![]() ![]() The results prove that careful attention to craft raises it to the level of art. She was part of a story-telling tradition that predates MFA programs and quiet epiphanies, and she concerned herself with a snappier brand of narrative entertainment. Aiken started publishing in 1955 and continued as a working writer until her death in 2004, producing over one hundred novels for children and adults along with copious shorter works that appeared in slicks and pulps of both general and genre interest, even employing pseudonyms on occasion. I realize that was an old-fashioned, uselessly anecdotal way to start a review, but it seems apt in this case. It would have been worth suffering a whole swarm of bees - it’s wonderful. Too much information, I know, but I wound up finishing the whole thing in one go. I first picked it up in the middle of the night, hours after being stung by a bee, unable to sleep because my hand was still swollen, painful, and itchy. ![]() I intended to read Joan Aiken’s retrospective collection methodically, one story at a sitting, but that’s not what happened. The reviewer, James Crossley, works for Island Books in Seattle and contributes to Message in a Bottle. ![]()
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