Bottle 1: Karrakaz's "In Celebration of a Hundred" · 2:01am Nov 23rd, 2014
Author: Karrakaz
Featured story: "Sizable Differences" (Top Ranked, 18 November, 2014)
Least viewed story at that time: "In Celebration of a Hundred"
Completion: Read up to chapter 100, so far. Naturally.
Half the fun of vignettes is the challenge of figuring out what's going on when you've been thrown into the middle of something that's already two sentences away from being over and done with. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "short" is always harder to write than "long". You have to wring every last drop of meaning out of every last word, and each sentence has to pull double duty by setting some combination of scene, plot, tone, mood, character voice, and so on.
That being said. Despite the shortness of each story in "In Celebration of a Hundred", I don't think I would refer to it as a collection of vignettes... at least, not as I'm used to thinking of them. The stories aren't really worried about sculpting a powerful plot twist by using sentences that are tight and controlled as humanly possible. In fact, they feel quite the opposite: light, fluffy, airy... loose and casual. They aren't compact stories so much as "moments in time." They're more worried about conveying emotions, feelings, and average, everyday insights that reinforce the characters we're already familiar with. Any one of these stories could be taking place in between the official episodes. As I advanced from chapter to chapter, I noticed a trend: as soon as I realized which character the chapter was about, that chapter was "over" and the rest of the words were simply part of the climax. I can think of a few times where the answer was given to me explicitly. In chapter 41: Meditation, for example, a single descriptive word makes it plainly obvious after I'd already reached a conclusion on my own. I think I prefer uncertainty, as it adds mystery to an already ephemeral experience.
If I had one complaint about this collection, it's that none of the stories (that I've read so far, at least) actually surprised me in any big way. I began craving a plot-related twist of some sort, or a sudden BANG of conflicted emotions. Some of the stories do involve powerful emotions and interesting surprise reveals (Chapter 43 contains a particularly clever idea), but little or nothing in the way of complicated storytelling devices... nothing that spins the reader around, forcing them to rethink everything they've previously read (Case in point, Chapter 42: Echo. This story contains a lovely plot twist... but puts it right at the start of the story, instead of the very end. Chapter 48, on the other hand, managed to make me think "Wait. What? Whoa!"). In the end, that's not the purpose of these stories. It takes an entire loaf of "day in the life of", using all the characters we know and love, and slathers on a healthy dose of "Dawww!" If I had to pick one word to sum up this story's intentions, it would be "touching."
Technical Issues: This is one instance where I can't complain about an author switching tenses. That's a load off my mind. Basic editing errors are sprinkled throughout, which makes me wonder if this is an unedited stream of consciousness. If so, the author might pursue some outside help with spelling, grammar and formatting: being unable to silence your own internal editor can kill the creative process. In the end, though, the errors weren't enough to pull me out of it. Perhaps the rapid-fire pace made me more forgiving.
Plot Issues: Part of the fun is figuring out which characters we're dealing with in any given chapter. Names are rarely given out at the start, so I often had to fill in the blanks myself. There's a constant sense of weightlessness--a kind of emotional vertigo--as I grasp at straws and search for something solid to stand on. I'd call that a plus in this case. In a few stories, we never even get a full explanation of exactly what's going on. I approve!
Narrative Voice: For the most part, all the third person stories "sounded" the same, like different bedtime stories being read by the same parent. This is fine, because most of them evoked a similar kind of down-to-earthy feeling. The voice only changes when we switch to first person, where the accent, vocabulary or personality gives us a much-needed clue about who the narrator is.
Final Verdict: If you just want to sit down and enjoy a few quiet, introspective moments with the characters you've grown to love, without any surprises or challenges to jar your expectations, than this is the story for you. I'm glad I started this series on this particular story, because it's made entirely out of casual, relaxing, lounge-in-the-sun fun. The short length makes them easy to digest, and allows us to focus on a kind of story that would get really irritating as a full length epic. I wonder if this is what trashy romance novels feel like to those who adore such simple escapism. Like that genre, this story will not necessarily appeal to everyone... but I'm glad I gave it a try.
Oh wait, the author uses both indentation and block paragraph formatting at the same time. IT'S CRAP! IT'S ALL CRAP!
Final Thought: Apparently, Celestia really hates bananas. And here I thought it was just me.
Coolio. :D