Read It Later: Today · 9:56pm May 12th, 2014
Good day friends, acquaintances, and otherwise confused strangers. Today is going to be the start of something special and with a bit of luck, entertaining. I mean that for you all, of course. Not me, because in my ever-developing quest to hate myself, I’ve realized that I’m not reading as much as I used to. It seems nowadays the only way I’ll read something is if it’s thrust into my arms, which is a habit I wish to break. So I’ve decided I need to read more and play World Of Tanks less, and what worse way to go about this than to start a blog series? Specifically, one where I attack my RIL list randomly and review stories? And just to make sure I find this experience exceptionally grueling, I plan to make posts every Monday.
It would also help to know whether or not people like this sort of thing. If not, I’m probably going to give out after a couple more of these and return to Tanking, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. And with that out of the way, and without any further adieu, I give you all this... this thing nobody asked for.
I feel like I should start these with a silly picture. Doesn’t that sound like a neat idea?
Come on, Twilight! Don’t you get the game yet?
Before we begin, there was a minific write-off last week-ish. For those unaware, a minific is essentially a short story under 750 words, and write-offs are meaningless contests to see who can write the best ponyfic in a certain amount of time. One would be surprised by how many truly excellent stories can be churned out during one of these events, and they’re real entertaining to take part in. Anyways, the most recent one revolved around the prompt “One Little Mistake” and Bob From Bottles took away a shiny gold internet point with his wonderful story, A Simple Prank. Everyone’s favorite rambler Chris walked off with silver having written my personal favorite of the bunch, Colticus’s Continuous Caramel Cascade. Both stories are excellent and at under 750 words each, they’re definitely worth spending a short amount of time reading.
Much to my surprise, I actually walked away with third place with my story, Insufficient Postage. I took the time to expand it a bit to just under 1200 words, and it’s now available on FIMFiction for one’s reading pleasure and judgement. Of course, I also congratulate the other contestants on their work. I had fun during this write-off and I certainly plan on sticking around for more in the future. You can find my reviews for this event’s minifics here.
If anyone is interested in taking part in a future event, RogerDodger is the mastermind and curator behind these events and the write-offs are hosted on a fancy main website, which also hosts tons of information pertaining to these write-offs in addition to the events themselves. Simply create an account, and be sure to enable email updates and it helps to join the FIMFiction group for additional details.
In other news, I feel like promoting some other stories, starting with ones I’ve recently edited for. My good friend TheBrianJ’s epic Exit Through Canterlot is nearing its end, with only a chapter or two left to go. Everything is really coming together as the protagonist, an Octavia-turned-Banksy, finds a new love for her new love of painting. Go give it a read, as it’s one of the few stories that pairs Octavia and Vinyl Scratch together and doesn’t make me want to claw my eyes out.
Additionally, RedSquirrel456’s wonderfully rich story The Prince of Dust has recently had its third chapter released. I can assure this story is exceptional because, primarily, it’s a Romance story and I’m enjoying it. That tag usually makes me gag because it’s so often poorly handled, shoehorned into a story for some idiotic reason, and it’s come to be associated with gratuitous amounts of sex. But this story isn’t, and that leads to my second point: it ships Rarity and Braeburn, two characters I hardly ever pay any attention to. But, see, it’s straight shipping, which already pushes it above practically every other pairing.
I should say I do not endorse shipping for shipping’s sake. I think it should not only make sense with details such as character, but be integral to the story’s plot. And besides, friendshipping is totally the best way to pair ponies. I’m looking at you, good sir. You know who you are.
Now, moving on to the only thing people would actually care about. That’s right, it’s time for me to go to finally get some sleep story reviews! I’ve got six this time around, as these are the ones I’ve read this past week, plus an additional four if you count my contributions in the recent Seattle’s Angels review round, number 43. Be sure to check those out in addition to the ones below.
I should probably insert a disclaimer here of some sort. For all intents and purposes, these reviews are independent and therefore unaffiliated with Seattle’s Angels. I’ll also try not spoil the stories in my reviews, but I offer no guarantee. The comments may end up rich with those, however, I don’t know.
