Hat Man Reviews: "Haze" by Bandy! · 9:38pm March 24th
Haze is a story that is filled with big ideas: Cloud empires. Flying earth ponies. Ancient religions. Superpower-inducing fungi. Unfortunately, much like the mushroom-munching ponies in this story, this story might be biting off more than it can handle…
Also, holy sh*t, that's one of the best covers I've ever seen.
“In the darkness of the pre-Celestial era, a young acolyte of a dead order fights for friendship and vengeance in a strange new land.”
So reads the short description of Haze. And the story swiftly introduces us to Hypha, that same young acolyte, who is a devotee of an order atop the Stonewood Mountains. These devotees harvest Mother Sky mushrooms, which can produce a variety of effects in those who take them—
“You don’t take Mother Sky!”
Er, sorry. Those who partake of them can gain the ability to fly and manipulate magical runes among other things, and they can also produce some potentially shocking prophetic visions. Think, like, the Spice from Dune.
The story also introduces us to Bandy’s superb prose, which is engrossing and delightful. For instance:
The pre-dawn mist coalesced into a snow leopard.
Hypha froze, squinting against the fog. The shape was no more than fifty yards away and slightly downhill from him. It glided along a ridge, then darted through the same thicket of stonewood trees Hypha had just walked through a few minutes before.
The snow leopard stopped suddenly. Its long tail flattened. The permanent frown on its face deepened as it sniffed the air.
Hypha ducked behind a nearby tree and held his breath. His bright orange robes stuck out like a signal flag against the monochrome mountainside and flapped noisily in the breeze. He bunched them up in his hooves and willed the wind not to blow.
The wind ignored him. A fierce mountain gust blew from behind, sending his scent downhill. The snow leopard turned his way, its pale eyes blinking slowly. It could probably see him. No doubt it could smell him. Hypha had been hiking around the mountain all morning. He was one big sweaty orange target in a sea of featureless white snow and black leafless trees.
The world that Bandy crafts is rich with detail. From the candlelit monastery where our tale begins to the little border towns to the great, cloud-borne imperial capital of Derecho, this world feels alive. Discovering each new location and taking in its sights and sounds through the story’s text was an absolute joy and one of the best parts of the experience.
And there is a journey to go on. Hypha’s order is brutally massacred by the Empire of Derecho early on, and so he escapes, determined to preserve the teachings of his culture and also to take revenge on those responsible.
He meets a pair of mares calling themselves Red and Blue, rogues whose own quest of revenge neatly aligns with his own, and so they make their way to Derecho as an uneasy alliance. They build an interesting dynamic between Hypha, whose purist ideals don’t gel with the harshness of the outside world; Red, who is brusque, chatty, and the most down-to-earth of the bunch; and Blue, who is mute and carries a personal grudge against her father.
Red and Blue are also lovers, which occasionally makes Hypha seem like the third wheel, but they reluctantly agree to become monks in Hypha’s renewed order in exchange for him teaching them the secrets of flight and runic magic.
It’s a lot to unpack, but it makes for an interesting trio of protagonists.
I’ve been singing the praises of this story a lot so far, so one might wonder about the foreboding start to this review. With interesting prose, an engaging plot, an immersive world, and a fun mix of main characters, what is wrong with the story?
The answer, unfortunately, is “a lot.” It pains me to say this, but the story is a bit of a mess.
Let’s rewind a bit. This immersive world shows a lot of little cracks.
- There’s a health center in this pre-Celestial world with a cafeteria with plastic trays.
- There’s a colosseum in Derecho where dissidents fight to the death or are murdered by beasts; this colosseum features electric stadium lights. Again, we’re talking about the “pre-Celestial” era; these anachronisms stick out like a sore thumb.
- For all the hyping up of Hypha’s Order, we don’t actually get a lot of what they really believe. They’re just nebulously “spiritual,” and their beliefs are often delivered in short outbursts from Hypha.
- Derecho is likewise depicted as a fairly flat version of the Roman Empire, painted in broad strokes as warlike and decadent and not much else. For being the main setting for the majority of the story, it’s shockingly underdeveloped as a civilization.
There’s an underlying plot that certain elements in Derecho want to use the Mother Sky mushrooms to enhance their soldiers, but due to their unpredictable nature, they need someone who can teach them the order’s secrets. The only problem is that, y’know, they killed the entire order of ponies who could have taught them, which makes the whole massacre entirely pointless and is now the sole reason that the Derechans want to get their hooves on Hypha to begin with.
Romulus, one of the story’s main villains, becomes obsessed with Mother Sky during his conquest, and after nearly wiping out all of the Order’s adherents, this is what he does to one who is taken alive (bolding is mine for emphasis):
”...Take me in as your personal student. You travel with me and teach me about the mushrooms and the order.”
The mare mulled over his words for a moment before replying, “You’re an unworthy student.”
Romulus got right up in her face. “They make you see visions. But that’s not all, is it. They enhance your strength.”
“Those who chase power are doomed to be weak forever.”
Romulus rose. Anger gripped his chest. It wasn’t the old mare’s words that bit him. It was everything else. The wind, the cold, the smell of organs cooling in the snow. All of a sudden he felt more tired than he’d ever felt before.
“Tie her up and throw her off the cliff,” he instructed the guards.
The old mare laughed. “Is that all?”
Romoulus didn’t like the sparkle in the mare’s eyes. As the guards led her towards the walls, he murmured to one of them, “Poke her a few times for good measure.”
Uh, Romulus, I have a question for you…
Now, Mother Sky is already a black box for superpowers; we don’t get a definitive answer for what it definitely does, can or can’t do, or what specific application the bad guys have in mind for it. As a MacGuffin, it’s nebulous, which makes the potential consequences difficult to imagine. The only investment we can have in this conflict is to have faith that the Order is good and the Empire is bad.
The problem is that our hatred for Derecho is only proportional to how much we like Hypha as a protagonist. Sadly, Hypha is profoundly unlikable.
Now, Hypha starts off young and idealistic, full of zeal, but not quite a full-fledged monk. Despite his elders’ teachings and urging to be patient and accepting, he is breathtakingly condescending and untrusting of outsiders. As an example, early on, he is asked by the elder monks what he thinks about inviting some outsiders from surrounding villages to help harvest their wheat (they have grown more than they need, but they don’t have enough ponies to harvest it).
“Oh! Wait. I’m being silly. We could totally let the outsiders in to help us with the wheat.”
The elders’ faces brightened. “Yes?”
“Yeah! All we’d have to do is shackle them and keep them under armed guard. That way they can’t cause trouble.”
Cumulus looked like he was about to faint. Hirruck let out a long sigh. “We will take your advice to heart, Hypha. Thank you. One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“If we decide to involve outsiders in helping clear the fields, would you be willing to take a leadership role in overseeing its execution?”
“Execution? I didn’t say we should go that far.”
Now, aside from it being a bit of a stretch for a joke, there’s nothing wrong with this scene. It establishes Hypha’s characterization as a xenophobic zealot early on. We would expect, through his trials and tribulations, that he would learn and grow bigger as a person.
But he doesn’t. He repeatedly makes decisions that bring disaster on himself and his friends out of sheer stubbornness. He encounters a former member of his order who helps him out but then murders him for “corrupting” their faith. Yet he willingly teaches Red and Blue, despite both being of questionable quality as disciples because it's convenient for his own goals. And he never has a moment where he questions if his actions are right or wrong, he never gets a revelation where he comes around and becomes a better person. He acts rashly and yet the story seems to go out of its way to vindicate him.
And some of his decisions are baffling. When he gets to Derecho, despite being told to keep a low profile, he flies up to change a lightbulb in the colosseum to get a job working there… in a city that specifically targeted and murdered his order of flying earth pony brethren. Just… ugh, Fluttershy, can you help me out again here?
Thanks, Fluttershy!
Anyway, my point is that Hypha’s issues as a protagonist are the biggest stumbling block of the story. If he were more likable and had a better story arc, I think I could forgive a lot of its other flaws, but he makes it hard to get fully invested in the story’s overall outcome.
This review is fairly long, but I want to conclude with a bit more positivity. For all my gripes, this is a story with a lot to love, even if it doesn’t quite pull off the execution.
Bandy is a damn good writer. He’s written mostly short form stories which are quite a lot of fun, and this story highlights some of his strengths: the descriptions are crisp, the dialogue is snappy and engaging, and the concepts at work here are intriguing. I got frustrated with this story about halfway into it, but I was invested enough to read it to the end, and I don’t think it could have pulled that off if it was a genuinely “bad” story. That said, its elements don’t coalesce well enough to really be called a success either.
Bandy might have had a clear vision for this story in his mind, but the version we got just ended up “hazy.”
Anyway, that’s my review. Hope you enjoyed it and… hey, what is that over there? Is that a goddam snow leopardOHSHIT—
An interesting review! Many thanks for writing it, Haze isn't one I've read yet myself but I'll definitely keep your review in mind when I get to it and see how it compares with my own thoughts. n_n
Yay, ponyfic reviewing! Always good to see some of that around the fandom. Thank you for a very readable review, too.
Nice to see you doing reviews! Your advice is really good.
Thank you for all the insightful critique
You nailed the fact that I'm primarily a short fiction writer, but I'm hype to write more novel-length fiction in the future. This is a great chance for self-reflection, thank you.
#Blue is best mute badass pony
Love the reviews, defo do more of these in the future, love to hear about undescovered gems like this one
5773676
You're welcome! And thanks for taking this in stride; I try to be fair to the writers I review while still keeping the review entertaining, but I fret a lot about whether I'm being too harsh at times. So, I'm glad it was helpful!
I think you show a lot of potential here. Consider how you can craft a more fulfilling character arc to compliment your world building on your next long project, and I think it will be a great success!