{"id":15182,"date":"2016-01-15T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2016\/01\/15\/15182.html"},"modified":"2016-01-15T09:37:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T17:37:00","slug":"sh-flashback-valiant-on-the-wi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2016\/01\/15\/sh-flashback-valiant-on-the-wi\/","title":{"rendered":"SH Flashback: “Valiant on the Wing,” by Chris Szego"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I noted last week<\/a>, I've embarked on a weekly Strange Horizons<\/cite> retrospective. The format of this entry is the same as last week: I'll link to a story, then provide a brief non-spoilery description, then add some further discussion after a spoiler warning.<\/p>\n

This week's Strange Horizons<\/cite> Flashback story:<\/p>\n

\n
“Valiant on the Wing<\/a>,” by Chris Szego<\/dt>\n
I'm having a hard time describing this in a way that will make it sound as compelling as it is. It's a slow, quiet sort of story: a family of siblings, grieving a loss of their own, nurses a lost young woman back to health. But it's lovely. I cry every time I read it; there's sadness in it, but also healing. Published in 2008. (4,300 words)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

SPOILERS FOLLOW<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

I find this story lovely and sweet, despite the sad backdrop. And I love the way that it retells Snow White from an unexpected point of view, and gives the seven siblings a backstory. The first time I read it, I completely missed the descriptions of Letty that mark her as Snow White: the “skin pale as snow,” the “Black and white and stained with red.” I even missed her name: Bianca Scarlett Ebonie, white red black; des Neiges, of snow. But that was fine, because there's more to the story than that. For example, I love the portrayal of Letty: smart, skillful, charismatic, very socially adept, patient, willing to do hard physical labor. And I love the portrayal of Larke: quiet, observant, grief-stricken.<\/p>\n

I feel like at the core of the story, it's about grief and loss and healing (“we hadn't smiled often since . . . well, since.”), and particularly about the ways that people can help each other to heal. “We were no longer seven who should have been nine. We were eight, bridging that awful gap.”<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I noted last week, I’ve embarked on a weekly Strange Horizons retrospective. The format of this entry is the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-stories","category-strange-horizons"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}