Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCLV · 8:32pm April 18th
When it rains, it pours.
My car’s battery crapped out on me Sunday morning. Of all the days, it would be on a day when I’m at my parents, need to drive the ~110 miles home because my work computer is there, and have less than a quarter tank of gas. My dad jump-started the car, but at that point it’s like “don’t turn it off while on the road or it might not turn on again”. The battery should still be in-warranty, but only if I go to a Honda dealership, and those ain’t open on Sundays. And as if that wasn’t enough, my car carries an unusual battery type that isn’t readily available in most stores. So I had to cancel my lunch plans with my mother and spend two hours traveling around Hell’s half-acre in the nearest town without turning my car off at any of the stops asking any of the shops that happen to be open on Sundays if they might have the battery I needed.
I found one in the end, so it all came out okay. It just figures that this would happen the same week I’m paying to repair/upgrade my desktop though.
Speaking of, I still don’t have that back yet. I was assured they’d have news and upgrade options for me by Friday, but that didn’t happen. I finally called them on Tuesday and while they did admit to an unexpected delay they had the information for me about 20 minutes later. I’m going to get a new case, PCU, power supply, and motherboard (the latter two because my old ones aren’t compatible with the new PCU). I forget the specific processor he recommended beyond the fact it’s AMD, but it’s a 2023 model that’s some seven generations newer than what I had; guy said it would be a “beast”. This guy hasn’t steered me wrong in the past, so I’m looking forward to it.
Aside from that, he’s going to install Windows 11 on it, and I will have to reinstall all my programs. This doesn’t bother me too much though, since I know the software I use the most and reinstalling it shouldn’t be much of a hassle.
I should have the desktop back by tomorrow, maybe Saturday if the part deliveries are late. After that I should finally be able to get in contact with my Guppy Love prereaders again.
Speaking of stories; I’ve finally got an artist to commit to my new, commissioned story, The Conflict. Alas, they’re fully booked with other commissions, so it’s going to be some time before they can get to mine. I’m using the extra time to tweak the story a little. Hate that I’m still waiting like this, but I like this story enough that I’m determined to give it some decent art.
Alright, enough of that. There are reviews to read.
Stories for This Week:
To Be Remembered by MrSpartan
The Dirge of a River by SilverEyedWolf
Dear Diary by KitsuneRisu
Man Cannot Live On Coffee Alone by PropMaster
Sombran Lullaby by voroshilov
Overcome them by Wolfeh05
Radioactive by Skeeter The Lurker
The Grand RariShip Council by Monochromatic
A Rock Facing West by Oroboro
A Survey of the Work of Vinyl Scratch (Abbreviated) by Meta Four
Total Word Count: 194,986
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 4
Worth It: 4
Needs Work: 2
None: 0
To Be Remembered
9,542 Words
By MrSpartan
Twilight has come to believe that there might be an ancient ruin of some lost civilization in the southern badlands, and so asks Celestia for permission to mount an expedition. Celestia agrees – barely, and only on the condition that Twilight and Spike go alone and return at the first sign of danger. It’s only after they’re on their way that it occurs to Twilight that her mentor might know more about their destination than she’s letting on.
There’s no crossover tag, likely due to the age of the story, but I have every reason to believe this is a crossover with the Metro series of games and/or books. It relates how Twilight and Spike discover an ancient, ruined human city that was wiped out in nuclear devastation after a bloody and cruel war. Aside from exploring the place in an attempt to learn more about these people, both of them will have very personal and disturbing encounters with literal ghosts.
How peculiar that a writer whose pen name is based on an ancient warrior society wrote an anti-war story about an ancient society.
On the one hand, I really like MrSpartan’s vivid description and sense of atmosphere. In many ways it is this story’s best feature. You really do get a strong sense of a magnificent civilization lost. Second to that is the great depiction of Twilight, Spike, and their loving sibling relationship. It’s the kind of thing you don’t see explored as much as you’d think, and when it is it’s usually not so well defined throughout the entirety of the story. It’s like a sub-theme; maybe not the point, but always there regardless.
There were a few things that bugged me, though. Like how certain things survived the countless millennia when they absolutely shouldn’t have. And for some reason the whole “use ghosts to drive the plot” element didn’t sit well with me. Are ghosts a common element of the Metro series? I’ve never played the games or read the books, so I wouldn’t know, but if they were an established element of those then I’d be willing to accept it as in-keeping with the source material. There’s also the implication that lethal nuclear radiation is still dominating the region, which absolutely wouldn’t be the case regardless of what common fiction would have you believe.
I come away with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the solid characterization of our protagonists, the great set-piece and its evocative descriptions all do MrSpartan credit. But then things started getting unbelievable in the name of anti-war messaging, and thus it started to lose me. Nothing against the message, but I’ve seen it done a lot and believe there are better ways to do it than ghosts and common misconceptions. In the end, I feel the pros balance the cons, and given that it will probably appeal to a lot of people who aren’t me I think it fits perfectly with a middle-ground rating.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
The Dirge of a River
4,931 Words
By SilverEyedWolf
River Serenade wakes up in a dilapidated, ruined room. When he finally manages to get out, he finds… things. Weird things. Creepy things. Things that make no sense. All he wants is to get out, but maybe that’s not for the better.
