Read It Later Reviews #9 – As the Sun Sets, The Closest of Sisters, Another Battle in the Long War Between Light and Darkness, A Fragile Heart, Outshine · 10:04pm Jan 31st, 2015
Too tired to keep working on one of my stories, I was just about to turn in for the evening when I noticed MightyFenrir had added one of my stories to his “read” bookshelf. Curious, I took a look through the shelf, and recognized that he was a creature of taste. Idly, I picked out five short stories that he had read that I have not to read. All of these stories are under 2,500 words long, and four of them are only a little over a thousand words long.
Today’s reviews:
As the Sun Sets by theswimminbrony
The Closest of Sisters by HoofAndQuill
Another Battle in the Long War Between Light and Darkness by SPark
A Fragile Heart by Newtaloo
Outshine by HoofAndQuill
As the Sun Sets
by theswimminbrony
Slice of LifeOn the Last Day Ever, Rainbow Dash has a confession to make.
Why I added it: MightyFenrir had read it recently.
Review
I wasn’t really sure what to expect out of this story when I read it, but its description caught my eye.
Rainbow Dash is hanging out with Applejack and is nervous about the Last Day Ever. Tomorrow, Twilight is going to raise the Sun for the first time, and Rainbow Dash is nervous about whether or not it will really work. Applejack comforts her.
This is a short and simple character piece which has since been pretty much uncanoned by season 4, but it works well enough as-is. Clocking in at only 1,500 words, it is short and to the point, and does what it wants to do before getting out of the way.
Recommendation: Worth Reading
The Closest of Sisters
by HoofAndQuill
Sad, Alternate UniversePrincess Celestia and Princess Luna are sisters again, after their long separation and despite Luna's difficulty fitting in.
But there are still questions in Luna's mind, which come forth during a short discussion over one of Twilight's reports.
Why I added it: MightyFenrir had read it recently.
Review
Set in the immediate aftermath of Too Many Pinkie Pies, this thousand-word story charts the Princesses reaction to the use of the Mirror Pool by Pinkie Pie and the destruction of Pinkie Pie’s clones, and a brief bit of musing over whether or not it was the right thing to do.
This is short, and the start of it is pretty rough, but I liked the ending of it, even if it did have a bit too much text afterwards. Being so short, and having a fun little idea in it, it is hard to say it is not worth reading, but don’t expect to be blown away.
Recommendation: Worth Reading
Another Battle in the Long War Between Light and Darkness
by SPark
Slice of LifeCelestia has long been a master of the ancient art of making the perfect cup of tea. Luna, on the other hoof, follows the dark heresy of coffee. Caught between them is the newly-minted princess, Twilight Sparkle, who for some reason can't make a drinkable cup of tea no matter how hard she tries. Will Celestia be able to correct her errors and show her the way into the enlightenment of the true beverage, or will Luna win her over to the dark side at last?
Why I added it: MightyFenrir had read it recently.
Review
Twilight Sparkle can’t make tea to save her life. Luna offers her coffee.
There isn’t anything more to this story, and it didn’t really amuse me or really feel like it went anywhere or said anything. Even at its short length, it still felt rather empty.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
A Fragile Heart
by Newtaloo
Sad, Slice of LifeA short story about waiting, hay fries, and the dangers of space and silence in matters of the heart.
Takes place in the background of "Twilight Time".
Why I added it: MightyFenrir had read it recently.
Review
This story is far better than I thought it was going to be at first. It starts out kind of slow, with the introduction of an original character waiting for his date who gets served first a drink, then some fries by Pinkie Pie, but as the scene goes on and his date doesn’t show up, we come to realize that this “date” holds a lot of significance, and that his date’s tardiness bodes very ill for their relationship.
I wasn’t really sold on this story, though, until the end, when Pinkie Pie’s line makes him come to a realization – and that realization is a subversion of every other story like this, and it makes the whole story work. Clocking in at 2,500 words, this is a very decent little read.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Outshine
by HoofAndQuillShining Armor was proud of his little sister and her accomplishments. Her coronation day was nothing short of spectacular, but it only served to remind him that he would never be able to keep up.
Princess Twilight was amazing, and nothing he could ever do could ever compare.
Why I added it: MightyFenrir had read it recently.
Review
Shining Armor is at Twilight’s coronation and feels inadequate by comparison. Luna sympathizes.
This is a great idea for a story, but this story does little more than express this idea, and doesn’t really go anywhere with it. The idea that Shining Armor might feel overshadowed – and the idea that Luna might be able to help him with it – is a good one, but it ultimately doesn’t actually end up going anywhere in the course of this very short story. At a thousand words, it doesn’t take long to read, but the first sentence of this review summarizes it in thirteen words.
It is a good idea for a story, but it isn’t a story in and of itself.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Summary
As the Sun Sets by theswimminbrony
Worth Reading
The Closest of Sisters by HoofAndQuill
Worth Reading
Another Battle in the Long War Between Light and Darkness by SPark
Not Recommended
A Fragile Heart by Newtaloo
Worth Reading
Outshine by HoofAndQuill
Not Recommended
This ended up working out surprisingly well considering I browsed his read stories list and picked stories out by their summaries alone. Well done, MightyFenrir; I salute you.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 193
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1544
MightyFenrir's library, for those who want more; their profile page also contains many boxed-but-not-shelved recommendations.
I usually RiL anything boxed in the profile page of anyone I follow; thanks to how much you liked these stories, I did that with MightyFenrir (excluding fics I've read and Fallout: Equestria, which I won't read until I've played Fallout), in addition to all your recommendations here. My RiL shelf now only lags my Tracking shelf by five stories.
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Well, it could be worse. My Read It Later shelves are at hundreds and thousands of stories, respectively, and seem to go in the wrong direction.
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Well, remember I'm not counting unread stories by people I follow, various group entries, stories that are on my Tracking shelf but actually unread, and stories on my Write-off Rereads shelf; plus, the entire time I'm reading these, people will continue to publish and/or recommend.
Still, that only brings me to a story count in the low four figures. Compared to some folks' queue, or the site as a whole, that's not so bad.
I wanted to suggest this story here because I really like it, even if it doesn't have that many votes or even that great a vote ratio. I don't know why that is... It's on the long side and could probably manage being shorter but I really liked the world building and details and clever inversions of things from the show. It's called Stained Glass https://www.fimfiction.net/story/238428/stained-glass
Also I just double-checked your profile and now my RiL shelf leads by 10.
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Glad to be of service!
Admittedly one thing I used to do sometimes (still do do, sometimes) is search for short stories on my lists and then read through them.
The downside is that I have a terrible tendency to, well, do that, which means that the average story length of stories left on the list gets longer.
That's why I made my "You're Next" shelf - to try and force myself to read a lot of the longer classics.
It has... sort of worked.
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Heh, I oughtta do that but I'm struggling with the long fics I'm already reading -- pretty sure I'm gonna hafta start Out and About in the Equestrian Kingdom all over before I can finish it, for instance, and that's on my favorites! A cautionary tale about not reading a fic for too long. Finishing Austraeoh is gonna take strategy. I think I already know which long adventure fic I'm doing next though (Flash Fog -- damn skippy I been waiting to see Fluttershy in a story like that).
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That's an intriguing-sounding premise! RiL'd -- along with a kajillion stories, but hey.
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It is interesting! On your RiL list is good for now xD I read Flash Fog and it was really fun and felt like a great portrayal of Fluttershy. I'd definitely read it again. Enjoy it when you get to it! I'm going to have to look up Out and About in the Equestrian Kingdom now that you've mentioned it; I like to read long stories the most but that means I want them to be good. I should remember to start that long series too that you mentioned.
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Here's a link to Out and About, but note that it's a followup/crossover of both Friendship is Optimal and Cory Doctorow's Out and About in the Magic Kingdom. You don't need to read those -- Out and About is inspired by them, but is in a separate universe and stands on its own storywise -- but they're part of Out and About's context and if you like any one of the three you'll probably like the others.
If you need more recommendations for MMDGC stuff, I just read KwirkyJ's In Tunnels today and loved it. It's the kind of story I like, anyway, I dunno about you. :B
Well, that certainly was unexpected. And here I always thought I had pretty odd taste in literature.
Thank you for your kind words, I really appreciate it. I respect your fic reviews, so when I saw one whole batch based on my reading habits... I must say that it made my day.
