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Women in Horror Fiction: Joan Aiken– Give Yourself A Fright

Joan Aiken, born September 4, 1924, was a British author well known for her children’s novels (especially for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase), but she also wrote excellent short stories, and fiction for teens and adults. While her work could be fantastic (as it is in the Armitage Family stories) and subversively funny (such as the tales of Arabel and Mortimer, her raven)  her writing for all three audiences often contained dark, Gothic, or supernatural elements.

Can you tell that I love Joan Aiken?

I have enthusiastically read everything of hers that I have found since I first read her A Necklace of Raindrops, when I was about eight years old. Which is not to say I have read everything she’s written. The book she’s probably most well known for is her Gothic historical fantasy for middle graders, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, but that was published in 1962, and she continued to write for the rest of her life. Although she died in 2004, her works are actually still being published (The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, from Small Beer Press, was released as recently as 2011). A review from Bookslut, quoted on Small Beer’s website, compared Aiken to Shirley Jackson.

Because Aiken is mainly identified as a children’s author, it’s quite possible that you have never considered reading her work. But if you love ghost stories, Gothic atmosphere, and tales both disturbing and enchanting, you should.

In a blog post on Aiken’s short fiction, Jed Hartman notes:

…In general, Aiken doesn’t much distinguish between stories for children and stories for grown-ups…  And it’s often hard to decide whether to class a given Aiken story as a kids’ story or a grown-ups’ story, which is all to the good. Almost all of the best children’s books — from Alice onward — can be enjoyed by adults as well.

Ready to give yourself a fright, Joan Aiken style? Here’s the official Joan Aiken site’s  list of books specifically with supernatural themes. And here’s the complete biblography, just in case you get carried away.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

It’s Elementary: Sherlock Holmes in the Horror Genre

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most beloved characters in fiction. He’s not particularly lovable, or even likable; in fact, he’s a depressed, drug-addicted, arrogant, misogynistic, obnoxious know-it-all. Even his  creator tried to kill him off. There’s just something about him that draws people to read about Holmes and his faithful chronicler, Watson, and to visit and revisit the characters. Holmes can’t be contained to just the stories Arthur Conan Doyle wrote anymore, most of which are now in the public domain. He belongs to his readers, the visitors to Baker Street.

 

Or does he?

 

The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle approached the publisher of the soon-to-be-released anthology In The Company of Sherlock Holmes, co-edited by Leslie Klinger and Laurie R. King, and attempted to extract a license fee, threatening to discourage distributors from carrying the book unless the fee was paid. Klinger sued the Conan Doyle estate in federal court, asking for a judgement that Sherlock Holmes and a variety of characters and elements from the Holmesian universe were in the public domain and that reference to them does not require that a license fee be paid to the Conan Doyle estate. The judge mostly agreed with Klinger. You can read that story here.

 

What’s important about this is that people don’t just want to read the original stories. They want new takes. There’s a tradition of Sherlock Holmes pastiches– homages to the Master Detective. Some are very good, and some are a lot of fun to read. And many of these fall into the horror genre. Did Arthur Conan Doyle deserve to profit from his creation? Absolutely. But should his estate be bullying writers and publishers a hundred years later, even after the majority of the stories have entered the public domain? It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s past time to explore characters that just can’t stay in the pages of their original stories, and see what new writers can do. Want to check out some of the horror genre’s takes on the Great Detective?  Here are some possibilities.

 

Victorian Undead  by Ian Edginton, illustrated by Davide Fabbri . Victorian Undead is a graphic novel that collects the comic books for this limited series of  six issues, which pit Sherlock Holmes and Watson against zombies, led by Professor Moriarty. It is followed by Victorian Undead II, in which the duo go up against Dracula. The Monster Librarian, a zombie fan, really enjoyed this series. Be warned, there is a fair amount of gore, which is not exactly a signature of the Holmes oeuvre, so this is probably a better way to introduce a zombie-loving reader to Sherlock than a Sherlock lover to the horror genre.