With that out of the way, let’s get this show going.
First Contact is Magic
by Eakin
How this ended up on my RIL list: Eakin is a name I’ve seen tossed around countless times, though I can’t say I’ve read any of his stuff previously. So I took a look at his stories and this was the first one to grab my attention. The cover image is cute and compliments the description well. However, while fascinating, the description itself is somewhat childish. But the way it ends with that ellipsis adds an ominous tone that gave me a conflicting impression. Is this story lighthearted or serious? Well, there was only one way to find out.
What I walked away with: A desire to go watch some First Encounters movies and maybe Zathura. The story is pure science fiction through and through and I loved it.
The story follows humanity as a whole rather than the individual, and that’s what makes it so mesmerizing. There’s an almost cliché, alien-obsessed-1950s-like air to it, but stuck in modern times. I almost want to say this story—at least in the beginning—pays homage to Murray Leinster’s 1945 First Contact, and while I can point to some similarities, I’m not entirely sure if it was intentional.
Anyways, we begin with humanity finding an Equestrian satellite, charmingly referred to as “the Beacon”. It’s discovered that Equestria is sending some ponies to Earth (though a solid reason why is never actually given, but that’s beside the point), but the distance between is so large the extraterrestrials won’t be getting to Earth anytime soon. However, Earth and Equestria can talk with each other through the Beacon using some magical, Faster Than Light communications. As the description says, Earth and Equestria quickly become pen-pals, people and ponies start exchanging information about each other, and things spiral out of control. Like, the four horsemen of the apocalypse kind, but with more science and rainbows. Everything becomes more convoluted as we reach the end, and before anyone knows it, Equestria and Earth are more like each other than anyone realizes. Especially the ponies who first set out when they eventually get to Earth.
The tone of the story is what really makes it so engrossing. There’s an ulterior sense of fear throughout, more obvious in the first half, but it becomes chilling at the very end with one, final ominous sentence to top everything off.
It wouldn’t be hard to argue this story is hardly about Equestria as it’s instead an observation of humanity. Equestria is hardly even the focus; we’re barely told about how they change at all compared to humanity’s thousand years of development of the course of the story. I think it’d be really interesting to see a parallel story told from Equestria’s side, or perhaps from the perspectives of the princesses. There’s so much said but so much unsaid and it leaves the imagination to wander, which I find myself adoring.
Afterthoughts: I’m a bit weirded out by where the author took the story in the latter half, and in retrospect, the ponies could have been swapped out with any sort of alien civilization and nothing would have been damaged as a result. Regardless, I did enjoy this and the ending brought everything together perfectly. Those who love science fiction should definitely read this.
How this ended up on my RIL list: The description has a whimsical feeling to it about Carrot Top “learning how to fly” and the cover art appears to be hinting to that. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Derpy / Carrot Top pairing. Those two are simply adorable together, and I recall seeing a post about this story on Chris’ blog about pony rambling at some point. What little I’ve heard about this story had been overwhelmingly positive, and I hadn’t actually read anything by him yet aside from his reviews, so I figured I’d start with this. And, well, over a year later, and after really enjoying his recent write-off entry, here we are.
What I walked away with: Diabetes. Someone call The Stanley Parable, because it looks like their narrator escaped again. Poor Stanley’s probably just sitting there at his computer, alone, hitting buttons on his keyboard, watching letters appear on his monitor and... uh...
Anyways, this story starts off strong with something I haven’t seen a lot of: a narrator who talks directly to the reader and is as much a character in the story as the actual characters themselves. My voice for the narrator quickly became the one from The Stanley Parable because the opening scene very much reminded me of his wittiness. And while I greatly enjoyed his telling of the story, the way certain sentences were phrased made me lost at times. It seemed like the narrator was trying so hard to stay consistent that he ended up coming off as forced and unnatural in some areas. Nothing too major, but considering everything we get in the story is as told through the narrator, it does become a little bit distracting.
