CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #41 — In the Moon’s Platinum Glow · 8:08am Mar 11th, 2020
I’m continuing my critiques of the entrants into the Imposing Sovereigns II contest. We continue down my list of “finalists”: stories which I considered awarding points to. I would like to stress, however, that I only ranked them because FanOfMostEverything made me; they are all excellent.
Also, please forgive the gap between this review and the last one. A lot of my writing time lately has been focused on my novel, and I did not want to lose that forward momentum.
Title: In the Moon’s Platinum Glow
Author: Pascoite
Found via: That contest what I judged.
Short summary: Princess Platinum participates in the moon raising ceremony every day. A tradition that has been going on and on for centuries. But that is going to change soon: Starswirl has been grooming his apprentice for the task. Supposedly she can perform the entire ritual by herself.
But as this tradition is about to end, something changes… The moon speaks to Platinum, directly. What a gift, what a blessing! One that needs to be cherished, and defended.
Genre(s): Slice of Life, Drama, Twist Delivery, Cosmic Horror
The Title/Description: The title is fine. It’s unique, and includes the two major characters in the story: the moon and Platinum. But it’s not super gripping either.
The description is only three sentences, but there’s a lot of clauses among the first two. Several of those clauses would be better off as their own sentence/idea. It makes them harder to read.
The Critique:
The story is well-written. Surprising no one, Pascoite’s prose is easy to read. There is plenty of clever, witty, and endearing narration scattered throughout. The way Princess Platinum leaves her clothes on the floor for her attendants to pick up, or the description of said attendants as “like a cloud of gnats.” When Platinum is contemplating the mechanics of the moon talking to her, she also makes an offhand mention of how some of her thoughts may not be suitable for viewing: it’s just cheeky enough to be funny, but also easily stays in the realm of its E rating.
The characters are drawn in wonderful detail. Despite being a story full of original characters—and plenty of them—everyone is characterized well. Even the smaller, ancillary characters are done well: I particularly liked the commander and chancellor. And of course, Princess Platinum herself is excellent. We don’t have a lot from the show about her to contradict, and so she feels like a very real person.
This is a story, however, that ends much more strongly than it begins. The timeline at the beginning is choppy. It jumps around, and yet shows a bit more than is needed for the narrative. Yes, it is easy to read because of that aforementioned prose. And there is some important establishing at the start: Princess Platinum’s relationship with Aurora, as well as the mechanics and ritual of the moon raising ceremony.
The weaker beginning might partly be because of some awkwardly long/hard-to-parse sentences. The generally slow pace of the story, however, is the bigger culprit. There is a lot of buildup here. Like some other stories I’ve read, this does a good job of masking one genre in another. Shifting smoothly from Slice of Life to something more sinister. And there is a clear fulcrum where the story switches: the line that clicked for me was “Only now did it occur to Platinum: if she had found the moon distasteful, how would she ever rid herself of it?”
It’s not often I say a story would be better shorter. But there was something subtly off about the opening chapters. Not “off” in a good/intentional way—like the later chapters—but off in the sense that it reads awkwardly. Of course, this slow pacing also contributes heavily to the mood of the reveal, so perhaps it is less severe than I am making it.
In a single sentence: A story that builds to a great climax, if perhaps a bit too slowly for my taste.
Verdict: Upvote. Like so many other pieces of fiction, this is a story whose base premise and execution are excellent. The better a story is, however, the more the little details matter. And this story is good enough to warrant nitpicking. The pacing and occasional long-winded sentence make it a little harder to read than it needs to be.
None of these things ruin the story, not even close. But any prospective reader should be aware of them.
