Read It Now Reviews #18 – Safe, Only the Good Die Young, Dubious Enchantment, I Don’t Want to Write This, Good Morning, Celestia · 1:15am Feb 18th, 2015
A bunch of great stories came out in the last few days, and you should read them. Somehow, four writers came out with five good stories in three days, and every one of them was at least worth reading.
Clearly, the end is upon us.
The stories I read today:
Safe by SharpSpark
Only the Good Die Young by SharpSpark
Dubious Enchantment by bookplayer
I Don’t Want to Write This by Aragon
Good Morning, Celestia by Soundslikeponies
Safe
by Sharp Spark
DarkApple Bloom has a very important classroom duty, at least according to Miss Cheerilee.
Why I added it: It got second place in the “All In” Writeoff.
Review
When the sirens go off, Apple Bloom’s job is to open up the door to the magical shelter underneath the classroom, a cramped storm shelter room which is magically shielded when the trap door is shut with ponies inside. And then she has to stand there and count to make sure everypony in the classroom gets down inside, and that they aren’t missing anyone.
Short, simple, and dark, clocking in at barely north of a thousand words, this is a good little story and it is worth the small amount of time it takes to read it.
Recommendation: Recommended
Only the Good Die Young
by Sharp Spark
Gore, Sad, DarkImmortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. Just ask someone who would know. Like... Apple Bloom, for instance.
Why I added it: It was one of the best stories in the Closing Time write-off.
Review
I was a bit disappointed by the summary of this story, seeing as it gives away one of the story’s major twists, but I understand why – it draws in the audience. Why is Apple Bloom immortal? What’s the deal?
This is a good story, but it is a series of spoilers to go too far into the plot. We start out seeing the Cutie Mark Crusaders going ziplining, but there’s a terrible accident and all three of them plummet to the ground at high velocity, with Apple Bloom breaking her neck.
And then we get to scene two, where they walk into Sugarcube Corner, apparently unharmed, and Diamond comes up to try and give them encouragement.
The story is all about the twists and turns, and it does a good job keeping the audience guessing about what is going on, though I figured out what was going on at the very start due to reading a story by jmj which also involved an accident at the very start. Even still, though, it was a satisfying read nonetheless, and you will still likely be surprised even if you figure out what is going on at the start.
Recommendation: Recommended
Dubious Enchantment
by bookplayer
Comedy, Slice of LifePonies expect certain things from a mysterious shop that appears at the end of a lonely side street, and Old Gob does his very best to provide that experience. The candlelight flickers, a thick layer of dust coats items of dark and fantastic powers, and the door creaks ominously as ponies enter and leave with their purchases to discover the costs and rewards. Of course, sometimes the costs outweigh the rewards.
They certainly did for Twilight Sparkle and her friends. So when they manage to get to the shop right before it closes and disappears, they aren't going to leave until they get a refund.
Why I added it: It was one of the best stories in the Closing Time write-off.
Review
Old Gob stood up from his stool as if his joints felt rustier than the creaking hinges of the door up front. It took a long time to get that door creak right. For a while he experimented with a little bell, which did let him know when he had a customer, but lacked the ominous tone he was going for. In the same way, Gob wasn't really all that old, and had no problem with his joints beyond the stiffness that came with sitting behind a cash register all day. But he was too short to loom properly, and never could get the hang of sidling, so the only option was a creeping, elderly gait. The brand started with him, after all, and branding was important.
Thus begins the tale about Old Gob, the proprietor of The Little Shop That Wasn’t There Yesterday, seller of cursed items of dubious enchantment which is definitely not a euphemism for anything. He sold a bunch of cursed merchandise to Pinkie Pie earlier, and poor, long-suffering Twilight had to spend all day cleaning up after the mess. And now, she wants a refund.
But Old Gob has a policy against giving out refunds. Maybe he’ll change his mind after the story she tells him about the havoc he wrecked?
This is a great story; each of the ponies gets a relatively well-known magical item, and Twilight, being Genre Savvy, instantly recognizes them and comes up with means of counteracting them pretty quickly. Contrasting the shopkeeper’s stubborn insistence on lack of refunds and how he is selling an experience to his customers with the obvious danger that the various items he sells represent and the fact that this is all clearly both absurd and unsafe, interwoven with the story of Twilight’s day as she rants about the various cursed dubiously enchanted items she had to deal with, this story is fun from start to finish.