The actual story itself is nothing short of delightful. We follow Carrot Top mostly as she goes about her day, constantly being annoyed by her good friend Derpy’s sudden and inexplicable inquiries. Their interactions are adorable and amusing in their own right, but the narrator adds a bit of whimsy to the story that makes it completely enjoyable from start to finish. The ending scene in particular, I think, perfectly captures the relationship between these two ponies.
Something I’m a little confused about is that the focus of the story surrounds Carrot Top going up, but when she eventually does, we hardly see anything about her while she’s up. I can pass this off as the story needing to center on the relationship between Derpy and Carrot Top, not some crazy antics in the sky over Ponyville, but I still feel like there’s a vital scene missing. A sentence or two is all we get to summarize a few hours, and this stark difference in pace makes it sound like the narrator’s grown tired of talking and wants to wrap the story up, which I find detrimental. Because everything in the story is as told through the narrator, this is the one part of the story where he appears to be out of character. The story doesn’t fall flat on its face because of this, and while I can understand why there’s a scene missing, the story is still missing a piece of itself and it does suffer, if only just.
Afterthoughts: I called this story delightful and I think that’s a good word to summarize it. The narrator is unique and enjoyable though unsteady in some areas, and I got a kick out of the cute portrayal of Derpy and Carrot Top. There’s plenty of humor spread nicely throughout and I did greatly enjoy this. It’s definitely worth a read.
A Cold Morning In September
by Aqua Fortis
How this ended up on my RIL list: This author has written two stories so far, this and some other, and the latter was linked in a Skype chat I’m in. I forget what inevitably turned me away from it, but I did see this other one, and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. The description alone made me think of a round-table sort of discussion between the three appointed characters and a journalist, and since it’s implied to take place in the future, my thoughts jumped to a recollection of sorts between the characters where they reflect on how their lives changed “that faithful day”. The cover’s somewhat foggy view of Canterlot coupled with the Sad tag made me think the city suffered a great loss. I mean, like Princess Celestia being stuck down or having a whole section of the city fall off the mountainside.
What I walked away with: An awkward combination of rekindled patriotism, sympathy, and something that looked like food but I accidentally dropped it on the ground.
This story is something special, that much is certain. Rather than a round table, the protagonist (the journalist) goes between three ponies for interviews. The interviews are cut up and mixed together for a logical following of the events as they’re retold by the three ponies, who are Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity. Having the characters’ segments be sequential did help with that. The journalist isn’t some faceless, tactless sack of meat, either. He does have character and walks away with a learning experience from all of this.
The segments themselves are well handled. Each bit of the interviews are cut at just the right moments to evoke a sense of sympathy, almost too perfectly one might say. I did feel the “shocking” moments were a bit too dramatized in some areas, but the whole of the dialogue was fluid enough that they weren’t distracting. In total, this story is written very well and it’s obvious the author knew what they were doing by the emotion poured into it. It wasn’t too predictable, the characters were themselves, and it all played perfectly.
A bit too perfectly.
And this is where I come in and say I wouldn’t recommending this story, or at least say I’d find it difficult to. If the title of the story didn’t give it away, this story is obviously analogous to the September 11th terrorist attacks. During my initial read through, I was oblivious to this information. About halfway through reading, it suddenly registered, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was robbed. The organic narrative and world of the story suddenly became artificial and took away any sort of satisfaction the story had been giving me up until that point, and I no longer felt captured by it.
Another story, The Cellist of Saraneighvo, suffered from this same problem. It has a pony in it and was inspired by real-world events, and it was written well and had great words and stuff, but it was so true to those real-world events that one could easily replace the pony with a human and nothing of value would be lost. The “ponyness” I came into this story expecting was absent, turning this into more of a memorial piece if nothing else.
I liked this story, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable by what it’s trying to do, especially when we consider the topic. Patriotic biases aside, I fall short of recommending it. I’d be more inclined to if it was more obvious to me in the beginning about what exactly I was getting into, so that theft of all gratification hadn’t happened to me midway through. I also tend to be an oblivious twit at times so that could just be my fault.
Afterthoughts: This is a good story, don’t get me wrong. I gave it a green thumb, after all. But the sudden realization halfway through effectively killed my sense of discovery and overall engagement. Now that I think about it, if the story’s parallels were less thick than they are, I could see this working a lot better; for both those who got what this story was about before they even began reading, and for those who would be otherwise oblivious until the very end.
Equestrian Zoetrope
by CanterlotGuardian
How this ended up on my RIL list: I saw this story pop up in the Popular Stories sidebox at some point, and the description gave me high hopes. I mean, Derpy being put in charge of a newly installed “Royal Suggestions Box” is one of the most entertaining ideas I’ve heard in a while. My thoughts immediately jumped to a picture of Princess Celestia doing her best not to snap as a power-entrusted Derpy thought it would be a grand idea the paint the castle polkadot and sell off Prince Blueblood to a foreign dignitary. The potential for shenanigans here is phenomenal, just like what any great comedy should have at its disposal. Twilight’s seal of approval so boldly stickered into the description only further made me hyped.
What I walked away with: Disappointment. Don’t let the story’s description fool you because, sadly, it will. I have three big complaints with this story, all of which had their parts in preventing it from being an enjoyable experience.
First and foremost is the underwhelming characterizations. The only pony we see with any real depth is Luna, and the other three (Celestia, Twilight, and Derpy) are all just different shades of the same color. Early on, Celestia is described as being an irritable grump when she goes without her coffee, which stresses Luna’s mission to have said coffee prepared by the time her sister wakes up. The story begins when she discovers they’re out and they don’t appear to be getting any more soon. So now there’s this big setup here for a grouchy Celestia to do silly things, and we have an idea of how she should act considering the author took the time to tell what happened last time Celestia didn’t get her coffee in a timely manner. Too bad Celestia acts nothing like this past her that was just described. All she does is groggily appoint Derpy—who isn’t even present, I might add—to be in charge of a newly installed suggestions box. (It’s strange how both Princesses happen to know who Derpy is without any prior explanation, but oh well.)
Derpy herself isn’t played the way she needed to be. I give the author kudos for showing her to be competent and not a complete scatterbrain, but for this story to work, she had to be that in scatterbrain role, to be a silly pony who does silly and unpredictable things. Unfortunately, she isn’t, and what’s worse that she seems to be shoehorned into the story, despite the implications that she’d play an integral part. However, Twilight is perhaps the most unnecessary. All she really serves to be is a vehicle to pick up and deposit Derpy at the castle, even though we’re told Derpy was on her way there to begin with.
The second point I’d like to make are about the jokes, or rather the lack thereof. The story is tagged as a Comedy, and while some parts of it are certainly amusing (I did like Luna trying to stall Celestia and the explanations behind the suggestions box), as far as actual comedy goes, it was lacking. One would think that giving Derpy control of that suggestions box would be the meat of the story, but this turns into an utter disappointment and is why I won’t be recommending it: simply put, Derpy does nothing with her new role because the story immediately ends before anything can actually happen.
Everything is “resolved” at the very end in about a page, taking with it all the potential this story had to be something special. At 4100 words and marked complete, perhaps I should have seen this coming, but I knew nothing until I got into the story. The pacing is a bit on the slow side and the focus likes to meander, in addition to some Deus Ex Machina of a spell that lets Twilight and Luna communicate instantaneously over vast distances. Sounds like a great idea, but it robs the story of a golden opportunity: Twilight, on her lonesome, tearing up Equestria in a desperate search to find Celestia some coffee would have been gold, but we hardly see any of her.
As it sits, this story isn’t worth recommending. There is a ton of good ideas in it, and while it is entertaining, those ideas are not used to their potential and are even ignored, which was incredibly disappointing. If the author were to rework the characters and develop the story more, and actually show Derpy using her new royally appointed job with the humorous results it implied, then I’d think the story would be a lot stronger than it currently is.
Afterthoughts: This is a good example of a story with a good idea that was written well but was taken in the wrong direction. The setup is there for something special, but all the great opportunities are missed and left to squander. The ending was like having the curtains being drawn after the first act of a play which made me think, “That’s it?” and made me want my money back. But then I remembered I didn’t pay for this, so I muttered to myself and sulked out of the theater.
