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Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Summary: Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 2004
This continues to be the premier little "'zine" of the SF field. With last year's issue #13 LCRW experimented with a move upscale: that issue was perfect-bound instead of saddle-stapled, and the cover stock is of higher quality. They also announced a move to thrice-yearly publication. But issue #14 was back to the good old saddle-stapled cardboard-covered standard -- and they rather archly backed away from any notion of 3 issues a year! Indeed, it appears that issue #15 will be a bit late and will not appear until 2005. So, I'll do this summary right now, of only the one issue.
This one issue was rather thick, with 13 stories, one of them a novelette and five short-shorts. Just about 40,000 words of fiction. And the usual intriguing mix of poetry and (often offbeat) nonfiction.
Another strong set of stories. The highlights were Deborah Roggie's "The Enchanted Trousseau", a very well done traditional fantasy about a mother trying to protect her daughter from a unsavory suitor; Devon Monk's silly and fun "Beer with a Hamster Chaser", in which a scientist tries to arrange his sister's love life with a hamster-powered machine; and Matthew Latkiewicz's "Felix Soutré, Puppeteer", about a puppeteer who just may be able to control the audience as well as his puppets. Other stories by the likes of James Sallis, Jay Lake, and Douglas Lain were also fine.
