The SF Site Featured Review: Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 7

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 7

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Copies are available by mail from:
Small Beer Press,
176 Prospect Avenue,
Northampton, MA 01060

From their website:
"We recommend you read Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet before submitting. You can procure a copy from us or from assorted book shops.

"We accept fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and black and white art. The fiction we publish most of tends toward the speculative. This does not mean only quietly desperate stories. We will consider items that fall out with regular categories. We do not publish gore, sword and sorcery or pornography. We can discuss these terms if you like. There are places for them all; this is not one of them."

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

A review by Rich Horton

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This is a very nice small press publication put out by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, featuring stories in the general neighbourhood of "slipstream", some quite fine poetry, and "Various Nonfictions," of quite a diverse nature, ranging from music reviews to zine reviews to less easily classifiable (but still interesting) stuff.

I always think story first, at least within the SF field, so let's look at the stories in this issue. The opening piece is a clever short called "High Tea with Jules Verne", by the wonderful Jeffrey Ford. It has a lot of fun with a rather different Jules Verne persona than you might expect. Ellen Klages' "Flying Over Water" is a solid story about an adolescent girl, struggling with her changing body and with her thin mother's expectations for her appearance, who goes on a family vacation complete with snorkeling. While snorkeling, she undergoes a transformational experience. I thought the girl's feelings came through very well, very believably, but I was a bit put off by the ending. "Imenda" is a strange and interesting story by John Trey, about the title woman who suddenly finds herself sharing an apartment, in some strange future, with two other, quite different, women. Quite effective and evocative, almost reminiscent of some John Crowley stories, but I don't think Trey quite succeeds in resolving things. Jeremy Cavin's "My Bet's on Her" is a cute one-liner. And finally, James Sallis, another author I might call "wonderful", appears with the first part of a reprint of his story "Faces & Hands". This part, which really works all by itself, is called "Faces, Hands: Kettle of Stars", and is about a human courier stranded on another planet, and the strange alien woman he meets. A fine story.

I thought the poetry in this issue was very good. There are two poems by Lucy Snyder, and one apiece by G.O. Clark and Dora Knez. The non-fiction is interesting and strange, including an email exchange by Jack Cheng, about looking for an apartment; some reviews; and an interesting and politically pointed mock ad for prisons as cheap housing. Another nice feature is the nearly hidden book recommendations, by Grant and Link.

The physical presentation is modest but perfectly readable, and sensibly inexpensive -- 8.5" by 14" pages folded once, nice clean typeface with no annoying tricks and a playing card stapled to cover. The fiction is worthwhile, as are the other features. I think it well worth $4 an issue, and I'd recommend that you get a copy and check out their website.

Rich Horton is an eclectic reader in and out of the SF and fantasy genres. He's been reading SF since before the Golden Age (that is, since before he was 13). Born in Naperville, IL, he lives and works (as a Software Engineer for the proverbial Major Aerospace Company) in St. Louis area and is a regular contributor to Tangent. Stop by his website at http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton.