Related Stories Reviews #1 – In Her Majesty’s Royal Service, Clash of the Heavenly Titans, Celestia and Luna Drive a Car, Waiting for Celestia, Moonlight Palaver · 10:22pm Dec 2nd, 2014
In honor of Knighty’s new Related Stories features, and to check how well it was working, I decided to do a set of reviews on stories which are marked as related stories to another story. I chose one of the best stories on the website as my base story: A Canterlot Carol by GhostOfHeraclitus. I figured that if the site didn’t give good recommendations for that story, it would be a bad thing – and if it gave good recommendations for it, then I would get to read more great stories. It also is a good test of the system to some extent because it uses the OC tag; given the plethora of terrible stories with OCs, it will be interesting to see if it can pick out the good ones.
The stories it spat out as being recommended were:
In Her Majesty’s Royal Service
Clash of the Heavenly Titans
Celestia and Luna Drive a Car
Whom the Princesses Would Destroy… (an excellent story which I’ve already read)
The Life of an Odd Prince (unfinished)
Princess Celestia The Changeling Queen: Stories Behind The Mask (unfinished)
Waiting For Celestia
Princesses Can’t Cook (a sequel to a story I haven’t read)
Moonlight Palaver
The Paragon Guard (unfinished)
Setting aside the unfinished stories, the sequel to a story I haven’t read, and the story I’ve already read (which I shall review at a later date), that means I have five stories to read and review:
In Her Majesty’s Royal Service by Sagebrush
Clash of the Heavenly Titans by Ciroton
Celestia and Luna Drive a Car by BronyWriter
Waiting For Celestia by Bronetheus
Moonlight Palaver by Carabas
In Her Majesty’s Royal Service
By Sagebrush
Comedy, Slice of LifeStorm Stunner is a pegasus with aspirations to join the Royal Guard: the noble ponies responsible for maintaining the peace and prosperity of Equestria. At least, that's what it says on the cover.
Follow his journey as he joins their gilded ranks, and learns just what life is really like as one of Equestria's finest.
Why I added it: This is purely a recommendation by Knighty’s new algorithm; I didn’t have this story marked as read it later. This is also by far the longest of the stories which were recommended to me by the algorithm, clocking in at 39,914 words – a full-length novel.
Review
I’m going to go ahead and note that the first chapter of this story didn’t really contain any humor to speak of. In fact, it didn’t even really seem to have much of a hook; 3,000 words and all I’ve got is that the protagonist is named Storm Stunner, he wants to join the Royal Guard, he is polite, he has a pair of baby shoes as his cutie mark (which is weird for a large number of reasons), and… there is a bored unicorn bookstore worker/writer who helped him to find the recruitment center for the royal guard.
The second chapter has him get into the guard, and introduces who I presume to be the rest of the cast – a perpetually late, laid back guard; a drill sergeant nasty; a pegasus whose special talent is having very good aim; and a unicorn whose special talent is predicting the outcome of physical events. At this point, you’re 9,000 words into the story and the story hasn’t really given you any good reason to keep reading; I don’t care about any of the characters, and the only real “hook” – the mystery of what Storm Stunner’s special talent is/what his cutie mark means is meaningless to me because I don’t have any reason to care.
I ended up giving up on the story at this point; I’m past a short story’s length in and I just didn’t feel like the story warranted more of my time. I didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t care about the plot, and I didn’t even really see much in the way of real comedy beyond the very low-standards admission test.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Clash of the Heavenly Titans
By Ciroton
Comedy, Slice of LifeWeary of the humdrum day-to-day business of Canterlot, Princess Luna decides to do something about it by reviving a holiday lost to the passage of time. However, she gets more than she bargained for when her elder sister, Celestia, decides to join in on the fun.
Can the majestic capital survive two warring, immortal Alicorns?
Why I added it: This is purely a recommendation by Knighty’s new algorithm, but I did apparently have it marked as Read It Later. Why, I don’t know.
Review
This did not start out encouragingly, with a meandering first paragraph which noted “none of that mattered in the present day”, which of course raises the question of why the writer bothered to tell us about it in the first place.
This is a story about the princesses deciding to run a prank war on each other. Unfortunately, this story suffers greatly from the fact that it is a written story which largely relies on visual comedy for its impact; a visual medium would improve the impact of the pranks. It also suffers from the problem that it feels like we are being told to laugh at the pranks, even though none of them are particularly amazing; if I’m already laughing, this could be forgiven, but given that most of the pranks are kind of generic (water balloons, gluing people to chairs, “ride me” signs, tarring and feathering, pink dye in shampoo) I wasn’t really laughing and the characters’ mirth didn’t help at all.
Neither Luna nor Celestia appear to be particularly in character here, either; while I can see them playing pranks on each other, their lines feel off and a bit stilted in places, which is a problem with the dialogue in the piece in general.
However, the biggest crime is the fact that I just didn’t laugh.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Celestia and Luna Drive a Car
By BronyWriter
Comedy, Slice of LifeAfter an inventor, Fast Wheels, completes his masterpiece he is invited to showcase it to Princess Celestia herself! So, he arrives at Canterlot to give Celestia driving lessons and the day unfolds in a way that he could never have imagined...
Why I added it: This is purely a recommendation by Knighty’s new algorithm. I probably wouldn’t have read a story with a title like this without a recommendation.
Review
The story is quite simple: a pony named Fast Wheels has invented a car – apparently some sort of hot rod. Celestia tries driving it and is very cautious with it; Luna tries driving it and wants to see how fast it can go, much to the horror of Fast Wheels and Celestia.
I think that the chapter title gave away the punchline of the story, that Luna’s reckless escapade was why we have traffic laws, but on the whole I don’t think there was really much to this story. It was more or less exactly what you would expect from the story’s title and short description, which kind of raises the question of why the story even needs to exist. The idea “wouldn’t it be funny if someone invented a car and Luna was a total maniac in it?” is something more suited to a couple comic panels than 4,000 words of text, as ultimately there isn’t much more to the idea than that.
A few lesser quibbles:
It really felt like the start of the frame story was unnecessary; the scene break at the end made things clear enough, and it was a rather weak way to begin the story. There were also some minor editing issues here and there, primarily in the form of typos.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Waiting for Celestia
By Bronetheus
Comedy, Slice of LifeAfter Celestia takes her flying chariot to Ponyville to have an important talk with the new Princess Twilight Sparkle, she teleports back to Canterlot... leaving her charioteers behind. Unsure what else to do in the wake of this improbable, nay, highly unusual, nay, nay, impossible event, the two pegasi have a conversation that leads them to some startling revelations.
Why I added it: This is purely a recommendation by Knighty’s new algorithm, though the title – presumably a reference to Waiting for Godot, a famous play in which Godot never shows up – is vaguely intriguing.
Review
This is a silly story about a pair of royal guards who are left behind when Celestia teleports away from Twilight’s treehouse. They debate whether or not Celestia intends for them to stay there, whether or not Celestia forgot about them (perish the thought!), and the battle of faith, eventually culminating in them deciding that, because Princess Celestia was gone and Princess Twilight was nowhere to be found, that there must be some sort of plot against the throne.
The story is rather absurd, but it does deal with one of the guards losing their faith in Celestia as they realize that Celestia is not, in fact, infalliable and can make mistakes. She had assumed her whole life that Celestia had a plan for her, when, in fact, Celestia didn’t even know who she was. This was an interesting idea, albeit one I’ve seen a few times before, but at the same time I felt like it didn’t actually work very well in the story – the story is very silly at first, but instead we’re thrown into some actual psychological angst from one of the characters which ends up pulling away from the comedy of the story. I feel like the story didn’t quite decide what it wanted to be, and as a result it ended up pulling in two different directions and never really coming together.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Moonlight Palaver
By Carabas
Comedy, Slice of LifeUpon Nightmare Moon's return, the leaders of other nations gather to discuss the situation.
