Lady Churchill`s Rosebud Wristlet #24

Lady Churchill`s Rosebud Wristlet #24

The 24th issue of this small press magazine doesn`t seem to taste hard science fiction fans: in this issue they will not see any spaceships or time travels or people of our time in world of 5-headed lizards. Epic\s&s fantasy fans`ll throw up their hands (or winkle their noses): the descendants of Conan and the royal families can not be found in the issue as well. The authors of the magazine write strange and ordinary (but not trivial-and-boring) prose at the same time (we call it so to avoid the word “mainstream”), but with the addition of the fantastic - more fantasy - elements. Even if you read the story about the other world - it's like our world.
I called the magazine small wittingly: stories, filling the magazine, are too small in size. There are, unfortunately, weak stories, mainly flawed by the fragmentary, incomplete, and there are those that are good, like jokes, but to call them stories is difficult.

Among the unequivocal successes is «Dusking» by Liz Williams. Light and elusive tale, like a moth, which fill this story. The girl, who lives with his aunt, dreams about dusking, but her aunt is strict to her and she does not allow the girl much. But here comes a young man from the family friend, who can be trusted to go with her niece at the evening, and the aunt can enable her to go dusking. But this is a little girl, she wants to know the unknown. Amazingly beautiful - and somewhat terrifying - story about what happens if a person is a long time to be kept in captivity.

In quite another way, but with the same emotional, Jasmine Hammer works. She showed itself in the story «Tornado Juice» not only like a wonderful teller, but also an original humorist. The girlfriend of the protagonist of the story Kaiko has the most beautiful hair in the world. With this the narrator begins his story. More than that - with their help, wrapped a lock of hair around his head, he can travel between the worlds. Worlds, however, are all somehow a bad lot: in one of the worlds people are squat and hairy, with their very long hair trailing on the ground. In the second world there are no people, whereas in the third winds constantly blow and tornadoes occur. The habit of the protagonist to lock himself in the toilet comes to travel to other worlds, but as well can lead to not the best consequences for him. Briskly written narrative, which to the original idea adds more thoughts about the complexity of human relationships.

Weaker than these two, but, nevertheless, also a good story «Superfather» by J. W. M. Morgan continues the issue. The story, as true as indicated by the title, is dedicated to the father of the family. Dad is really an odd one: participate with a set of sculptures in the exhibition "World Peace", offers his plan how to survive after a nuclear winter to the president, can not talk to family members for months, and then for some reason makes the refuge in his workshop. The son of superfather watches extinction of his father, but do seem to do nothing. A sad story about fathers and children, and that not everything can change, and whether you want to change that?

This LCRW issue is worth reading at least because of these three stories.