Shameless promotion time! Anyone brave (read interested) enough to seek what I like should join my group. Crème de la crème
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I have only been reading the stories which have been posted to FIMFiction.
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I actually briefly glance at the bookshelves of a lot of folks when they add my stories, especially when the bookshelf is oddly named. Browsing favorites stories shelves is one of the ways I've ended up with such an overpopulated read it later list.
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I know the struggle. My read it later bookshelves (Complete/Incomplete fics) contain roughly 850 stories and the number grows every day.
Keep up the good work, your reviews are some of my high-priority sources of additions to those shelves. And thank you again for your recognition, it was a pleasant surprise to see my name in your blog.
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Thanks so much! I'll have to check those out soon. This is fun! I don't normally comment much and it's really enjoyable to discuss fic recommendations
Two of these were already on various read later lists, and I added another one. So not a bad result. All I have to do is read at least two stories and my RiL might actually go down!
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Sadly, my RIL list is unlikely to get shorter until after the Writeoff is done, at least.
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Well, yes, ignoring the writeoff helps. A short term solution at best since I know I'll want to read many of them. Still, similar technique to my strategy of never going above 1000 stories on my RiL. When it gets up around there, I make another RiL! Zeno's Reading List.
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Right now I've got a You're Next shelf which is what I'm planning on... well, reading next. Hopefully to incentivize me to actually work on those. That way I always have five stories on my list. I also have a "read it now" list which I cull whenever stuff has been on it for a week or more for my Read It Now reviews.
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Way more organized than how I do it. I got a read it later shelf, maybe shelf, and incomplete shelf.
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Not all of them are public, though.
I have 15 different bookshelves.
It is mostly pretense, sadly, though I actually have somehow created a buffer of reviews; I have a set of daily reviews through Monday finished if need be, without writing a single additional review. Had that as of yesterday, in fact.
Kind of crazy to be ahead like that.
I've been trying to see if I can keep up a daily schedule of content releases. We'll see if it lasts or not. Right now Tuesday is slated for another chapter of Mistletrapped, and Friday is hopefully a new story published, with reviews or columns the other days. We'll see though.
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Just don't get too much of a buffer. Having too many reviews is just as crazy. Though you do detailed enough ones that you don't have nearly the numbers output that the lazy people like me do, so that's probably not something you need to worry about.
I'm managing to keep it down to 8 shelves at the moment. Three read it later, favourites, two other quality-based, reviewed, master list. Hopefully I won't get up to as many as you. Probably because I channel all my OCD organizing into the master list.
2760608
Well obviously you need to change that. >:V (Who knows, maybe he'll publish it later.)
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Yeah, that has to be some amount of work. I actually noticed that you got rid of a bunch of columns and merged a lot of the lower-numbers-of-reviews folk together into a few columns.
I finally broke into the top 10 in terms of number of reviews now, though.
We'll see how long it takes me to catch up with John Perry; I put out a lot of reviews in January, I'm not sure if the rate will continue to be quite so high.
For me, the biggest barrier is the fact that a lot of the stuff which I have which is higher priority is, as a result of my past activities, long. I do plan on reading Background Pony and Fallout: Equestria at some point, which is going to take ages. Not quite sure how I'm going to manage that.
At my reading speed, it would probably take me literally a day to chew through Background Pony if I did nothing else, and I'm not sure if I want to do that. Fallout: Equestria would probably take two, at least, and I'd have to re-read the first ten chapters of it or so that I've read before.
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Yeah, the misc columns were just too much white space. And, hey, you just passed by the Royal Guard. Seattle’s Angels is your next Review Colosseum opponent.
Wow, you read a lot faster than I do. Took me three days of reading pretty much every waking moment to get through Fo:E. I've actually discovered that I read longer fics faster than equal wordcount of shorter fics. Just something about starting and stopping stops me from getting into the flow of things and just zipping along. I would recommend not marathoning Background Pony. I know if I did that it'd probably turn me into a wreck.
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If you can read Background Pony in a day, you can read a novel in the time it takes to watch a movie. Shortish novel and longish movie, but still, that's impressive.
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In all fairness, it may well take me significantly longer to read Background Pony; when I first read the Harry Potter series, I read all four books (that is to say, up through the fourth book) in one day, which is a bit more than a Background Pony worth of words, but Harry Potter is also much lighter reading than Background pony is.