Book Review: The Cockatrice Boys

Title: The Cockatrice Boys

Author: Joan Aiken

Date: 1996

Publisher: Tor

ISBN: 0-312-86056-0

Length: 221 pages

Illustrations: black-and-white drawings by Jason Van Hollander

Quote: “[T]he day when the evil invasion of the British Isles first began...was on a wretched rainy Sunday.”

(You don’t have to remember Died on a Rainy Sunday to enjoy The Cockatrice Boys, but remembering adds to the pleasure...)

Billed as Aiken’s first “adult fantasy” novel, this one doesn’t read as more “adult” than the fantastic adventures in her "young adult" books. It’s “adult” because it was published by Tor. For the same reason it’s also been classified as science fiction rather than fantasy, although the monster invasion from outer space is hardly more “scientific” than the use of balloons in the historical fantasy of King James III’s reign. (At least in the nineteenth century there were balloons.)

Whether The Cockatrice Boys is creepier than Bridle the Wind, Return to Harken House, or even The Stolen Lake is a judgment call. In my judgment it’s less creepy. The enemies include entities that answer to names real medieval Europeans once gave to demons they seriously feared, as do the cartoonish tame dragon’s separate heads in Not What You Expected; they can project their voices through humans or objects, but they seem to belong to the cartoon world of bug-eyed monsters on the cover. In Bridle the Wind we can almost believe the mad monk is possessed by real demons; in Return to Harken House, if the narrator isn’t haunted by real malevolent ghosts, we believe she thinks she is; in The Stolen Lake we know nothing like any part of that story happened in our real world, but we are reminded that real people did sacrifice children. I personally vote for Bridle the Wind as the one of Aiken’s books most likely to have given me nightmares if I’d read it during a period of emotional stress in childhood.

Aiken’s whimsical adventures, whether pretty or wacky or creepy, appeal to the same sort of teenagers, young adults, and (admit it) mature adults who like some of Tor’s other books, so why not write a book for Tor, someone must have asked her. The Cockatrice Boys is the Tor book that she wrote. It’s as whimsical as the adventures of Dido Twite but not as pretty, and didn’t sell as well. It’s an enjoyable comedy-melodrama anyway.

In an unlikely near future Aiken’s trademark pair of gifted children, here teenaged cousins Dakin and Sauna, team up with a few congenial older people and save the world from the alien invasion.

There may be a Message, for those who really want one. Thinking you hear secret messages from aliens or supernatural beings is one of the standard symptoms of classic schizophrenia. In the reality of the story, both messages and aliens are real; other people hear the voices in Sauna’s presence, and what Sauna sees through walls and forward in time also tends to be accurate. Her mean, clutter-hoarding aunt is obviously much crazier than Sauna. Nevertheless, early in the story, Sauna agrees that she needs to be tied to a chair, that “meat and bread’d make her too active.” On the team of monster hunters Sauna is capable and courageous (Dido Twite would’ve liked her) but she still hears these things, seems to attract them, and seems vulnerable to their influences, in ways other people are not. Sauna is not schizophrenic, or even really hyperactive, yet she can seem to be a best-case image of Integrating People with Mental Disabilities, Too. If only it really worked like that.

Apart from that The Cockatrice Boys is just another comic adventure, with the smart, tough, yet ineffably girlish girl and the smart, sensitive, yet thoroughly boyish boy who have each other’s backs and can therefore do anything. Just another one, but if you enjoy this kind of book you’ll want to collect them all.

To buy it here, send $5 per book, $5 per package, plus $1 per online payment to the appropriate address at the very bottom of the screen. (See the "Greeting" post for more about how payments work.) At least three more books of this size will fit into the $5 package.