 

   Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes  edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec.  This is the third volume in a series of anthologies that introduce the supremely rational Holmes to the supernatural and horrific. You can read our review here. Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes and Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes precede this volume in the series. While these books have both excellent and not-so-excellent stories, there are definitely more winners than losers, and there are some fantastic authors included. Gaslight Arcanum includes a fantastic story by Kim Newman. This is a good volume to offer to both Holmes lovers and horror lovers, so if your library doesn’t have it already, you might consider it for its appeal to both mystery and horror readers.

 

   Sherlock Holmes: Revenant by William Meikle. William Meikle grew up in Scotland reading Sherlock Holmes, and you can really tell. Read our review here. It’s not long, but it gets the point across. Again, keeping in mind that you can’t please everyone all of the time, this is a great story appreciated by lovers of both Holmes and the supernatural.

 

  Shadows Over Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes) edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan. Here you’ve got a collection of stories in which Sherlock Holmes and company encounter the gods and creatures of the Cthulu mythos. I am admittedly not a fan of Lovecraft, so I haven’t picked this up, but it’s an intriguing concept and when the two come together in the right way, could make for some really effective storytelling. This might be a way to introduce Lovecraft and Lovecraftian fiction to a new audience– like Sherlock Holmes, the Cthulu mythos has moved beyond the original stories to reach its tentacles out in many directions.

 

The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson by Nicholas Meyer. Nicholas Meyer’s pastiches are considered to be some of the best. Preceded by The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer pits Holmes against The Phantom of the Opera.

 

Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lynsay Faye. Naturally, as a horror review site, we couldn’t leave out Jack the Ripper.  The combination of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper is a tempting one for many authors, so there are quite a few pastiches that take on this theme. Faye’s 2009 debut novel received great reviews, so if you’re looking for a pastiche that pits Holmes against the Ripper, this one is a good choice.

 

  Sherlock Holmes and the Horror of Frankenstein by Luke Kuhns, illustrated by Marcie Klinger. Now, frankly, I don’t know anything about this book, but it appears to be a graphic novel, and just the cover makes me want to open it up. Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes– what a perfect combination! It’s just out, so if you decide to try it out I would love to find out what you think of it.

 

This is not anywhere near the number of pastiches of varying quality out there that you can check out, and I’ve shared just a few of them here (so please don’t feel indignant if I left one of your favorites out). There are many short stories as well, including Neil Gaiman’s excellent “A Study in Emerald”. For more suggestions, you can visit this blog post at Tor.com, which did a project a while back titled “Holmes for the Holidays”.  Enjoy!

 

A List of Lists: Links to Booklists Recently Shared on Facebook

October is a busy month, and it kind of wore me out. One thing I did to make it easier to share some of the great booklists out there during the time that includes Teen Read Week and Halloween was to post them on our Facebook page. Over the past few years we haven’t really posted there very much but it is an easy way for me to post a link to something cool right away when I find it. Unfortunately, our Facebook page doesn’t actually have a lot of viewers, which means that if the only way you get information from Monster Librarian is through our blogs, then you probably missed out on seeing some pretty cool stuff (even if you “liked” our page, Facebook’s evil plan to force us to pay for advertising means our reach isn’t necessarily all that great, so actually visiting every once in a while instead of waiting for us to show up in your news feed is a good way to see what’s going on).

So I thought I’d share some of the links to booklists that I posted there that I don’t think got posted here while I was working on developing original content here. Some of them are pretty cool, and all of them are just a little different.

 

Bewitching Tales: Great Books for Halloween Reads from School Library Journal.

Pretty self-explanatory.

 

The Devil’s 10 Best Appearances in Literature at Flavorwire.com.

I’d argue with some of these choices, but it is an interesting list. Actually, it’s an interesting idea for a list as well.

 

Find Your Next Supernatural Read by Carli Spina at The Hub, the blog for the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

A nice list of YA choices.

 

Horror in YA Literature is a Staple, Not a Trend by Kelly Jensen in School Library Journal.

I love this article. If you are interested in YA at all, read it!

 

Genre Guide: Horror for Teens at The Hub.

It’s really nice to see teen horror get its own genre guide. And about time.

 

Ten Best Halloween Read-Aloud Picture Books for Kids at BookRiot.

There are some nice choices here, and it’s always nice to see the early elementary crowd get some recognition– they love the scary stuff, too!

 

Top 10 Horror Fiction for Youth: 2013 by Gillian Engberg from Booklist Online.

Pretty self-explanatory.

 

Top 10 Horror Fiction: 2013, by Brad Hooper from Booklist Online.

Also self-explanatory. It’s nice to have a summary of good recent titles, though.

 

RA for All: 31 Days of Halloween– Love for Monster Librarian by Becky Siegel Spratford at RA Horror for All.

Becky had a different post on reader’s advisory in horror fiction every day of the month, including a very interesting series of guest posts from the folks at Booklist. I just happened to link to this particular day because I’m proud to be included here, but really, anyone interested in reader’s advisory in horror fiction ought to visit here regularly.

 

10 Novels That Will Scare the Hell Out of You by Julie Buntin at The Huffington Post.

These are all titles that tie into the haunted house subgenre.

 

The Top Ten Horror Stories by Stephen Jones from Publishers Weekly.

Anthologist Stephen Jones, editor of A Book of Horrors, shares his top ten favorite horror short stories.

 

Halloween Reads @ your library from MonsterLibrarian.com

This is not the only original booklist I’ve produced over the last month or so, but it is one that’s directly related to Halloween. I put together new and original content and booklists every year at this time, so it’s worth it to browse not only this year’s archives for October, but past years as well. This list is part of something new I’m trying where I focus on a particular topic or creature (I’ve already touched on The Phantom of The Opera, The Invisible Man, and witches) for a list of books or media that can be used to promote horror through library collections, so look out for the “@ your library” posts for related booklists.

 

Halloween Reading: Joseph D’Lacey’s Top Ten Horror Books from The Guardian.

This is a list of choices made by horror author Joseph D’Lacey.

 

Quiet Horror, Still the Darling of the Horror Genre by Paula Cappa.

Paula writes about a genre of horror that has gone unnoticed for some time and is just recently gaining a little recognition– quiet, or atmospheric, horror. Paula’s blog is a great place to visit for older examples of stories in this genre, but more current titles (like Alison Littlewood’s A Cold Season) are now sneaking into the mainstream as well.

 

5 Must-Read Werewolf Novels from Barnes & Noble.

The werewolf genre is another one where the audience is depressingly underserved. Here are a few titles to give you a place to begin in making suggestions. The essential word there is “begin”.

 

The 5 Scariest Short Stories on the Market!

The title here is misleading, as these are not new stories by any means, but the list does show that quiet horror is starting to get some notice again.

 

13 of the Year’s Creepiest Books from The Book Case at BookPage.com.

This is a list of recent titles, and you’ll probably recognize some of the names.

 

The 5 Creepiest Anime Series of All Time from Geek Magazine.

Yikes. I’ll stick with Fruits Baskets, thank you very much.

 

9 Children’s Books That Absolutely Terrified Us from The Huffington Post.

It’s always nice to see Der Struwwelpeter on these kinds of lists. Well, maybe nice is not the right word. The author here made some interesting choices that I suspect many people may disagree with.

 

10 of the Creepiest Books That Kids Love at Babble.com.

I love this list because it contains books outside the usual suspects, like Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood, a book that I LOVE and used to read aloud in storyhours all the time.

 

Horror Stories: 25 Must-Read Books that Inspired Scary Movies at Complex.com.

Very cool list– the author comes down on the side of “the book is better than the movie”, but either way, I think it’s a win.

 

So there you have it. Lots and lots of links to booklists of all kinds, for children, teens, and adults, from creepy anime to haunted houses. It takes a long time to compile a month’s worth of booklists, so please visit us on Facebook to see what other treasures I turn up!