Ekaterina and the Firebird by Abra Staffin-Wiebe
My rating: 3/5 cats
my triumphant return to the free tor short!
i have mixed feelings about this one. i absolutely loved the beginning of it—i thought it was incredibly atmospheric and it really reminded me of the bardugo tor shorts which are far and away my favorite ones so far.
this one is about a protected russian girl named ekaterina who, on the eve of her 14th birthday, spies the mythological firebird outside her window in the dead of night, and follows it in order to receive the good fortune brought by the touch of its shadow.
there are some truly lovely descriptive passages
The Firebird settled onto a branch just out of her reach and cocked its head to consider a wizened, twisted apple hanging nearby. Ekaterina smelled smoke, but although the Firebird’s feathers were made of flame, the tree did not burn. Heat caressed her face like the summer sun.
but then there is a reveal, and the story turns into something else, and i think it’s handled a little clumsily. View Spoiler » it tries to address a huge topic—whether gender is determined by nature or nurture, and kind of thinks it over quickly and declares: nurture! enter magic, problem solved. which is a little glib and borderline offensive in its dismissal of the situation—i feel like the reality of the transgendered struggle should be handled with a little more thoughtfulness and given more sensitive treatment, whatever the conclusion. when she is forced to reveal herself as the boy she “is,” biologically, her biggest problems seem to be missing the gossip of the kitchen and feeling underdressed and exposed in her male clothes—
She collapsed on the ground, pulled her knees up, and rested her chin on them. She wished for a skirt to bury her face in.
and then it’s just a matter of realizing
She knew what she was not. She was not Ivan. Being a boy felt all wrong. She doubted she’d feel differently even if she’d been raised as a male
and declaring herself to be a girl out loud and then BAM! magical bird grants wish and problem solved. it’s just a little to superficial a treatment, to me. and how was the curse fooled by her being raised as a girl? are curses so easily confused by appearances? these are pretty weak curses. and what was the draught she had to drink each night?? liquid estrogen?? readers need answers!
the following exchange between a reader and the author took place on the thread under the story on the tor page, and i had to laugh.
—And Firebirds in Russian are ALWAYS female. The very noun is inherently female. I can’t even imagine what the masculine form of a Firebird will be. Using “He” to refer to one threw me off even more than the names.
-@tnv—Thank you for clarifying those points! I do try to research as much as possible, but it’s so easy to miss details when setting a story in someplace other than one’s birth-culture (and even then….). I am vexed by getting the Firebird’s gender wrong; the translation I used only referenced the Firebird as an “it.”
acknowledge the irony, please! « Hide Spoiler
so the story definitely wins points for creating a great fairy tale mood, but i think it should have either stayed away from tackling the Big Important Topic, or spent more time developing it so it had a little more weight. i will keep my eyes out for more by her, free or otherwise.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/01/ek…
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