Birthday Reviews: Rosel George Brown’s “David’s Daddy”
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Cover by Burt Shonberg
Rosel George Brown was born on March 15, 1926 and died on November 26, 1967. She participated in the Milford Writers Workshop and in 1959 was nominated for a Hugo for Best New Author (losing to No Award; Brian W. Aldiss and Kit Reed were also nominated that year!)
Brown wrote the novel Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue and a sequel that was published posthumously. She also collaborated with Keith Laumer on Earthblood. Many of her short stories were collected in A Handful of Time.
“David’s Daddy” was originally published in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories in the June 1960 issued, edited by Cele Goldsmith. Judith Merril included the story in The 6th Annual of the Year’s Best SF and Ellen Datlow reprinted it in Sci Fiction on July 2, 2003.
In many ways “David’s Daddy” is a sadly prescient story. It is set in an elementary school where Lillian is a new teacher, learning the ropes from Miss Fremen, who has been there for twenty years. In the process of sharing tips, Miss Fremen also mentions that one of her students, Jerome, seems to have a strange sort of mental telepathy.