They're not especially happy about it.
Why I added it: This was a recommendation by Knighty’s new algorithm, but it was one of the stories from the Outside Insight Contest – a contest wherein the contestants were to write a story about ponies from a non-pony perspective – which was recommended to me by several people, as well as by the Royal Canterlot Library.
Review
The description of this story more or less summarizes what it is about. We have a number of characters introduced to us in rapid succession, but they seem to work well enough. Leaders of the donkeys, the rams, the griffins, the bovines, the dragons, and the goats all meet to discuss what must be done about Celestia’s absence. Some suggest that the Equestrians can settle the matter on their own, some suggest invading Equestria in an attempt to bring Nightmare Moon low, no matter the cost, and some suggest the same, and that once inside, they can seize the country and its treasures for themselves. It is an interesting little debate and we get little glimpses into the various leaders, though I felt like the leader of the griffins was a bit underplayed in the story. In the end, canon brings all their scheming low as Celestia returns.
I thought that the flavor and worldbuilding in this piece was nice – we got to see various forms of government and the implications of the leadership of each nation, and the Capricious Crown of Capra – a literal crown – was a rather fun idea. I’m not quite sure why it has the comedy tag, though; while there was some humor in the story, I wouldn’t really call it a story whose primary thrust was to be humorous. Ultimately, the story felt a little bit insubstantial in some respects, but I think that the ideas it had shone through.
Recommendation: Worth reading for the world-building and the Capricious Crown of Capra.
Summary
In Her Majesty’s Royal Service by Sagebrush
Not recommended.
Clash of the Heavenly Titans by Ciroton
Not recommended.
Celestia and Luna Drive a Car by BronyWriter
Not recommended.
Waiting For Celestia by Bronetheus
Not recommended.
Moonlight Palaver by Carabas
Worth reading for the world-building.
All in all, I was rather disappointed by the recommendation system here; three of the stories were outright disappointing, one of them alright but unfocused, and the last was something I had marked as a recommended to read story anyway. While the recommendation of Whom the Princesses Would Destroy… was a good one, the absence of recommendations for Obiter Dicta and The 18th Brewmare of Bluey Napoleon were conspicuous in their absence. It seems that actual recommendations definitely trump the system.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 132
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1516
This is the second not particularly positive review I've seen of In Her Majesty’s Royal Service fairly recently, which is just really strange to me as I consider its sequel to be one of the better stories I've read in the fandom. It's been a while since I read the first story, though, so it's entirely possible Sagebrush simply improved quite a bit over time and I'm remembering with rose colored glasses.
It's disappointing to hear that the new system doesn't work as well as intended, but also relieving because now I don't feel pressured to add a bunch of stories that are simply related to a story I liked.
2629546
Probably by Present Perfect, judging by his comment there.
2629557
Bad Horse's gut instinct from looking at them briefly is that they do it by tags; I suspect rather strongly that this is the case. There seems to be some other factor as well which I don't know. None of these stories are poorly rated, though, so obviously rating plays in somehow; then again, on another story, I found something with 8 upvotes which the system spat out as being related. It wasn't very good; my single downvote removed it from the recommendations.
I think that the best system would rely on people who had favorited the story, especially recommended on their user pages, and look at what other stories they favorited and try and use that to generate recommendations.
2629546
I feel exactly the same way. IHMRS is still one of the highest rated fics on the site from its golden days, but I suppose TD shares PP's sentiments that it has definitely not aged well at all.
This actually also makes me a little apprehensive over what my own recommendations list is like...
2629612 Probably, I do usually look through his reviews for fresh meat.
Bah. It's recommending the wrong stories.
You should be reading "In Her Majesty's Secret Service" by CarcinoGeneticist. :D
2629635
A lot of people have said that's good, but I've been hesitant to add it to my recommended RL list because it is, well, clop. Or at least it heavily features it.