Not So Different, You and l
by Dr Atlas
How this ended up on my RIL list: I also found this one in the Popular Stories sidebox. I haven’t yet seen a story involve changelings and breezies, and the adorable cover art quickly grabbed my attention. The description is short and sweet and made me think the story would follow that same tone, and predictably, a changeling trying to fill its quota of love from a breezie.
What I walked away with: Bliss and warm fuzzies masqueraded by pity. This is may not be the best written story, but it isn’t the worst either, and I was able to stomach the wandering prose and lack of grammar. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it’s because it is. But while this train does wreck, there’s a tint to the flames I kind of liked. Not the kind I’d want to roast a marshmallow over, but I didn’t mind sitting around it for a couple minutes. But any longer and I just know I’d have been cooked by radiation poisoning or something.
Setting aside the fluctuating pace, the irregular capitalizations, the misuse of punctuation, the travesty to onomatopoeia, the crimes against syntax, and the senseless butchering of grammar in general, this is an adorable little story. We start off with a wandering changeling, and since this story is told from his perspective, we follow his thoughts, and do they certainly wander. One moment he’s thinking about bugs, and then the next he’s thinking about gender-normative pronouns. The changeling is the protagonist—if you want to call him that—and is, well, a bubbly idiot. He’s starving, lost in a forest and finds a random breezie, thinking if he can catch her he’ll be able to “eat” her love from her.
This is where things quickly go innuendo as they try and figure out who, or rather what, each other are. The characters are quirky and awkward, and I did get a chuckle out of seeing them interact. The comedy is simple and juvenile, and the two characters are real sweet.
But that’s pretty much all I liked about this story: the characters. Even then, the author shows little control over them, and they aren’t enough to make up for the, quite frankly, poorly written story. I do give the story some applause for being the first I’ve seen to focus on interactions between changelings and breezies, but there was almost nothing done with it.
Afterthoughts: I can tell there wasn’t much thought put into this story. To me, it looks like the author just took the idea of changelings and breezies meeting and ran with it, but unfortunately, it ends up as something simple and unappealing. I might have liked it to a degree, but there’s so much wrong here that it I can’t recommend it. There’s also a sequel, but that one has a Romance tag, which screams something else entirely and I really don’t want to get into that.
A Story of Solstice
by RedSquirrel456
How this ended up on my RIL list: In January there was a write-off (these things are frequent!) and the prompt ended up being “A Single Moment”. I tried to write a story for it, but ended up losing my time and unable to compete, so I ended up not following the event. But one of my friends did submit a story, winning himself third place, and the story found its way to FIMFiction. I still hadn’t read it, and I tend to avoid the Romance tag like a disease, but RedSquirrel456 wrote it which gives me hope. If there’s anything I know about him, it’s that he can actually make a good romance story that doesn’t make me cringe, and I promised him at some point I’d give it a read. And so, here we are.
What I walked away with: A want for a shower and some comfort food. The warm water to wash away this tingly sensation that only comes with reading something stunningly beautiful, and then the comfort food for when I eventually cry as I think through what just happened. Maybe I’ll do both at the same time.
This story takes place during the times of the Three Tribes as we’ve come to know, but predates the great winter or whatcrap. Predictably, racism is abound, and becomes the driving force behind everything as the protagonist, Whisper, had previously fornicated with a dirty ol’ earth pony and now bears this beast’s beast child thing. Honorable pegasus warriors race in to save the day, and yadda yadda. Point is, what this story does is serve as a sign for a better tomorrow, a tipping point towards harmony in this utterly horrific time period. We know it’s horrific because of all the awesome world building that does nothing but drive the spirit of the story forward and turn it into something amazing.
I’m not a woman, so I’m going to check my privilege and say I don’t know what giving birth is like. But I’ll be damned if what happens here doesn’t hold a candle. The imagery and emotion are raw and the feeling that pours through this narrative is positively engrossing. Moments are captured beautifully and are, as far as fictional cartoon technicolor horses go, realistic. We’re in a world that’s unforgiving and the story doesn’t hesitate to remind us of that.