I think my favorite bit of the story was what happened to Applejack, though, and how well it captures Twilight’s thought processes, as well as making use of Big Mac to deliver some high-quality Apple family comedy:
She hurried her pace, Mac right beside her. “What happened?”
“Pinkie gave her a magic apple. Supposed to bring her true love,” he explained as they moved. “She didn’t believe it, but it looked like a fine apple. She took a bite and passed out, and we can’t wake her.”
Twilight frowned. “Great. Just great.”
“We were hopin’ ya’ could check your library—”
“There is no library!” she interrupted. Then she calmed down and thought for a minute. Apple. Coma. True Love. Twilight nodded. “But… I think I know what’s wrong with her. Has she been singing any songs about her prince coming, lately?"
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Did she recently spot anypony across a forest glen, or some other picturesque location, that she didn't get a chance to speak to?"
Mac thought for a moment. "If AJ wants to talk to a pony, she's gonna talk to 'em. She's got a lasso."
Twilight frowned. This might be harder than she thought. "Do you know if she has a crush on anypony?”
“Eeyup,” Mac nodded.
“Who?”
Mac bit his lip and looked down, then over at the apple trees they were now passing, then up at the sky.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Well, from that I’m going to assume it’s either you or me. And I really, really hope it’s me.”
Mac rolled his eyes and nodded.
They fell into silence the rest of the way. Twilight wasn’t sure she was Applejack’s true love. She’d never considered in her life if she was attracted to Applejack. She’d never considered in her life if she was attracted to mares. Actually, given her only crush so far, she wasn’t entirely sure she was attracted to ponies, but she was hoping that was a passing phase and not a life-long fetish.
But right now she hoped that she could be in love with Applejack, because the next option was to line up everypony in town and have them kiss her, which seemed both creepy and unsanitary.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
Good Morning, Celestia
by Soundslikeponies
Sad, Alternate Universe, Science FictionOn a journey to a place seven-hundred-fifty million miles away, Twilight yearns for home.
Why I added it: Soundslikeponies is a good writer, and I like science fiction.
Review
Twilight sets off alone in a trek across the heavens to another planet, with only the ship’s two AIs for company. The AIs do their best to keep her cheerful, but sometimes, one can’t help but feel trapped and alone.
I liked this story; it wasn’t anything that I hadn’t seen before, but it did a good job with it, giving us some idea of Twilight’s mindset and melancholy as she makes her very long, lonely trek across the stars. While putting only one person onto a spaceship like that seems a bit cruel (and likely to provoke feelings of intense loneliness, even with personable AIs to keep her company), the story works as a whole, and gives us some nice insight into her thoughts.
That being said, I think it might have been better to make this an interstellar voyage; a voyage inside the solar system isn’t actually that far, and while, yes, it would be lonely, you could still talk back to your home planet with a long delay. People could easily send books or video messages in a matter of minutes, and you could have slow-motion conversations with folks over the course of hours.
All in all, though, apart from that bit of fridge logic, it was a good story.
Recommendation: Worth Reading
I Don’t Want to Write This
by Aragon
Slice of Life, SadRainbow Dash is trapped in a room, and she can’t get out until she writes a letter.
Why I added it: It was featured and the description caught my eye.
Review
Rainbow Dash writes a letter to her dad.
I’ve read this story before a few times – the same general idea, of the letter – and thus instantly cottoned on to what was going on, but it still was reasonably well written. Rainbow Dash’s voice was spot-on, and the flow of the story was pretty good on the whole. But this genre of story is pretty common, and the general archetype is strong, and this isn’t something which blew all the others out of the water – it was just another well-executed example of the genre.
If you want to read a feelsy story about Rainbow Dash writing to her dad, this isn’t a bad choice; if you don’t like graves fics and similar sorts of stories, though, you probably won’t like it very much.
Recommendation: Worth Reading
Summary
Safe by SharpSpark
Recommended
Only the Good Die Young by SharpSpark
Recommended
Dubious Enchantment by bookplayer
Highly Recommended
I Don’t Want to Write This by Aragon
Worth Reading
Good Morning, Celestia by Soundslikeponies
Worth Reading
I said everything in a group of stories was worth reading?
What’s wrong with me?
Clearly I’m losing my touch.