2629657 What's wrong with a bit o' porno? :P
2629659
Nothing, really. But I'm not a big fan of it; as you can see from my recommended stories bookshelf, only four of those are rated mature - sex, and of those, only two are actually clop. And of those, only one of them is actually recommended as erotica - Love Is Like An Apple Tree is a clopfic, but it is recommended because it is funny, not because of its erotic content.
2629668 Pfah. If it helps it's not in /every/ chapter.
2629706
It isn't like it is a deal-breaker or something; I'm just picky. I stuck it in my Read It Later - Recommended list.
Maybe I'll try and find five such stories and put them together into a single post.
Of course, the recommendation system doesn't have anything to do with story quality (or view counts/ratings, as far as I can tell). It seems to be mostly based on tags (and maybe a little on keywords in the synopsis?). It can only point you in the direction of stories that are similar to the one you're looking at on a purely surface level. I'm guessing it works best with shipping stories, because a Romance tag plus Applejack and Rainbow Dash tags is always going to equal AppleDash. Might not be good AppleDash, but at least it's something you'll have some interest in. But a Slice of Life tag plus Celestia and OC tags is going to bring up all sorts of weird things.
But one more way to connect potential readers with stories they'll enjoy is always a good thing.
Hmmm, I looked at my story "Twilight kills herself a lot", a light hearted comedy and got all of dark tagged fics, but only half of them were also tagged comedy, and half were some sort of take on cupcakes. I assume because of the gore tag, but I'm not sure. It could also be that it's just it's dark and Rainbow and pinkie were tagged. On the other hand "Rainbownomicon" is on the list which pleases me greatly because the tone does match up nicely. So it might be right sometimes but it's not even close to a recomendation.
2629546 That story, and it's sequel for that matter are really odd. They're just so, long. It's worth it in the end as actually all the characters are great but it just takes it's time going anywhere. For instance the shoe cutie mark thing mentioned in the blog isn't explained until almost the very end.
2629853
Knighty denied that.
According to knighty in comments on yesterday's site blog post, the "Related Stories" are based on: title, tags (clearly including characters, as a casual glance at a few Related lists shows), and author. Of those, my gut instinct is that tags/characters are by far the most heavily weighted.
As an example, Hard Reset 2 appears in the "Related Stories" for Hard Reset, but not vice versa. I think this is because HR2 has a couple of additional character tags, which a number of its "closest" matches also share.
Also, re your reviews:
I was similarly unimpressed with In Her Majesty's Royal Service for the same reasons, and quit around the same place.
Heavenly Titans, Drive A Car: Haven't read.
Waiting for Celestia: That's the cover art of a comedy?
I guess it makes more sense if it's a deliberate Waiting For Godot reference. If so I'm curious to read it despite the un-recommendation.
You probably RIL'ed Moonlight Palaver when it earned an RCL feature.
And, well, I'm overall not surprised. Welcome to algorithmic recommendations! This isn't an "you might also like" list, it's a "superficial similarities" list. It is possible to do the former, but it requires scraping the crosstabs for "people who upvoted this also upvoted", etc., and that doesn't seem like what this is designed to do.
2630138
Its short description references Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and I've never seen Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, so it may be referencing that as well somehow? No clue.
Really, it is a farce, but it feels kind of half-hearted in being one, which is why I don't really recommend it - it seems like it got stuck between "shattering someone's illusions about Celestia" and "it is really funny to have two guards be abandoned and completely forgotten about by Celestia and them reacting to it", either of which could have been a good story, but both of which together don't really work well in one story.
I always appreciate some well-thought critiques, so thank you for the review, even if it was mostly an experiment on your part. I've always thought the combination of silliness and character drama was essential to My Little Pony, so that was the driving force behind Waiting For Celestia. There aren't any plot points a reader wouldn't have gotten having not seen either Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or Waiting for Godot, though I still recommend both in general.
2630138
I did in fact have it specifically commissioned to be such a reference, based on this poster: i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l498/Jamestopheles/godot.jpg
I really liked the tree=treehouse correspondence, plus you can't beat a visual reference to Ian Mackellan and Patrick Stewart.