Paul's Thursday Reviews #100! · 11:03pm Jan 4th, 2018
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that this, my first review blog of the new year, is also my 100th Thursday Review blog! Holy smackerdoodles, that's a lot of reviews. And it doesn't even encompass all of them. Hard to believe how many stories I've read and reviewed in these two years – my very first scheduled review blog was on Feb. 23, 2015, and I've had one almost weekly ever since. There have been some bumps and adjustments as I gradually got into my style, but I had no clue I'd still be doing this after so long. Doesn't look like I'll be stopping, either. Here's to another 100 reviews! I hope I continue to deliver fair judgements to you all for a long time to come.
Of course, now's also the perfect time to take a look at my 2017 stats. I wrote eight new stories, nine if you count Caballeron's 'book' in Order of Shadows. All of that combined with updates to existing stories means I ended up with more than 144,000 words published in 2017. That might seem like small potatoes when considering that last year I published close to 330,000 in 2016. Buuut, what about the material you folks haven't seen yet?
It just so happens that I started a third spreadsheet back in August for the express purpose of tracking my wordcounts on a daily basis. That means it includes everything that isn't public yet, including my writings so far of Bulletproof Heart, Songbird, etc. That wordcount as of December 31 was at ~207,000 words. And keep in mind, that only includes my writings from August onwards! I can't imagine what the rest of the year looks like. Alas, I don't have those numbers, but what I am seeing is very encouraging towards my future. At this rate, I'm well on my way to getting back to that 500k/year mark I was getting when I first joined this fandom.
Plans for this coming year include finally continuing the next No Heroes story, Life of Pie, completing my first original fiction for publication (currently titled Fortune), and eventually releasing the first part of Bulletproof Heart. With luck, I'll also be able to start the next Order of Shadows book, resume The Silence and – after far too many delays – get started on the story I agreed to pick up from a friend years ago (I'm looking at you, para).
But to do that, I need to finish this blog and get back to writing. I wanted to do something special for my 100th Thursday Review Blog – maybe re-review some classic longfics like Background Pony or Fallout Equestria – but alas, I realized it was coming too late. Oh well, there's always next time! For now, have some reviews.
Oh, and no reviews next week. I'm on break!
Stories for This Week:
Twilight Sparkle Plays With Dolls by Cyanide
Rebellion: Of Goddesses and Gallows by ScriptScrolls
Sweet Little Lovely: A Gothic Romance by Mr V
Bats in the Old Apple Barn by adcoon
Green by Steel Resolve
Total Word Count: 506,981
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
Twilight Sparkle Plays With Dolls
1,016 Words
By Cyanide
Well, that was even more weird than I expected.
This strange non-story of a story is about… well, nothing, really. It has Twilight playing with dolls (sorry, resin models), which usually involves imagining Trixie making out with random ponies that annoy her. Oh, and she gets caught by Spike and Rainbow Dash.
While the baseline concept has the ability to amuse, Cyanide did nothing at all with it. It would be different if this had been stretched out to explore the potential humorous consequences, but instead we’re just given the ‘this is what’s happening’ review and boom, story over. I expected a comedy with far more entertainment value than this.
Read it for a chuckle. If you’re bored.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Rebellion: Of Goddesses and Gallows
7,739 Words (Incomplete)
ScriptScrolls posted this story on an inferior site that doesn't do cover art.
Recommended by Pascoite
Darn it, Pascoite, why did you have to include incomplete stories among your recommendations? Worse, this one’s not even published on FiMfiction! Bah. A pox upon you.
...okay, so I don’t really care about where the story’s found. I just like whining.
Rebellion takes place an indeterminate (but apparently long) time after the events of the show, with canon events remaining so up to Season 3 but not including Magical Mystery Cure. Twilight Sparkle is summoned for an emergency meeting, in which Celestia claims to be dying. She then informs Twilight that everything she ever knew about Equestria and her life is a lie, right down to Celestia and Luna themselves being normal unicorns benefiting from a complex illusion. And since Celestia is going to die soon, Twilight needs to be the next Celestia.
In short, we’ve got a total bullshit premise. Bullshit... unless you consider Celestia to be completely incompetent in her training of Twilight, who should have been emotionally prepared for this. Rather than teaching Twilight to accept her place as a superior unicorn ready to completely control the hearts and minds of the entire country with a complex scam directly opposed to Harmony by the very nature of its existence, she taught Twilight about Harmony and the Elements and treating ponies fairly. Of course, when Twilight finds out she’s outraged and horrified.
So yeah, consider me unimpressed with the delivery. Starswirl’s one-chapter, 5-minute reveal didn’t do it any favors.
Having said that, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the premise on the whole. If this were some AU where Twilight was given the information properly rather than all at once, or had been trained since selection to take on her role, or some other proper explanation made in all of this, I can see there being an impressive epic made from it. I can’t help but think of something along the lines of Airstream’s Lines and Webs series, only without the immortals.
But concept alone won’t do it for me. Everything’s happening far, far too quickly to be believable, and that’s without Celestia’s gross incompetence on display. Given some more time to really build upon the idea? I’d like to know more. But as it is, I wasn’t all that eager. This would have landed in my Needs Work category easily, were it finished.
Sweet Little Lovely: A Gothic Romance
14,993 Words
By Mr V
Requested by yamgoth
It is becoming increasingly clear that yamgoth and I share certain interests. In this story in particular, we can see the peculiar and Weird form that has been a delightful influence on my literary interests. It is, most certainly, a niche flavor, but one I consider quite the delicacy.
In this story we meet Marvelous, the son of a grocer in a small town and considered the most handsome bachelor of the local youths. Marvelous, a clockmaker by trade, is obsessed with the beautiful but sickly young mare Little Lovely, daughter of a local farmer. But Little Lovely isn’t a normal girl, no, and her father has a way around complex mechanisms of his own.
Ignoring the presence of ponies (or, perhaps, especially because of it), this story would fit well with such tales as Francis Stevens’ Unseen—Unfeared, Stefan Grabinski’s The White Weyrak, or Saki’s Sredni Vashtar. I imagine most of you have no idea what I’m talking about. The two of you who do may be suddenly paying more attention, as it tells you exactly the kind of story this is. Mr V makes a strong attempt to emulate the style of these stories, and does so to great effect. From the strange – some would argue terrifying and terrible – nature of Little Lovely’s existence to the unorthodox conclusion of Marvelous, the entire story is a lot sideways of normal.
And I loved it for that.
I think the only criticism I have for it as a story is that it takes some time to develop and get to the point. I also acknowledge that this, in and of itself, is a nod to the kind of story this emulates, and so I am not inclined to take away points over it. I merely feel it warrants mention for the uninitiated, who may not be so accepting.
This was a nostalgic look at a type of writing that isn’t very common, yet which cements itself as a fascinating type of creative literature. Call it gothic, call it Weird, call it niche. You have to be interested in the dark and, perhaps, uncomfortable to really get this. For those of us with that particularly peculiar proclivity, it is a diamond. A cold, hard, honey-glazed diamond, but a diamond nonetheless.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
yamgoth, if you know any more like this, let me know.
Bats in the Old Apple Barn
5,533 Words
By adcoon
Bats in the Old Apple Barn is set on a Nightmare Night when the Cutie Mark Crusaders are permitted to stay at Apple Bloom’s place alone for the night. Their candy haul collected and the celebrations over, they decide it’s time to tell spooky stories inspired by Princess Luna’s bat pony guards. What follows are three short stories, all about bat ponies and each told by a different crusader.
The stories range from the extra creative, the boring and uncreative, and the exceptionally sad. Scootaloo’s wasn’t scary at all. In fact, it didn’t make much sense at the end. But it was still creative and interesting, so I guess don’t mind.
Sweetie Belle’s was dull and boring. Basically, it’s just traditional vampire stuff; once you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all. I suppose it would work for the fillies since it seems none of them are familiar with the concept of vampires, but for the general audience it’s too commonplace to be all that interesting.
I can see why AB’s was kept for last, as it was by far the best and the most suitable for scaring little fillies. Realistic, legitimately saddening, and a suitable ghost origin story… although she laid it on a little too thick at the end. As to the conclusion… well, I suppose it’ll work for the Happy Ending Crusader crowd, but to me it was too contrived. And since I’m more a fan of the dark and gloomy, I know I’d have preferred something more legit, if not necessarily dangerous.
Oh, well. For what it is, I enjoyed myself. It’s some light reading, spooky-but-not-going-overboard fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Green
477,412 Words
By Steel Resolve
Completed Story
And we’re back for round two of my attempt to review this story. The first time it was incomplete and I only got about halfway through it, and I read it then strictly because I happen to be a shipper and I really, really wanted to. So, what can I say about this story?
That’s it. We’re done. You now know everything there is to know about Green. Moving on.
…
…
…
…
…
Oh, fine.
The mammothian story presented here is nothing short of a shipper’s paradise. The supposed frontrunner of the story is RariShy (or Flarity, if you prefer), and begins with Fluttershy and Rarity harboring huge crushes on one another and jumping through all sorts of nonsensical hoops because they are convinced each couldn’t possibly like the other. But again, that’s just the frontrunner situation: we’ve also got AppleDash and TwiPie running on all cylinders taking up roughly half the story together, along with some Spike ‘getting over Rarity’ drama, Celestia pining for a student who is now taken, Luna being a bed bug and only just discovering the consequences of such a promiscuous lifestyle, some Fancy Pants and Fluer de Lis cameo romance, a CMC triangle… and I’m probably forgetting something. The point is, there are plenty of plot bunnies and Steel Resolve went through a lot of trouble trying to catch all of them.
Frankly, he should have let them roam free for a bit. Just like my last review, I contend that this could have been ¼ to ½ as big a story if Steel Resolve had simply let things happen in the background and come back to handle them in side stories and sequels. The author does eventually make the decision to give up on some, but it proves too little, too late. The end result is a sense of favoritism – why do Pinkie, Twilight and Celestia get their decent resolution while the entire CMC triangle is swept under the rug after a few chapters that made it seem like such a big deal? – and a wondering why certain questions were given so much attention when others were summarily ignored. I sincerely hope that Steel Resolve figures out in the sequel how to let go of these things early on before making them appear important.
I can also see some people complaining about a plot made oh-so convoluted by the extreme contrivances that act as the driving force of much of the action. Freak storms forcing romantic co-habitation, healing magic gone haywire combining with poisonous vines and rising mental problems all coinciding to produce chaos; whatever the situation may be, you can bet there’s some unexpected and potentially ridiculous extra element to make it just a little more unreasonable. To compound the problem, events taking only a few hours will require a half-dozen chapters or more to conclude because of the author’s frustrating need to make sure you’ve seen how the events affect every single character, preferably from their perspectives. So we have a Rarity chapter, a Fluttershy chapter, a Twilight chapter, a Pinkie chapter, a Rarity chapter, a Celestia chapter, a Fluttershy chapter, an Applejack chapter and what do you mean only two days have passed?
But here’s the big thing: this is a shipper’s paradise. I wasn’t exaggerating that, not even remotely. If you are a shipper – and I most certainly am – none of the things I’ve already mentioned will negatively impact your enjoyment of this story. If anything, they might even make you like it more. Sure, the situations are over the top, and yeah, it does seem ridiculous that each member of the Mane 6 just so happens to be attracted to another member of the Mane 6 at the same time. We don’t care, we just want our ship fix, yo. This story is perfect for that.
I suppose it should be noted that there are indeed things other than romance going on. Luna’s attempts to rule with her sister presently occupied, Rarity’s efforts to impress Fluttershy’s father, Rainbow on her deathbed because of poison, there are plenty of things available for the non-shippers out there. One just has to be aware that this story is a romance first and foremost, and almost every event that occurs is going to be painted with that in mind.
Personally, I enjoyed every moment of this. Sure, it’s a little long, and yeah, it brings up a lot of things that I feel could have been ignored for later publications. But everything that Steel Resolve decided to include was interesting, fun, dramatic, or endearing. I’d even go so far as to say it made for a more evocative whole, a whole that might have been more so if the author had bothered to not let go of some of the bunnies he’d already managed to catch. I enjoyed all the romantic moments, big and small, even when I never could come to accept at least one of the pairings. I especially loved the characterizations, which meshed well with the show in nearly every aspect (provided you keep note of when the story starts in canon).
It may be another eternity before Steel Resolve manages to complete the sequel. I for one will be looking forward to it. In the meantime, every reader out there who considers themselves a shipper should read this story. Those of you looking for other material may not get quite the same level of enjoyment out of it, but that’s okay; we all know who the intended audience is here.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Stories for Next Week:
Something Sweet to Bite Too by Knackerman
Honeymoon by Darth Link 22
Treasure by KuroiTsubasaTenshi
The Laughing Shadow by Merc the Jerk
Ruminating by Hakuno
I Wish I Had Met You Yesterday by 8686
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Congratulations! Significant achievement is significant.
If you liked Sweet Little Lovely and you haven't read Carousel yet, you need to.
I warned you that story was incomplete and gave you ample opportunity to decline it! I also don't remember the first thing about it. Even reading your summary of it didn't ring a bell.
Congratulations! That's a lot of review work that is well-appreciated!
And congratulations on the word count too! That's a good number to hit, and an even loftier (but attainable) goal!
Eeeek!! The big 100! Also, you broke the Roman Numeral thing... that slightly annoys me.
Oh, and... *brandishes the Official SA Hatchet
4767143
Many thanks!
4767197
The question is, which one? There are four Carousels that I've found, and two of them are rated as dark.
4767205
Curious, it's certainly the one you recommended. As to it being incomplete... yeah, I don't like them, but I make an exception for requests.
4767213
Bah! I've done better. But I guess that just means the goal isn't as impossible as it might seem.
4767237
You got fingers, don't ya? Get to typing!
4767359
Yeah, wanted to break it as a subtle sorta of 'look at me!' kinda thing.
Oh, put away that pointy object, you silly person you. *pushes hatchet away with finger* I'm on break now and have zero distractions for the weekend, so I can get it done then. Finally.
4767481
Thornquill's. :B
Convoluted, but ultimately fun to read. Honestly, I could not have described my own work better than that.
4767497
Very well, it is added to my RiL!
4767501
So what's the estimate on the sequel? Completed in 2030 or so?
4767509
We'll see. Ultimately the characters are the ones telling me their stories.
4767506
Entirely coincidental that I posted it today. :V You should take that as a sign.
Happy 100 Paul!!
144 is a gross.
144000 is one thousand grosses.
A ton is one thousand
poundsYou published a ton of gross words in 2017.
shut up it works
4768080
Whaaaaat! I have just now learned, this moment and by accident, that a ton is two thousand pounds. How the hell have I gotten that wrong all my life?!? I've thought it was a thousand for literally forever! It's also known as a short ton, didn't you know, while tonne (or metric ton) refers to 1000kg, and long ton is the UK's original definition of a ton, which is 2240lbs, apparently.
Laaaaame.
4773027
Whaaat? dude, that privileged engineering info. Whre's your license?
4773028
Right here
I was reading up on ballistic missiles, thanks to everyone's soiled underwear in Hawaii. One mistake led to the correction of another.
That'll make them feel better.