Paula Guran Reviews The Deadlands, The Sunday Morning Transport, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

The Deadlands 4/23
The Sunday Morning Transport
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 11/22

The standout story in The Deadlands #24 is Katie McIvor’s “Things We Did by the Wind­mill”. Even though Edith is dead, she shows up as usual to share the protagonist’s life. Edith eventually departs but she leaves something that, like Edith herself, must eventually be given up.

E.L. Chen’s “Mother’s Teeth” in The Dark #94 concerns young Noah, a boy haunted by his dead mother’s teeth. Chen perfectly captures the child’s mind as he tries to cope with grief and how to appease the ghost. Also in #94: F. Brett Cox’s “The Leaves Dead Are Driven” – a nicely written story that slowly turns quite disturbing as it unwinds.

Most all of The Sunday Morning Transport’s stories warrant reading. Among the most worthwhile are William Alexander’s “The Phoenix-Feathered Hat”, a short and sweet SF tale about a poet, a parrot, and a research station AI; Marie Brennan’s “At the Heart of Each Pearl Lies a Grain of Sand”, a story about stories and a husband who keeps a promise; and Rick Wilber’s “To the Mean”, an appealing and unusual time-travel story.

Three other stories are of particular merit. In “Those Hitchhiking Kids” by Darcie Little Badger, death doesn’t extinguish “the urge to travel without aim, although it made the process trickier, more frustrating” for Corey and Jimena. A singular story about wanderlust and the fate of humanity. James Patrick Kelly’s distinct and intelligent “The In-Between” com­bines steampunk goggles, art, and space-time. In Karen Lord’s “A Timely Horizon”, each person has a seed that grows into a unique tree. Small groves connect to community forests. Humanity’s “thoughts, hypotheses, discoveries, and breakthroughs” become part of the ecosys­tem. People learn “how to view all the lives that have been given” to them where they “can see both who and where we are, have been, and will be.” A deep-thought story worth pondering.

All of the nine stories in Lady Churchill’s Rose­bud Wristlet #46 are capably executed, but for me four stand out. Carla, in “True Songs of the Pennyrile” by Mark Rigney, loses her new husband in an automobile accident. As he dies, she attempts to sing him a song, but it is, she feels, the “wrong” one. Carla spends the follow­ing three years learning to play every musical instrument she can and finding a new life in music. Touching and well told.

A.B. Young’s “Terracotta Urn” introduces us to Lo, who works at a funeral home. As a burial option for the bereaved, she plants deceased hu­man’s ashes. Sometimes ghosts grow. The potted ghosts prove to be a hit, but they complicate Lo’s life – especially the ghost of Anthony, with whom she develops a relationship. Imaginative and poignant.

“Goodnight My Love. Tonight’s the Night” by Chris Kammerud is another effective and sentimental story about a time-traveling attempt to avoid the pain that love, or not enough of it, can cause.

In S.E. Clark’s evocative “The Fisherman’s Braid”, adolescent Michelle’s mother has run away again, and she’s staying with her cousin Sandra’s family. The girls discover an unusual sea creature – both monster and miracle. Just as her missing mother once aided stranded ocean animals, Sandra feels compelled to help it.

Recommended Stories

“Those Hitchhiking Kids”, Darcie Little Bad­ger (The Sunday Morning Transport 4/2/23)

This review and more like it in the June 2023 issue of Locus.

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