off with such high hopes. …But Faerie Tale may be the worst book I have ever read.

Story review

Colin McKay wakes up late one night, and he can hear breathing. This isn’t abnormal, though. He shares a room with his twin brother, Quint McKay, who has the news anchoriest name in the history of man. Unlike most nights, however, Colin senses another presence in his room. He hears wheezing breaths that seemingly belong to neither him nor his brother. Colin tries to get back to sleep, but this proves rather difficult due to his aching loose tooth. Sadly, his quest for unconsciousness is cut short when he becomes aware of a creature perched on his chest. The being looks to be a small, gray man. Say, that would make for a rather good CreepyPasta…

Strangely, the imp has wings on its back, making it markedly unlike the monsters from the cover. More disturbingly, it wields pliers. The being slowly leans in and pries open Colin’s mouth. This scene concludes chapter one. But it was also the point in which I prayed to the heavens above that the entire first chapter was not, in fact, a dream sequence. Luckily for me, this wasn’t the case.

Our protagonist screams. In turn, this awakens Quint and sends the creature skittering away. In the narrator’s words, Quint “looked blue […] in the moonlight.” Very highbrow, Cascone.

Anyways, Colin plays the situation off cool, telling his brother that he screamed due to a nightmare. His brother gives him the loving advice of, “grow up and shut up.” Psychopath tally: 1. Quint returns to dreamland, leaving Colin to brave the night alone. In an attempt to keep himself awake, Colin retrieves a comic book titled Mighty Man Hunters. Sure. But, despite his best efforts, Colin is unable to avoid falling back to sleep. The next morning, our protagonist learns he is one tooth lighter. Quint teases Colin, saying that the Tooth Fairy took the missing tooth. Colin gives his brother the loving advice of, “Drop dead.” Psychopath tally: 2. Both of their parents, who are within earshot, seem to approve of such banter. The conversation drifts to Quint’s final baby tooth, which he refuses to get pulled.

Cut to midnight, and blood pours from Quints mouth as he mourns a missing muncher. His parents rush to his aid, but they don’t understand how a tooth that wasn’t even loose could have gone missing. In place of proper parenting, Mr. McKay chalks the situation up to “twin empathy” twin magic. When the boys are alone, Quint confides in Colin. According to Quint, a bizarre creature extracted his tooth using pliers. The boys secretly plot a plan of defense. They know that they can’t tell their parent. Their parents would never believe in something as silly as monsters (unlike twin magic, which is real). Before going to bed, our heroes gear up, equipping themselves with flashlights, nets, bug spray, and baseball bats.

After pretending to be asleep for a while, a “fairy” creature shows up. Colin douses it in bug spray, causing the creature to frantically writhe. Shortly thereafter, the boys’ room is invaded by a herd of fairies—is that the proper terminology?

After some Google churning, source “FairyCaravan.co” tells us that a group of fairies may be called a charm, a frizzy, a flutter, or a frolick. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be referring to this gathering as a frolick.

The frolick aggressively swarms the brothers, swiping at the duo. Suddenly and without warning, the fairies all disappear, and the brothers discover that they now have bald spots atop their heads. It’s explained poorly, but they lost patches of hair in the kerfuffle. For a while, I couldn’t tell exactly how they had lost their hair. Is it just their genetics? Were they bitten by a fairy, and they’re now doomed to become fairies? In retrospect, zombie fairies was a dumb idea, but it got me thinking about how this story would end. I predicted that the boys would become fairies by the end of the book.

The boys find a poetic letter left by the frolick. In it, the beings—who address themselves as “faeries”—urge the boys to venture into the local woods if they wish to find peace. Very Romantic. The letter also lent credence to my “they will turn into fairies” theory. In chapter eight, the boys spend about two full pages trying to deal with their baldness. (Sadly, the most real thing that’s happened so far.) Eventually, the boys sneak off to the library and read up on all manner of folklore, but they don’t find anything pertinent. They conclude that venturing into the woods late at night is their only option. When night falls, the brothers sneak out and wander into MacArthur Woods.

As Colin and Quint traverse the forest, they find a sign that reads, “Reject Ridge.” This marker distinguishes a defining point in the story. After this sign passes, the story becomes far more difficult to explain. Our protagonists bumble across two kids sleeping by a tree, accidentally waking them. The mysterious children introduce themselves as siblings Hansel and Gretel Hankel and Gretzel. Quint briefly suggests that the name “Hankel” sounds silly, and Hankel instantly throws Quint to the ground, kicking and spitting at him. (Too bad the “psychopath tally” is only for our protagonists.) Yet, as inexplicably as the fight began, it ends. The kids all bond over their collective lostness and decide to explore the woods together. When the quartet finds a gingerbread cabin in the woods, Hankel and Gretzel have no reservations about digging in. If this all sounds confusing, take comfort in knowing we’re not even halfway done with the book. The house’s witchly owner appears, and she catches Colin and Quint with the intentions of cooking them. Colin and Quint politely suggest that the old witch dine on the other siblings, but the hag chooses our protagonists instead, taking them inside.

The cliffhanger between chapters 11 and 12: Being served icky soup.



The cliffhanger between chapters 12 and 13: The brothers push the witch into an oven. Psychopath tally: 3; technically self defense, but they seem pretty unfazed by the whole ordeal.



The disparity in excitement is jarring. The boys make their great escape, dashing back into the woods. This time, they meet a girl named Blue. She also goes by the name, “Little Blue Riding Hood.” Unlike that other Riding Hood you’ve heard of, Blue is a “funny and confident” teenage girl who wears a blue hoodie instead of a red hood. It’s like something ripped straight from the annals of DeviantArt. The boys accompany the OC to her grandfather’s house. As you probably guessed, there’s a wolf there. As you probably wouldn’t have guessed it eats Quint and Blue. With the help of a nearby woodsman named Big Ed, Colin is able to catch the wolf. Colin whips up a concoction of gross things that he finds lying about, and Big Ed forces the monstrous wolf to down the brew. Subsequently, the creature throws up, freeing Quint, Blue, and Blue’s grandfather. After this, it’s back into the woods for the McKay boys. Again. This might be tangential, but a well known trope among B-rate horror movies is that many of them feature lengthy scenes shot in the woods. And there’s a reason for this. Woods are easily accessible, and they keep production costs low. But this is a book. What’s its excuse? Nevertheless, the boys find an old man in the woods who says that society is filled with “heathens” because of things like MTV. (The second-most real thing in this book.) And his name is Stiltskin’s Rump.

Can I just stop reading this now?

Stiltskin’s Rump accidentally falls into a boiling creek, and the boys brush off the event, saying, “He was a miserable old prune, anyways.” Psychopath tally: 4. Shortly after this, the boys find themselves sinking in a quicksand-like substance. Luckily, the Seven Dwarfs show up… But they are bikers. The dwarfs inform the boys that they are actually sinking in excrement but still agree to help. If none of this paragraph has made sense to you, don’t worry; that’s really how the book is.

After being rescued, the McKay brothers are taken back to the dwarfs’ home and cleaned up. There, Colin rests and has a dream about being a fairy, which led me to feel even more confident in my earlier prediction. The next morning, Colin and Quint get to witness a gang conflict. The dwarfs prepare to face off against a rival gang of brownies, which are a type of elf. But the rival groups don’t use violence. Instead, they battle with their wit. That’s right, we’re talking about insults. The boys finally have a prime opportunity to show off their only talent: insulting others. Psychopath tally: 5. The boys make quick work of the brownies, firing besmirchments so intense that the brownies are sent fleeing. As an act of gratitude, the dwarfs point the boys towards the hill where the faeries reside. The boys say goodbye to each of the dwarfs and walk to the faerie’s hill.

“[W]e’re here. Now are we going to make peace or what?”

— Absolute diplomacy, courtesy of Quint.

Upon arrival, Colin and Quint are shrunk down and introduced to the Faerie Queen, who presents the boys with two dolls. The empress explains that the dolls are former versions of the brothers. Apparently, the twins are changelings, a type of faerie raised as a human. Now that the faeries have collected all of the brothers’ baby teeth and some of their hair, they can perform the spell necessary to change the boys back into faeries. Once they become faeries, they can live out in the woods, making up new tales that can come to life. The tales that don’t turn out right are shipped off to Reject Ridge. The boys reach new levels of freaked out, so they run away, causing them to return to their normal size.

The protagonists make it back to their home by morning, and they tell Mr. and Mrs. McKay that they make a great family. Once the day is done, the boys go to sleep. When they awake the next morning, they feel pain in their necks. They’ve grown wings! (Called it.) From their window, they see the Faerie Queen. She says that the protagonists were granted an extra night with the McKays, but she beckons the twins outside, asserting that they belong with her.

The verdict

What a frustrating book. I tried to make this summary as concise as possible, so it may be hard to grasp just how much padding there really was. Trudging through chapters 9 to 26 could best be described as torturous. During this span, we see no substantial plot progression, just a long series of contrivances. Characters come and go at random for, presumably, the sole purpose of wasting time. If you were to remove the character “Big Ed” from chapters 28 and 29 (which would be fairly easy), chapters 9 through 26 could be skipped without impacting the reader’s ability to comprehend the plot at all. For a book that isn’t even 130 pages long, the ungodly amount of filler is unforgivable.

This book’s one trick, the revelation of the boys’ identity, is something most readers will pick up on by chapter 7. As for the “twist ending,” I suppose I can’t fault it for being unhappy, as it is a “horror” story (even if it succeeds more in being depressing than horrifying). Though, from the final chapter, we learn that the protagonists were doomed from the very start, completely without choice in their fate. If the boys didn’t need to be in the woods to transform, why didn’t the queen just come to their house in the first place? The book could have been wrapped up by chapter 7!

I hate to make my first review here so negative, but the book really is that bad. I practically grew up on anthology-style horror books, and I struggle to think of even one that could contend with the bloated mess that is Faerie Tale.

Best quote

An early contender was,

“What kind of cheese is this anyways?”

…But that was completely blown out of the water by: