Joan Aiken is best-known for her Wolves of Willoughby Chase alternate history series, but she also wrote short stories, plays, and poems. Most of her short fiction has some supernatural elements—perhaps not surprising for a lifelong fan of ghost stories who wrote a novel based on a haunting supposedly experienced by Henry James and E.F. Benson.
Kelly Link’s Small Beer Press has published two collections of Aiken’s short fiction, including The People in the Castle. Several of the stories in this collection are united by an atmosphere that reminded me of classic folktales. The title story puts a new spin on the age-old tale of a protagonist who marries a not-quite-human partner, loses them by violating a rule, and then must go on some sort of quest to get them back. In “The Dark Streets of Kimball’s Green,” a child’s make-believe game of knights and druids may have more reality than her bullying stepbrother expects. “Hope” features a woman who manages to get the better of humankind’s oldest adversary. If you distill “The Man Who Saw the Rope Trick” down to its bare bones, it’s a morality play of the kind often featured in old stories, with long-suffering people finding an escape from their circumstances while unpleasant people meet with an unpleasant fate. But it’s not one-dimensional or boring: Aiken makes the story pop with vivid imagery and makes the reader feel for the characters.
Aiken masters a range of tones in her work. “Old Fillikin” features a menacing creature that put me in mind of M.R. James’s “Casting the Runes,” while “She Was Afraid of Upstairs” maintains a wonderful sense of creeping dread. By contrast, “Lob’s Girl” is a heartwarming story that will make you think someone’s cutting onions in the next room. Finally, “A Room Full of Leaves,” with its young protagonist in a huge, rambling house, is reminiscent of Mervyn Peake’s surreal novel Gormenghast. One story even includes definite science fictional elements, though I won’t say which one to avoid spoilers.
Aiken’s short stories are well worth reading, and it’s nice to see them getting such a good showcase. (LeVar Burton featured one of the stories from this book on “LeVar Burton Reads”!) Whether your tastes in speculative fiction run toward the fantastical, the science fictional, the eerie, or the outright horrific, you’ll find something to enjoy here.
Outside of a Dog 