Joan Aiken

"Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won't let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you'd checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark"--

Selected Strange Stories

The People in the Castle

Mark Wadley

I started reading this collection as soon as it came in the mail and it felt like I had just opened every window in my house on a perfect fall day (maybe because that’s also what I actually did). I hadn’t read any of Aiken’s work previously, but a cool drawing of a castle and a Kelly Link introduction go a long way for me. I expected a bunch of seasonably spooky stories, but I got something different and better than that.

These are definitely stories in the strange tales vein, but with way more emphasis on true strangeness than the horror structures that typify the genre. Almost all of these could be horror stories, but Aiken always swerves into something more intimate — even heartwarming. Even the dark endings are funny or emotionally satisfying — villains get theirs, the lost find their way, death comes and isn’t so frightening.

They’re still weird stories, though, truly imaginative and evocative, each story with its own bizarre world peeking through every lovely sentence. The writing is impeccable — clear, concise, accessible but still beautiful. What a great book.

The People in the Castle Selected Strange Stories

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