My only complaints with it are purely technical: missing words and punctuation, awkward phrases, stuff like that. They’re noticeable, but they don’t detract from the story being told. It’s nothing a thorough proofing sweep couldn’t take care of.
Afterthoughts: I can confidently say this was the first birthing scene I’ve ever read. I know I’ve been using this word a lot, but the story really is beautiful. It’s not that long, so give it a read. I fully recommend it.
Well, that all happened. Again, feedback would be greatly appreciated so as I’d have a reason to keep doing this. I hope it was enjoyable, maybe something piqued somebody’s interest, and... stuff...
Another silly picture to cap things off! It’s your reward for sticking around for so long, presuming you didn’t skip through all that to the very end.
Has this not been turned into a story yet?
Not yet it hasn't.
Oh fucking jesus I already have too many stories to work on fuck me.
Anyway, excellent reviews for the lot of them! Can't wait to see what other stories you'll review!
I've only read Eakin's fic from this list, but you pretty much covered what I thought of it. That writer and his creativity are truly something to aspire to.
Hmm, I might do something with that picture :3
Oh boy, another way to inflate my RILThis is good, and I approve. :3 I like the way you've set these up, after reading a couple, I figured out
how to skip to the important stuffwhere your focus is, and I think I'll look forward to seeing these posts. :DThese are reviews.
Reviews are good.
Logic would follow that you continue.
"A bit weirded out" pretty much sums up why I stopped reading Eakin. He seems to really be interested in the idea of people transforming into things other than what they initially are, and the effects of the transformation upon their psychological makeup. Even in stories that don't seem to be about transformation, there's eventually something about characters transforming, and then something about what effects that has on the life they live. It's not as prominent or distracting as when Jack Chalker used to do that (and I don't think Eakin has a fetish like Chalker apparently did), but it always winds up creeping me out, and I never feel like he leaves much room for characters to choose not to transform.
I really like your reviews! This was great, looking forward to more.
Hey! Somehow I didn't know you were doing this thing until half an hour ago, but I've dutifully rectified my lack of Razgriz review reading in the interim. Very fun stuff; I'm looking forward to seeing more!
Also, glad you liked Going Up. I don't know if you looked at the comments on the story, but another person also noted the lack of actual flying around in the fic, so I'll copy-paste what I said there:
Anyway, I agree on all counts, and I'm glad you were able to enjoy it despite that and the less-than-perfect bits of narra(tor)tion. I had a great big grin on my face from the word "Diabetes" on, so thank you for that!
2107391
Only discovered that Raz had reviewed this when it got FCiM got added to one of his book shelves, and decided to swoop by since the story's been on my mind as something I might want to expand on. Saw this comment and thought I'd pester you to expand a bit on it.
If you'd asked me to identify recurring themes in my own works, I probably would have said 'Insanity/Unreliable Narration, Parent-child relationships, or Forgiveness/Redemption' before I even considered transformation. I've never really thought about transformation as a long-running or recurring theme across my stories, but I took a stroll through my archives and tallied up how many of my stories have transformation elements.
Two are debatable: What Dreams May Come and Cutie Mark Crusadicorn. The former certainly has elements of it with Lyra deciding to be a human or a pony. The latter has a body swap mostly played for laughs and physical comedy without being especially impactful.
FCiM and A Change is Gonna Come certainly have transformation as a more explicit central idea, although I'd note that the latter was a commission that specifically asked for that.
Everything in the Optimalverse is going to be affected just because uploading is part and parcel to the setting. Personally, I find the draw of the universe to be CelestAI and her amoral chessmaster antics more than transformation, but I can't deny that it's there.
Finally, the Time Loop stories. Five stories that definitely have transformation involved to some extent. Particularly the whole changelings-to-ponies effect of the Elements, or the deteriorating mental state of Queen Sparkle. So that's 14 stories, or about 40% of my total output, which is more than I'd have thought. Plus it made me notice that I've been thinking about doing something Lovecraftian for Halloween, and a little body horror is almost mandatory in that sort of tale. Still, although I certainly don't think I have a fetish for it (or treat it in a fetishistic way) I'm glad you brought it up. Good food for thought