** spoiler alert ** 
 Being a child of the 80s, I can hardly discuss this book without making references to the movie as well. Turns out the first movie is based on the first half of the book, and the second movie (which I've seen only once, mercifully) is very loosely based on the second half, with a stress on "very loosely." 
 As is the case nearly 99% of the time, the book is better, in my opinion. It's certainly richer. One major difference between the movie and book is "The Nothing." The Nothing in the movie is a loud storm taking away parts of Fantasia. In the book, it is much more of a nothing. It's neither dark, nor light. It's not a hole, it's not a barrier. Your eyes are unable to comprehend what they're seeing/not seeing, and so therefore it's as if you had gone blind at that part of your vision. Also, it's silent, which makes it much spookier. Y'all know me; I'm always down for the spooky. The Nothing could be a spot - or several spots - as small as a fist, or take up the entire horizon. If you stick your hand in it, then withdraw it, then your hand is gone. Your arm ends wherever you stopped contact with The Nothing, however you feel no pain. Your hand just isn't there anymore. 
 Another cool aspect of the nothing is that it compels Fantasticans (in the book the imaginary world is called Fantastica, not Fantasia) to jump into it. The closer it gets, the stronger the compulsion. In the movie, everyone was beating feet to get away from it until they were just too tired to run anymore. 
 Let's do a summary. Bastian is a poor fat kid who is bullied frequently. He nips into a bookstore, steals The Neverending Story from cranky Mr. Coreander, hides in the school attic and reads it. It's a story about how The Nothing is destroying Fantastica, and the Childlike Empress is dying. Atreyu is sent to find a cure, he goes through several trials to find this cure (some which are in the movie, and others which aren't. Those that didn't make it into the movie are quite awesome, but the special effects skills of the time probably couldn't have handled some of them (i.e. Ygramul the many. Think of the literal Deus Ex Machina Neo talks to at the end of Matrix Revolutions). Atreyu gets his answers, and a luck dragon, and takes it back to the Childlike Empress. As Bastian is reading this, he sees himself in the story from time to time. 
 An aside: Gmork in the book is awesome, and serves as an explainer for The Nothing. Since Gmork is a werewolf, he is one of the very few creatures that can travel between the human world and Fantastica without any rigmarole. Anyone else has to go through poor Bastian's adventure, or something like it, but that's another story and shall be told in a couple of paragraphs. 
 When Bastian realizes he's reading about himself, he freaks, but keeps on reading. The Childlike Empress tells him please don't make me visit the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, but Bastian is wimpy and she ends up visiting OMoWM anyway. And it is here, ladies and gentlemen, that we find out why The Neverending Story is thus titled. (The movie was never clear on that). But that's a super-spoiler, and necessitates an extremely involved explanation, and is told in the book of that same name, so check it out for yourself. I found the explanation quite satisfactory. 
 Eventually Bastian does what he's supposed to do to save Fantastica (give the Childlike Empress a new name; he chooses "Moon Child..." Dork), and he's brought to Fantastica himself. He's given AURYN (Moon Child's amulet), and the power to wish for anything he wants. This he starts doing, and he goes on a series of adventures which are right up the kids's fantasy alley. This section of the book (the 3rd quarter, or thereabouts), reads like a series of kids's stories, but throughout it we're getting some good character development on Bastian's part. We see him go from timid child hiding in a bookstore from bullies to an arrogant little shit that you'd really just like to bitch-slap until the taste has fallen out of his mouth. With each wish Bastian loses a memory of his former self. 
 Eventually Bastian realizes what a jackass he's being, and tries to find his way back to the Human world. This is a good place to bring up what makes this book so great, and takes it from what would be 2-stars to 4-stars: The cerebral aspect. This book does some really nice mind bending, or at least it did for me. However, it's not mind bend overkill. The parts concerning The Nothing, the Childlike Empress, The Southern Oracle, Gmork, Grograman the Many Colored Death, The Old Man of Wandering Mountain, The City of the Old Emperors, and to some extent Morla, Dame Eyola, and Yor the Picture Miner are all involved in a little bit of mental Tom-fuckery concerning the link between Fantastica and the real world that is a pleasure to think about, especially for an overgrown imaginative child like me. This stuff will hardly keep me up at night, but I thoroughly enjoyed the journey at these parts. 
 If I may be so bold as to offer an opinion in my own summary, one thing I would like to point out is that I think the Childlike Empress is a complete bitch. She calls people to her land, tells them "say my name, save me and our world," they do it, then she gives them her power, tells them to rebuild Fantastica with their wishes, and she goes away never to be seen by those people again. And giving people like that nearly innumerable wishes in a fantasy world is like giving a junkie a nearly unlimited fix. As the people wish, they lose their memory, and the majority of them end up complete dumb and mute dunces in a city built especially for them. Very few make it out. And she don't even care. "Well, thanks! I just saved you and your piddly little made-up world, and you're gonna jerk me around like that?" Yes she is. 
 One last thing. This threw me for a loop due to the difference in language from when this book was written to now; a mere 31 years. At one point a bunch of creatures join Bastian's entourage, one of which was "a stag with golden antlers who walked erect and wore a Prince Albert." I believe I stared at this sentence for a solid minute when I first read it wondering what it could possibly mean. The initial image that sprang to mind was quite alarming. I knew that "Prince Albert" must mean something other than what it means today in common slang, and it does. Turns out it's a type of coat worn in the 1800s, or thereabouts. But that's another story and shall be told another time.