Or a bunch of people wrote good stories lately.
Horizon is working on another story which I’ll be recommending when it comes out as well, and of course, my own work plods on in the background.
This is looking to be a good week for pony fiction.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 226
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1539
Stories in read it later: 1,000
unread chapters: 4,000.
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All of these are pretty short; none of them clock in at much over 5,000 words, and safe is only barely a thousand words long. So at least these aren't terribly long stories.
Should I start including word counts? I think that might be helpful to people.
The answer is clearly: Changelings!
The real Titanium Dragon is trapped in a pod in the basement, while three changelings in a poorly-made dragon costume are giving positive reviews in the hopes of garnishing extra love to feast upon.
Any attempts to deny it will only prove that I'm correct...
2806276
my stories I have in thuer...aren't one shots...I'm fucked aren't I? And I keep adding more because they catch my eye...and they have atleast 2k long chapters, some 10k.
2806278
I'll have you know there's only two of us in this animatronic cost-
Er, I mean, nothing here but us dragons.
Wow. Between this and how you were quoting your favorite parts of "Wizards, Fools, and Foals," could we be seeing the dawn of a kinder, gentler TD?
I hope not. That's my schtick.
This scares and confuses me.
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Well, ideally, I'd like everything I read.
I usually don't, but when I get lucky, I'm happier for it. Reading nothing but good stories would be preferable, after all.
It isn't always easy to figure out which ones you'll enjoy ahead of time, though.
Also, as far as quoting goes: this is something I've been remiss on, but it is definitely useful for giving people a sample of stories. I will likely start doing this more in the future because it is helpful for showing the audience why they should (or shouldn't) read a story.
It looks like another sign of the times... TD has approved of every fic in a group.
Darn, I missed the window of opportunity that was the all-positive review day in the dragon cycle. Guess I'll have to wait another year to write something!
Wow, all worth reading?
What the hell, might as well add them to my unread count.
Is it not?
2806703
Relative to the speed of light. Pluto is 5.5 light hours away from the Sun, which is a long way, but that's well within the realm of regular communication; it would be like writing an email or whatever, it'd be slow, but it would get there within a reasonable period of time, and you could respond within a day. 750 million miles is about the distance to Jupiter, which is about 45 minutes.
Or, about the time it took me to respond to your message.
EDIT: My favorite message there is "Is the known universe 99.9999999999999999999958% empty? Or is it 0.0000000000000000000042% full?"
Huh. You liking all the stories in a review post seems to have broken reality. When I try to link to this post on the big master review list, those entries just blank out and cannot be seen. Weird.
2806894
That's very strange indeed.
And definitely not a sign of a pact with an eldritch being.
2807089
Could be! Anyone try to make a pact with you recently?
Oh, hey! I was actually expecting a worse review for this thing, to be honest. I'm glad you found the voicing good -- that was the most important part of the fic for me. I didn't really write it as a sad fic as much as I wrote it as an exercise on using Dash's narration (hence the little originality in the plot; I didn't really care for it, I just saw an example of this exact kind of fic in tumblr and it was so badly done I had to try one by myself just to prove it wasn't that hard).
On the other hand, while I admit that the flow in the story is pretty good, Mr Numbers should share the credit on that one. He read the original draft, which was over 6,500 words long, and immediately told me to cut it as much as possible and send the fic to him again once it was at least 3,500 words long max. I only managed to delete 2,500 words (and fucking Lord, that was way more painful than expected), but the end result was definitely better. I tend to ramble a lot in my stories, so having an editor who's not afraid to tell me "Yes, it's well written, now delete one third of it or don't come near my face" is a huge help. Always listen to your editors, kids. Especially if they are probably smarter than you.
Still feel the sting of those words, however. Aaargh.
Also, right after reading this I noticed you encounter this kind of fic so often you actually created a group called "Talking to the Dead" just to sort them out. That is extremely hilarious.
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Yeah, I'm silly like that. I need to advertise a few of the groups I've made, which exist pretty much because I want to be able to sort through/find stories of that type.
As far as your story goes: yeah, you don't want to belabor the point too much. Cutting length is one of the hardest things to do sometimes, but tightening up stories is frequently necessary. Being concise is more difficult than being verbose, and it can be terribly painful to have to cut thousands of words. But you often end up with a better product as a result.
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery