The oddest thing about "Faerie Tale" is that it won't go away. I have read it perhaps four times in since I first came upon it in 1994, but that doesn't matter; it pops back into my head all the time. It simply echoes in my subconscious.
When the real world collides with the Faerie in this story, all Hell breaks free. Innocents encounter Evil, complacency covers rot, greed lies at the bottom of it all, and it makes for a simply great read with well-drawn characters and unavoidable consequences. It's a story you must truly tear yourself away from if you're interrupted.
Woven into its fabric are legends and lore - both the stuff of dreams and nightmares. There's the Blacksmith and Pan, Tam Lin and Midsummer's night, the Faerie Queen and the Erl-King. Not only is the scholarship excellent, the weaving of these aged tales into the fabric of the story is seamless and satisfying.
I searched out more of Feist's work after reading this book, but the Riftwar sagas aren't to my taste. "Faerie Tale" stands alone, to my great sorrow. My copy has been lent countless times to adults and young adults, and always returned with a "Wow!" Its battered cover is currently swathed in duct tape; its pages splayed out - and still it disappears from my shelves - but never my mind.

I am a lover of Faerie, of fae, of enchantment, in its purest forms in literature, and I seek it out in poetry, prose, and song, modern tellings and old folk tales. And, I think that Raymond Feist did an admirable job capturing the uncapturable essence of faerie. John Crowley may have done it better in "Little, Big", although that sense of Faerie was a little too far away for my taste: Raymond brings it home, the wonder and terror of the world of fairie, the non-chalant, whimsical evil and good of these creatures, and I felt enveloped in this world. Ultimately, it made being human seem pretty cool, too.
I've read it 3 times now, over the last 15 years, and will continue to do so.

Not an exhaustive review, but someone needed to plug this great story!