James Nicoll Reviews

2025’s Foxfire, Esq. is an on-going legal drama web-novel by Noa (October).

Naomi Ziegler used to be an unwilling superhero, Foxfire. Naomi Ziegler is now a lawyer. Therefore, Naomi is the logical choice when her employer, Bierman Viskie & Schotz, is retained for a case involving a superhero.

A wrongful death case.

Widow Destiny Banks was at work when fire broke out in her apartment building. Her two sons, Jerome and Elijah, were at home. Both fire and emergency services and a superhero named Barricade responded to the fire. Despite this, both boys died.

Superheroes being commonly regarded as paragons of morality and efficacy, the temptation is to blame Barricade for overlooking the two boys. However, there are at least two reasons why that approach is suboptimal. The most obvious is that that Barricade didn’t start the fire, nor is there really any reason to think Barricade was negligent. If some action or lack thereof by a laundry list of people (ranging from the building super to the tenement owners) led to the fire, then those people are the ones legally responsible.

The other reason to go easy on Barricade is because the American government reserves the right to abuse superheroes (or as they are now called, ​“Moonshots”). Americans who manifest powers have the choice of never using them, going to jail, or being drafted by the National Moonshot Regiment. Barricade chose the third option. The NMR will bring its considerable resources to bear if Barricade is blamed, whereas they might well have been allies if the case had focused on someone else.

Step one in Ziegler’s legal strategy is gathering all of the documents relevant to the case. Perhaps a smoking gun (or entire armory of smoking guns) will turn up. Zeigler touches base with the NMR. Bad luck there, as the NMR senior functionary with whom Zeigler must deal, Megan Annie Barnes, already has a grudge against Zeigler.

But there’s some compensation for this minor setback. The corporate defendants (William C. Smith & Co., Property Management Solutions, Inc., Columbia Construction & Contracting LLC, Mr. Miguel Arroyo, a D.C. Housing Authority property inspector) have made a poor choice of lawyers, selecting a team whose skillset is suited for intimidating poor people into settling and not for dealing a determined foe like Banks and her legal team.

Thus, plaintiff Banks, lead counsel Zeigler, and the rest of her Bierman Viskie & Schotz can expect concerted resistance, but with the prospect of eventual victory over the defendants. Unless, of course, something happens to make the entire case moot.

~oOo~

Why did I read this work just now? Because Charles Stross mentioned it on Bluesky.

I couldn’t work out how to cram a description of Zeigler into the above. Sorry. She is a Moonshot. Her talents include pyrokinesis¹ and teleportation. She also has fox ears and a long tail. Everyone who looks at her knows she is a Moonshot.

Having played many superhero roleplaying games in my time, I was intrigued to see an issue I’d wondered about, which is what happens to the expectation of privacy when there are people who can eavesdrop on conversations a football field away? We get an answer for that, as it applies to lawyers in a courtroom.

By their nature, superhero stories require suspension of disbelief. For example, one has to accept for the sake of this story that the US has a functioning legal system, not judicial Calvinball². Otherwise, none of the courtroom drama would matter, because the outcome would depend on who can best bribe the supreme leader and his pals.

That said, the story makes clear the difference between ​“functioning” and ​“pleasant,” particularly where persons unloved by those in power are concerned. Legal outcomes still depend on the race of the people involved, not to mention logical pathways that require axioms peculiar to lawyers to follow. Still, this is probably better than resolving things by throwing cars while setting people on fire.

So, the obvious catch here is the phrase ​“on-going.” Author Noa (October) has shown an impressive writing speed, especially since various details in the story make me suspect they may well be a lawyer, with the workload that implies. The author has written and posted 79,223 words since their January 6^th debut. The story is as yet unfinished.

Nevertheless, I don’t regret the time invested. The author has a nice hand with characterization — many of the characters, especially the unpleasant ones, are drawn from real life — as well as the skills needed to make a laborious paper chase interesting. My intention was to try a chapter or two, but I ended up bingeing the whole story to date.

Foxfire, Esq. is available here.

1: But not any degree of fireproofing or fire resistance. 

2: America delenda est.

The legal system in this story allows the US government to assume guilt on the basis of someone having superpowers at all. Presumably, this is to facilitate convincing people to join the NMR, but surely the people who came up with the idea have heard of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang?