{"id":6642,"date":"2023-04-07T12:57:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T12:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6642"},"modified":"2023-04-07T12:57:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T12:57:57","slug":"the-burning-girl-by-carrie-vaughn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6642","title":{"rendered":"The Burning Girl by Carrie Vaughn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Burning Girl<\/em><\/strong> by Carrie Vaughn (Beneath Ceaseless Skies<\/em> #340, 7th<\/sup> October 2021) opens with three knights arriving at an abbey, and a teenage girl called Joan being brought before them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[One] of the nuns ran back to the hall and returned with an unlit candle, one of the big beeswax ones used to light the chapel sanctuary. I knew what this meant: these knights had demanded a demonstration. At the sight of that candle, I nearly cried. I did not understand, did not want to understand, but I knew what was happening.
Ursula held the candle to me. \u201cYou must show Sir Gilbert what you are.\u201d
\u201cMother Abbess, you said that I must never\u2014\u201d
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d
\u201cBut you said that I would be damned\u2014\u201d
\u201cJoan! If you do not do this for Sir Gilbert, the Norman army will destroy the abbey and all of us with it. Please.\u201d
Mother Ursula did not have to beg for anything, particularly not from a low-born novice placed here out of charity and fear. A scrawny, awkward novice, coifed and shrouded in threadbare gray and carrying the Devil\u2019s spark. But she begged now.
I held the candle before me where the Normans could see it. Its weight was potential; the wick beckoned. Already the spark rose up under my skin. Mother Ursula could not put a candle in my hand and expect I would do nothing.
I touched the wick. The candle lit, a tongue of fire flaring and settling.
\u201cMon Dieu.\u201d This was whispered by the wiry, chestnut-haired man standing to Sir Gilbert\u2019s right. The nuns made the sign of the cross.
Sir Gilbert smiled.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Joan leaves with the Sir Gilbert and the other two and, when they get back to his camp, she sees that he has gathered several other paranormals into his company: Ann (who was one of the two \u201cknights\u201d with Gilbert) can split the ground; Isabelle can control the weather; Ibrahim can talk to the birds; and Felix can run very quickly. The next day they travel to see William (the Conqueror) and, when Joan is presented to him, she spectacularly demonstrates her powers by setting a nearby haycart ablaze. This leads to William giving Gilbert and the paranormals the task of taking the city of York.
The last section of the story details the battle at York and (spoiler) their eventual victory. Then, afterwards, William\u2019s men attempt to kill Gilbert and the others because of the threat they pose. However, after the group fight off the attack, Gilbert goes to see William and gets a reprieve and land in Wessex.
This is a readable enough piece but it is essentially the Norman Conquest redone with superheroes, and, like most superhero tales, the story has a number of overfamiliar elements: (a) misfits bond with other misfits; (b) there is lots of fighting; and (c) there is little sense of peril for the reader as it seems fairly obvious that the group\u2019s powers will deliver them to safety. And, when that fails, William can always change his mind at the end of the story.
Not a bad piece, but it is somewhat formulaic and consequently a little uninvolving.
** (Average). 10,650 words. Story link<\/a>.

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The Burning Girl by Carrie Vaughn (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #340, 7th October 2021) opens with three knights arriving at an abbey, and a teenage girl called Joan being brought before them: [One] of the nuns ran back to the hall and returned with an unlit candle, one of the big beeswax ones used to light […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[113],"tags":[17,50,408,114,1563,7,1561,1562,1431],"class_list":["post-6642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-carrie-vaughn","tag-17","tag-50","tag-beneath-ceaseless-skies","tag-carrie-vaughn","tag-norman-conquest","tag-novelette","tag-paranormal-powers","tag-pyromancer","tag-superheroes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6642"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6659,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642\/revisions\/6659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}