This was weird, and not just in a Weird Fiction way. It goes well beyond that. SilverEyedWolf claims in an author’s note that this is their first horror, and it shows. I’d love to explain to you what is going on, but as far as I can tell there is no logic or reason to the events.
Apparently River is trapped in a living house that does… things to ponies? And he keeps unintentionally killing the survivors he meets and yet doesn’t seem to care that he’s doing so? And he keeps running into living corpses, like the headless one and the one missing its jaw and an eye that were casually screwing each other. Or the one that is only half a body yet is somehow able to walk around and act like everything’s perfectly normal. Or the head on the roof that has all its guts still attached but nothing else. And let’s not forget the walls covered in millions of insects, or the window that possesses a three-pupiled eye.
Then River somehow escapes, makes his way to Ponyville (because of course), unintentionally hurts Fluttershy (whom for some reason he does care for), intentionally kills Rainbow Dash, then Twilight’s there and he was hunting for her originally but now he doesn’t want to see her and Twilight kills him in retaliation and then for no reason at all she decides to commit suicide the end.
Yeah. There are stories where the questions are more important than the answers, and then there are complete what-the-fuckeries like this. It seems like SilverEyedWolf’s concept of horror is just a bunch of random, unrelated events created purely for shock value. I don’t believe that’s quite true; I have the impression that there was an intended underlying “why” in all of this. But we’ve no clue as to what that might be so instead it all comes out as chaos. The end with the deaths of Fluttershy, Rainbow, and Twilight honestly felt slapped on in hopes of getting a rise out of the reader rather than for any practical purpose, especially when it ends with Twilight killing herself because… uh… because.
Sorry, SilverEyedWolf, but you can’t just slap a few walking corpses and murder some beloved characters and expect that to suffice. Mysteries are all well and good, but maybe next time try to give the horror a purpose.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Dear Diary
11,628 Words
By KitsuneRisu
Sequel to Entry #649
Alternative Title: Cottontail
After so long, Rainbow Dash has come to the town of Damsire, where Fluttershy now lives. It’s a wonderful thing for poor Fluttershy, who has spent so much time isolated and alone after abandoning her old life. But Rainbow isn’t just here to get reacquainted; she’s looking for Princess Twilight, who disappeared a week ago. And she’s brought some… objects with her.
Entry #649 focused on Rarity getting visited by Twilight and falling victim to some Lovecraftian horror Twilight brought with her. It wasn’t bad, but it was a bit too unsolvable for my tastes. Which, coming from me, is saying something. It’s no secret that I thoroughly enjoy the Weird sub-genre, which treats questions as more important than their answers.
This story is very much still in that realm of Lovecraftian Weird. It has Rainbow and Fluttershy fall victim to a similar horror, probably even the same one. Set at the same time as the previous story, it provides some extra hints as to what happened to Twilight, but otherwise focuses entirely on Fluttershy and the horrible things she’s begun to do in response to the otherworldly effects of the unseen thing that influences the both of them.
This one is far more impactful than its predecessor. There will be trauma. There will be murder. There will be… recipes. But the worst of it all is the vague but impactful knowledge of Rainbow’s fate. Fluttershy’s is bad, but Rainbow’s? Her situation and the hints KitsuneRisu offers us are prime examples of how much worse our imaginations are than any direct description. We’re told just enough to know that whatever Rainbow is going through, it is traumatic in the extreme.
There’s still one glaring issue: images. Or the lack of them. Just like in Entry #649, KitsuneRisu tried to use images to enhance the story. No idea if they would have helped, because every single one of them is broken. Considering that five of the last seven chapters either rely extensively on these images or are nothing but the images, this means we’re completely missing out on the climax. I do wish KitsuneRisu would bother to go back and fix this, because it completely ruins the ending.
The Need to Know crowd won’t like this any more than its predecessor, but if you’re a fan of the Weird and don’t mind some truly disturbing horror, then this is the story for you. You don’t even have to read the previous story to get into this one, and this is definitely the better of the two. Pity about those broken images though.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Incandescent Brilliance — WHYRTY?
Two Tiny Talks — WHYRTY?
Tarnish — Pretty Good
Entry #649 — Worth It
Man Cannot Live On Coffee Alone
135,084 Words
By PropMaster
Sequel to Man Cannot Live On Tea Alone
You know the drill. Jake, human, stuck in Equestria, can’t get home, la-de-da. For some time Celestia kept him close so as to better oversee his integration into Equestria, but then she introduced him to Rarity. Now Jake has to come to terms with the fact that he’s starting to grow attached romantically to a fashion horse. Which isn’t really a bad thing, come to think of it.
I wrote this review almost exactly four months ago. Why so early? Because someone went and requested a 2M+ story (no, that M is not a typo) and an 800k+ story at the same time and I had to make some tricky scheduling decisions to make room for them. So by the time this review comes out I doubt I’ll adequately remember the content of this story to answer questions about it. Which is important to note now, because I had some strong opinions about this one and I expect people may challenge me on them.
Anyway, this is an HiE story, as you’ve undoubtedly figured out. It’s not quite as traditional an HiE as I’m accustomed to, but it still has some of the tropes. Including perhaps the most common one of all: “Oh, humans are bad and I don’t deserve to be around these perfect, kind, caring ponies!” Gag me.
Despite this tired cliché being an important underlying principle of the story, PropMaster is a capable enough writer to keep things interesting. For example, instead of doing the traditional “meet the Mane Six” routine, Jake stays in Canterlot and only gets to visit with Rarity when she’s in town. This forces our protagonist to instead make friends with the locals, such as Donut Joe and his waitress Marge (short for Margarine), or the two guards foalsitting him, Dusky and Sapphire. This alone is a nice breath of fresh air, and all the characters are well defined with unique, endearing traits behind them.
And when Jake finally does have to meet the Mane Six, it’s not the “automatically friends in five seconds” routine we normally get either. Heck, he actually gets into a brawl with Rainbow. Neither is his relationship with Rarity nonstop paradise, especially at the midpoint when things really get rocky between them. Bonus points for Jake initially having that “I’m feeling affection for a goddamn horse” setback for a time.
The point that I really started doubting things was when it became clear that PropMaster was aiming for the invasion of the Storm King to serve as the story’s climax. I never particularly liked the whole “random human is a badass that saves Equestria” thing, and the fact that Jake’s Earth history involved being a mercenary for hire had me on Yellow Alert. (Aside: What is this obsession with making every human who comes to Equestria have some sort of combat/military background? Get some new material, HiE writers.) I was dreading the ending, because the last thing I wanted was yet another story making it look like the ponies are incapable of saving themselves. Especially in this one, as the Mane Six being heroes perfectly capable of taking care of themselves had been something of an ongoing theme and I’d hate to see that theme ruined by such a climax.
But PropMaster had better ideas. The Storm King’s army shows up and not only does Jake not instantly put them down, he actively avoids doing so by relying more on the guidance of his assigned guardsponies. Indeed, the core point of the climax seems to come down to Jake’s ability to help vs. his pony-reconstructed moral compass. This was a great move on the author’s part, as it creates a much more complex scenario and avoids some of the worst tropes of the genre.
I do feel like the messaging was handled a bit oddly though. The entire climax hinges on whether or not Jake can bring himself to kill his enemies. There’s this scene where Jake has to make that decision, and I think PropMaster intended that to be the climax. Did he make the right decision at the time? Looking at the situation logically… yeah, I think so. But then others tell him “You could have made things easier for us but you chose your moral compass, and we appreciate that.” Uh, what? No, it wouldn’t have made things easier. It would have made everything worse, would have dragged the pain out for much longer, and wouldn’t have achieved anything of any value in the long run. That’s why his decision was the right one, not because of some pacifist mumbo-jumbo. The decision he made sucked, and yes, it came with the advantage of him not having to take that step, but don’t pretend like that would have been the easy way out. He might have had trouble making the decision, but it was the easier of the two choices.
I’m pretty sure that’s not what PropMaster intended, but it’s how the last conversation on the topic came off. It’s not even the message itself that bothers me, just how it was presented.
…
Aaand then the Storm King shows up and we have that big battle anyway, because why not? Here’s an idea: Why not let the fight at the coffee shop be the climax and we skip everything we’ve already seen with the Storm King? We know how it goes. You’ve not changed a single thing in canon since this story started, so why start now? Jake doesn’t need to witness the Storm King’s defeat for his character arc to be completed, so I don’t think we need to suddenly stomp on canon now when it serves no real purpose. This entire story thrived not on action but on Jake’s personal development and his relationship with others. Ending it in a big fight against the overhyped baddie seems to stand in opposition to that, even if he had precious little to do with said baddie’s demise anyway.
In short, the Storm King’s arrival was a crucial part of Jake’s final character arc, and yet it still messed up the ending.
Even so, I mostly enjoyed this story. Jake was an interesting protagonist in general, his cohorts were fun characters in their own rights, and PropMaster blends just enough of common genre concepts and new angles to keep readers guessing. Everything up until the conclusion of the coffee shop fight was great, and it’s really only in the last chapter that things started to feel more “meh” to me. I would also like to point out that this story took PropMaster six years to finish, and the fact that there doesn’t appear to be any substantial plot holes or awkward directional shifts in all that time speaks wonders for the author’s ability to keep things on track.
Some of the theming could have been handled better and I have a lot of reservations about how it ended. Other than that? A solid addition to PropMaster’s library, and a worthwhile HiE to take a look at.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Carry Me Home — Pretty Good
Rarity Snuggles Everypony (Whether They Like It or Not) — Pretty Good
Solem Perditum — Pretty Good
Man Cannot Live On Tea Alone — Worth It
Sombran Lullaby
10,849 Words
voroshilov failed to provide cover art.
Requested by LH45
The Lunar Rebellion is over. Celestia has reclaimed Equestria, and the threats to her rule have been extinguished. All but one. King Sombra races back to the Crystal City, praying he can get there fast enough to give his people a fighting chance to escape her wrath.
Told from Sombra’s perspective, this story tells of the last days of the Crystal Empire. In canon, Sombra was an evil tyrant defeated by Celestia and Luna before Luna’s act of rebellion. In this version, Sombra instead is the beloved ruler of the Crystal Empire, personally chosen to lead by his predecessor. When the Lunar Rebellion came, he chose to side with Luna and aid her in her war efforts. Celestia apparently believes he “corrupted” Luna somehow and thus holds him personally responsible for the conflict.
Curiously, the story focuses far less on the actual siege of the Crystal City and instead on the preparations for it. Most of the story follows Sombra as he meets with his friends throughout the city, which includes his guard captain (going by name alone, presumably an ancestor of Fleur de Lis), the royal physician, and the royal librarian. With them he both reminisces about better times and plans the city’s defense. Only the last two chapters have to do with the actual siege.
There are a few oddities that never get explained. For example, apparently the empire does have an emperor, and it is not Sombra. Rather it is some disembodied entity known as Nicholas, who is described as the “Master of Time”. He doesn’t speak to Sombra directly but instead has a group of powerful unicorns called “The Companions” whom he directly commands and sometimes possesses for the purpose of speaking through them (why do I get the vague feeling this is an Elder Scrolls reference?). Sombra often takes direct orders from this entity, including orders to retreat when he’d rather be fighting, but it is never specified whether he ordered Sombra to aid Luna’s rebellion in the first place. But given the Companions are specifically identified as belonging to Luna, it’s possible that she too had been taking orders from this Nicholas and it had been pulling the strings of the entire conflict all along. We’ll never know though, because voroshilov makes no attempt to explain anything about this entity; who it is, where it comes from, its motivations and intentions, and so on. It just is, and you’re expected to run with it.
There’s also the question of Celestia herself. Is she a hero or a villain? It’s impossible to say. Yes, she’s invading the Crystal Empire, and yes, some of her soldiers are… Well, let’s just say they aren’t all that interested in the whole “rules of war” thing. And it’s also specified that the griffons – who offer the crystal ponies sanctuary – hate her for undisclosed reasons. But at the same time there are points when she is specifically described as kind, and other hints that this sudden turn to fury is entirely a reaction to her sister’s rebellion and not at all reflective of Celestia’s usual manner. Heck, when she has the opportunity to finally kill Sombra, instead she has something of a breakdown and all but begs him to explain why he “took” Luna.
I see two possibilities. The first is that a long period of disagreements and propaganda has led to Celestia appearing as a villain to the Crystal Empire and its citizens regardless of the truth. In other words, we’re dealing with an unreliable narrator. This would explain why she’s so feared and hated by the crystals despite clear evidence being shown that she’s not as terrible as they think. Yes, she resorted to some gruesome methods – such as when she hit the city walls with rainbow-hued magical hellfire without so much as giving them a chance to parley – but it seems that from her perspective she was dealing with something truly evil that couldn’t be negotiated with. The impression I get is that someone has been leading a smear campaign against her, and if she had just stopped to try and talk to Sombra there might have been less bloodshed. It’s made all the more interesting when the ending implies that something is manipulating Sombra in terrible ways that he only just realizes at the last second, when it’s far too late to do anything about it or get help.
It’s either that or possibility two: that voroshilov couldn’t pick a position for Celestia and kept flip-flopping on the subject. I much prefer option one, but I can’t dismiss the possibility of option two.
This was a rather unusual retelling of Sombra’s fall and the Empire’s exile, reforming the whole affair into a nefarious manipulation at worst and a case of tragic miscommunication at best. An interesting story, but it leaves behind a lot of questions. Supposedly there is a sequel, and I would indeed like to read it.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Overcome them
4,493 Words
By Wolfeh05
Requested by Wolfeh05
Everything was fine in Our Town, or as ‘fine’ as they can be when everypony has been equalized. But then their ‘normal’ is blown away in an instant when some dark, malevolent force passes through on a cloud of plague. Now the town leader, Starlight, is sick. That’s only the start of their problems.
This story focuses on Our Town’s only survivors of the ongoing undead plague: Night Glider, Double Diamond and Party Favor. Living isolated in a cave near the town, they struggle for the basic necessities of life while trying to avoid the ever-hungry hordes.
It’s been years since I saw a story that uses single spacing on FIMFiction. I’d come to think everyone knew better by now. Anyway, this is a story with a decent grasp of the world it is set in. The presence of the “black mist” was a surprise, but I’m guessing it was meant to be Wolfeh05’s conceptualization of the necro-bomb (as I’m calling it for the first time here) that went off in the Crystal Empire. Also curious is the insinuation that it reached all the way to Starlight’s village, although looking at the canon map of Equestria I suppose it’s possible; I didn’t realize that her village wasn’t too far from the Frozen North. I find it hard to believe that these three survivors recognized the magic link to the plague so quickly and with such scant evidence, especially when Celestia and Luna only find out about it because of Discord coming to warn them, but it is Them-canon so I suppose I can let it slide.
Seeing other people explore the world of the Them-verse is always interesting as one of its originators, and Starlight’s village is yet another of those locals I never even considered for a story. Alas, Wolfeh05 didn’t do much with the opportunity. The story is your basic undead plague tale, with very little in the way of surprises. The fact that Night Glider, Party Favor and Double Diamond are equalized does play some role in the events, but isn’t explored much at all. This is a pity; I wouldn’t mind a story that really studies how equalized ponies struggle to adapt to a situation so far beyond their meager abilities.
There’s also a lack of characterization involved. Who are these three survivors? What are their personalities, their quirks, their interests? Wolfeh05 makes no attempt to give them any characterization beyond “miserable survivors”. If you took away the narrative identifying who is speaking, you would have no idea what dialogue belongs to whom because all three of them sound identical. Add to that a narrative that leans on Tell and I struggled to get anything out of this.
I won’t complain about someone trying to expand the Them series, and I greatly appreciate that Wolfeh05 clearly knows the lore of the series thus far and sought to use it in their story. But as a reviewer, I regret to admit that I am underwhelmed by this one. Thanks for the flattery, author, but I’m afraid your storytelling skills need some polish. Keep practicing and good luck!
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Radioactive
3,137 Words
By Skeeter The Lurker
Fabric Detail is depressed and starts to isolate himself. His friend Cloud Winder decides to check in.
Apparently written as a sort of vent, what we have here is a long conversation in which two OCs discuss how much the world sucks. One is depressed, has clients regularly stiffing him, and lives with anxiety and guilt over his inability to finish projects lately. The other is constantly losing jobs for reasons beyond his control. Eventually, finally, after all the angst is done, the point of the story comes up: yes, life sucks sometimes, but you’ve got to take it one step at a time and not let it get you down.
This one was weird, and I had trouble getting into it at first. Skeeter jumps right in, and most of the story is just these two nobodies complaining about their lives. Well, mostly it’s Fabric Detail complaining and Cloud Winder trying to help him recover emotionally, but eventually Cloud Winder does state his own grievances. The difference between the two is that Cloud Winder does it to make a point.
I feel like Skeeter could have approached this differently. Most of the story is two characters whining about how their lives suck. Not very interesting, in my opinion. It doesn’t help that much of the opening portion involves these two characters talking vaguely about things the reader isn’t privy to as if expecting them to be so, which is more confusing than anything. I spent more time trying to put together invisible pieces in my head than getting into the story and its intended mood.
Eventually, things smooth out. The point of it all doesn’t come up until it’s practically over, but it can be argued that Cloud Winder foreshadows it through the story simply by his half of the dialogue, which is mostly attempts to cheer, sooth, or relate to his friend’s issues. It’s only when he tries the track of detailing his own problems that he finally gets Fabric Detail to properly listen to what he’s saying.
The final message of the story is… I suppose bittersweet? Not necessarily positive, but certainly not negative either. Encouraging might be a good word for it, if in a defeatist sort of way. But I can’t say that’s a bad thing for the story, given that it’s primary purpose is the author’s own catharsis. I imagine it did exactly what Skeeter set out to do, and if that helps them through whatever inspired this piece then that can only be a good thing.
Will this have mass appeal? I don’t think so. But it’s still a curious read. Give it a go if you’re looking for something completely different.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Mailbox Compilation — WHYRTY?
The Grand RariShip Council
1,024 Words
By Monochromatic
Me, in December: “You know what? I think for my next Mono fic, I’ll pick something from Hollow Shades. Something not yet ported to FIMFiction! That way I can do my part to promote Mono’s ‘main’ website.”
Me, in January: “Damn it, Mono! I’m trying to help you here!”
Le sigh. Have a link to this story’s Hollow Shades page. Maybe it’ll still help some.
Anyway, this story operates under the simple premise that Twilight Sparkle accidentally created a pocket dimension where characters across the multiverse can meet up and talk consequence free. Many groups do so regularly now, one of which is the titular council. This council includes all the Rarities who happen to be dating one of their close friend group, i.e. the rest of the Mane Six.
Is there a greater point to this? Not really. It’s just our favorite fashion horse meeting multiple versions of herself, each clearly having been influenced by their respective wives. Five times the marshmelodrama, five times the ego, five times the fabulous. And given that it’s Mono’s rendition of Rarity we’re talking about, this alone should be more than enough to sell you on the concept. Feel free to add commentary, this is a (mostly) judgment-free space!
If the idea of spending 1,000 words watching Rarity interact with Rarity, Rarity, Rarity, and Rarity makes you smile, there’s no reason not to try this. A pity it couldn’t be a little longer. I’m only rating it on the middle ground because it doesn’t do anything with its premise beyond exist.
Bookshelf Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
In Everything But Name — WHYRTY?
Injuring Eternity — WHYRTY?
Constellations — Pretty Good
T-plus Seven Hundred and Sixty-Nine Days — Pretty Good
Liar, Liar, Apples on Fire — Worth It
A Rock Facing West
7,708 Words
By Oroboro
Something has been haunting the Pie Family farm at night. A creature that shrieks and laughs, its intentions unknown. In need of a solution and believing the cause to be magical in nature, they call upon the leading expert of magical phenomenon. And so Pinkie guides Sunset Shimmer to the farm to solve this mystery. That Pinkie’s twin sister is adorably shy is just a bonus.
How opportune it is that Marble Pie, by random chance, happened to be the star of my desktop slideshow the day I read this.
I always liked the image of Sunset being the “bad girl” whom certain “good girls” (usually Sci-Twi) can’t help but pursue. That concept is at least partially on display here as Sunset meets Marble Pie for the first time and can’t resist some (mostly) good-natured teasing via sheer presence. On the surface, the story is about Sunset trying to solve the Pie Family’s monster problem. Which she does. But everything – up to and including the solution to said monster problem – is related directly to Marple Pie. So really, this entire story exists to ship Sunset with Marble. Of this I have no complaints.
For being nearly 8k words long, this went by pretty quickly. When I finished I had to check the word count, because it felt like half the length. I don’t know if that had to do with Oroboro’s writing style or my appreciation of the overarching topics, but I think I’ll take it as a good thing. It did come with the caveat that I felt like things were happening too quickly at times, but given the story’s length that’s probably more me than anything.
A fun story, partially about Marble’s need to break out of her emotional shell, but mostly just an excuse for Marble X Sunset shipping. If that works for you, there’s no reason not to indulge.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Fractured Sunlight — WHYRTY?
The Heart of an Author — WHYRTY?
Applejack and the Garden of Eden — Pretty Good
Why Can't I Be Your Rara? — Pretty Good
At the Heart of the Blizzard — Worth It
Spilt Ink is a review journalist, and he is obsessed with DJ-PON-3. Truly obsessed. The kind of obsessed that has you listening to the same album dozens of times just to look for the next bad thing to say. Here we have a collection of his reviews…
Did I laugh? Oh, did I laugh. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever read a Meta Four story that failed in this regard.
As I was reading this, er, “piece”, I found myself wishing I could write my review in a manner imitating Spilt Ink’s. But the more I read, and later upon reading just the first part of Meta Four’s research blog, I realized I could never do it justice. You wouldn’t think something this ridiculous would require a lot of research, but apparently the author spent a lot of time finding ways to reference real-world events related to supposedly professional music reviews. What comes out is something that feels insane. How surprising, then, that the last two chapters suddenly make it all make sense. Most of the chapters are reviews – or something in Chapter 2 that might be called a review if the reader were drunk and looking at it upside down – written by Spilt Ink and published by Sound on Sound magazine.
Some ponies love the sound of their own voice, even if said sound comes in a written format. Spilt Ink is apparently one of those ponies. The writing makes constant references to assorted pony musicians, derails into stories seemingly unrelated to the topic at hoof, and extends into hyperbolic quackery like accusing Vinyl of being the “Second Horse of the Electropocalypse” and questioning why she hasn’t been arrested for “an assault on intelligence, taste, and civilization itself”. The reviews are brutal, but so conceited, so pretentious, and so desperate for attention that you can’t help laughing at the critic’s expense. There are times of amusement, others of WTF-ery. You may be tempted on more than one occasion to ask what nameless villain stuck what variety of stick of indeterminate but assuredly gargantuan length and girth into this pony’s butthole and how in the name of Luna they got it to fit in there next to his head.
And I couldn’t stop grinning.
But then, again, you get to the end where you finally get to learn things about Spilt Ink himself. It is surprisingly eye-opening, and repaints the entire story as an indictment against… well, I suppose that’s spoilers. But it was a nice switcheroo at the very least.
Yet another great work by the great Meta Four. The only reason it’s not going on my top bookshelf is because I question its reach, especially when that second chapter has enough WUT in it to potentially scare away some readers.
Bookshelf: Petty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Alarm Clock — WHYRTY?
Den Fjerde Væg — WHYRTY?
Beauty Will Tear Us Apart — Pretty Good
Black Magic Mare, Roaming Queen — Pretty Good
Bonus Review: Hyperion
482 Pages
By Dan Simmons
Published 1989
A priest, a soldier, a poet, a scholar, a starship captain, a private detective, and a politician walk into a space bar…
I found this one in my father’s collection and decided to grab it. Here we have what might be dubbed a science fiction epic. Or an anthology, depending on how you look at it. Set in an interstellar empire known as the Hegemony of Man, the book opens with the revelation that the Shrike Church has selected the seven above individuals – all volunteers – to go on what it believes is the very last pilgrimage to the planet Hyperion. There they are to meet the enigmatic (and serrated) entity known only as the Shrike, which according to legend will grant one of them a wish but kill the others. Each person in the group has history related to Hyperion and a personal reason for going. With so many unfamiliar faces about and a journey that is going to be quite long, they all decide to share their stories.
Hyperion is told in a manner intentionally similar to that of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, in that the individual chapters are each pilgrim’s story, with intermission scenes regarding their ongoing voyage to see the Shrike. The stories vary wildly in nature, from horror to romance to mystery, and each fills out a little piece of the universe that the story is set in. They include, in no particular order:
- A mission to meet and understand a local indigenous people with mysterious customs,
- A man who keeps getting visited in his simulations by a beautiful woman who is turned on by violence,
- A man who befriends a king in a kingdom cursed to ruin,
- A woman who ages backwards, her memories of the past gradually disappearing as she de-ages beyond them,
- A multi-planet investigation to figure out who murdered a sentient AI,
- A construction worker’s time-warped romance with a planetside woman, always so very young while she grows old.
“But wait, that’s only six stories! There are seven storytellers.”
Why, yes. That is true. How astute of you to notice.
This is a complex anthology, and my favorite part about it is how interlinked all the stories are through the magic of time-dilation in space travel. One character will be telling a story and a name will pop up, and it’s like “Hey, I know this place, that other character was here in their story!” Except that other character helped found said location, which is now a ruin. Or maybe it’s an ocean planet covered in little islands and populated by dolphins in one story, but in a prior story most of the islands were industrialized and all the dolphins extinct. In this story you’ll learn about a major event – say, a space battle – and in another you learn that one of the characters’ lives was indirectly impacted by the results of it. It’s a delightful show of interwoven destinies and cultural history that you just don’t see in most stories.
And every story links back to the Shrike in some way. Someone hates it. Someone longs for it. Someone just wants their damn questions answered for once! But there’s also a keen awareness that whatever happens when they meet it, it will be big. So big, in fact, that the three interstellar powerhouses just started a war over it. The Shrike itself is a creature beyond comprehension, at times appearing deific, at others demonic. Its powers are beyond humanity’s comprehension of physics and reality, and it proves the ultimate mystery of the tale.
A pity the story ends just before the pilgrims get to it. But you know, Dan’s got to lure the readers into book II somehow, right? I understand that there are four books in the series, and I am most certainly interested enough to keep going. It’s a fascinating science fiction epic that demonstrates the author’s range of genres while creating a complex interstellar universe of mystery. I don’t do a lot with science fiction, but I am very glad I picked this one up.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Stories for Next Time:
Moonlit Stranding by DarthBall
As Strong As Marble by Soft Feather
Sweetie Bot Gets Cancelled by 8_Bit
Travelers Tales: Discord The Champion Of Ponyville by Slippin_Sweetie
Twilight's Felquines of Xenon by Mandarko
A Rose By Any Other Name by TheNewYorkBrony
“And then… APPLEJACK WILL BE ALL MINE!” by Rune Soldier Dan
Dumb Enough to Work by Blarghalt
Burnonomics by Majin Syeekoh
Buck Outta Luck by XenoPony
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Oh man welcome to the world of Hyperion. The recent Dune movies have really gotten me interested in a possible film adaption.
Hm, rare week with no WHYRTY?, eh? Well, it's a rare occurrence once you switched to fortnightly blogs but with ten fics, anyway. Won't read too much into it.
To Be Remembered is probably the story I've reviewed that least-deserves an Excellent rating, something be dropping all the way down to Passable for the sequel reinforces (even if that does jettison nearly everything great here). I was charitable for the Twilight/Spike depiction, most likely, and responsive to the Scribbler reading (it's one of a few fics I've experience more than once yet have only ever listened to, and I can't imagine just reading it, being honest). Never copped on that it was meant to be a crossover, and to be honest, given it's not tagged or mentioned as such, and I didn't spy mentions of hat property in the comments, I'm not sure about dinging it for inaccuracy to it…? But you evidently know that property, so if you say it just fits into it too well, I'll trust you.
Nothing else I'm familiar with this week, and being honest nothing I think I'd like enough to actively add to my list. Though I feel you on the "offsite author relents and put their stuff back on here after I'd scheduled one of their offsite fics for soon, except now it's not" conundrum. Still, there are worse things that could happen!
A little clarification, if I may?
"Radioactive" was a impromptu collab with another, Art Inspired, and is almost but not quite a word for word of a conversation we had together.
Not quite sure how we got onto the idea of turning it into a collaboration, and indeed, it very much shows. Regardless, at the end of the day the fic itself was just a way to vent a few frustrations out and along the way, show anyone who stumbled across it that shit can indeed get a little better. I'd like to think we succeeded in that respect.
But, hey. "Worth It"? I'll certainly take that rating.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Big sadge on your battery man, I've had something dumber, but similar happen to me with my motorcycle a few times. (I had the bike for four years and never replaced the original battery, but I am the big dumb and killed it several times by leaving the lights on. Needless to say, I got very good at push starting the bike.)
Modern processors are kinda crazy for all the crap they can do so I imagine most things you could upgrade to would be a 'beast' these days. If he did mention the PSU though, I imagine that's what caused the problem in the first place. When things do go wrong with a PC, it's usually somewhere in the power supply.
You know what, this is a very salient observation. :) What a guy, that Meta Four.
Lot of odd fics, here, Nothing that I'm familiar with. Sombran Lullaby looks conceptually very interesting, but I have found over and over that I'm a lot bigger on writing military quasi-history against Sombra or the Changelings than I am in reading it.
I'm glad the car thing got resolved, if not 'worked out.' At least, I'm glad you didn't end up stranded.
Boy do I feel that in my soul.
Hyperion is superb, one of my old favorites. The sequel, The Fall of Hyperion is arguably even better, and the pair form a complete story. The latter two novels in the series are more loosely linked, mainly just being set in the same universe. I've never read them, but from what I've heard, they aren't as good.
As is appropriate for a literary review, I'll bookend these: I've read the first and the last one.
On "To be Remembered," I won't belabor it, but I'm with you on it not doing as much for me as it seems to for most other reviewers. Like you, I enjoyed the descriptive language and personal relationships but faltered on the logic of the plot. Twilight knows what a tank is the first time she sees one, but the next one she struggles to describe? A rail line is maintained out to this place that literally nobody uses? Celestia either knows this place's history and knowingly sends Twilight somewhere extremely dangerous or has somehow never ventured there in her millennia of existence? There was just too much I couldn't buy.
"Survey" was great. I'm not a pop music buff, so probably 95% of the references went over my head. I feel like it's a great use of jargon: despite being chock full of it, you can still get the full idea of what's going on even if you don't grok all that, because it mostly goes to establishing character expertise, not reader understanding. And just when it seems like it's surviving on the gimmick alone and not telling a story, Spilt Ink's arc kicks in. I can see it being hit or miss with readers due to personal taste and interest in the subject matter, but despite not being in the target audience for it, I found it really enjoyable.
I liked Hyperion a lot, too, but you should be warned right now that the series is all downhill from here. The first two books are a pair, and while the first is stronger, they're a good pair. The second two books are also a pair, and a significantly weaker one; I didn't like the fourth book. You may end up reading them just on the strength of the first book (like I did), but they're not in the same league.
5777323
No. No no no. Nooooooo. No.
I don't trust the industry right now enough. Film adaptations are always hard to get right. Add the industry's modern obsession with virtue signaling it's almost guaranteed to be a disaster.
5777324
You're right, it's not tagged as a Metro crossover, but did the crossover tag even exist back in 2013? I don't really know the property all that well, but I noticed something (it's been so long I forget what) that made me think of it and did some digging, which led me to notice a number of similarities. I can't say with absolute confidence that the story is a Metro crossover, but I certainly got the impression. Granted, it could have just been different people coming up with similar ideas in tandem, which is definitely a thing that happens.
5777326
Huh. You know, now that you tell me that I can definitely see it. It was certainly an unusual read, and I can see why you reacted the way you did to the realization I chose it for review.
5777343
Oh, no. He told me outright that if I weren't upgrading the desktop would work fine with the current PSU. At that point he already had it repaired and ready to go; if I hadn't decided to do the upgrade I'd have had it back Wednesday.
At any rate, I fully expect to have an unproductive weekend as I blow time re-installing all my programs and playing around with my new toy.
5777344
Indeed, I always look forward to the next one by him.
5777349
Oh, I only risked getting stranded if I actually tried to get to my house in Houston. The town I did my battery hunt for was close enough that if worse came to worst I could go back to my parents' place, skip a day of work and travel around with my mom or dad looking for a battery on Monday when, y'know, places are actually open.
5777351
5777364
ORLY? I'm reading Fall of Hyperion right now and greatly enjoying it. Pity about the latter two books, which I also swiped from my dad's library. Maybe I'll read them, maybe not. I tend to be a little more picky about my novels, if only because I only review one per blog and they take a lot of time to get through.
5777355
Re: To Be Remembered, yeah, I caught those as well, but figured the review was long enough as it was and I'd said enough. It really felt like a story that was more style than substance, Twi's and Spike's relationship notwithstanding.
Re: Survey, I didn't pick up on the distinction regarding how the jargon was used, but now that you bring it up I realize I know exactly what you mean. Despite all the lingo being thrown around, at no point did I feel thrown off by it. I might have to read it again now, just for the sake of trying to understand how that works; it's a trick worth emulating.
Thanks for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
A Rock Facing West was one I wrote for a writeoff back in 2017. It was fun to do, after having previously written stories featuring Sunset and all of the mane 6, I was in the mood ship to her with someone way more off base, mostly just to see if I could.
It's hard to remember my exact thought process back then, but I think writing this fic might have been what inspired me to host the first Sunset Shipping Contest in the first place.
I did eventually revisit this story a few years later with a sequel, as a faux-entry for my 2019 Sunset Shipping Contest: Endings. I wrote Sunset as having a bit of a savior contest in this story, and wanted to explore some of the consequences of that, and how it might not make for the most stable grounds for a relationship.
5777414
And I have every intention of reading that sequel! In fact it was a desire to read it that drew me to A Rock Facing West in the first place.
5777405
The Dune films were a pretty satisfying adaption. So there are definitely people out there who can adapt this kind of story.
5777413
Effective jargon use is a topic I tackled a long time ago for a guest column on Chris's blog, but what I think makes it work in this story is that you can understand at least the fringes of what the person's saying enough to follow it, and the specifics aren't necessary for context; they're mostly there to establish character expertise and atmosphere, and they also create authenticity for the medium being used. Even if it was dumbed down, maybe there are more jokes I'd get, but it wouldn't change my understanding of what happened.
I’m glad you liked A Survey of the Works of Vinyl Scratch so much. It was a lot of fun to write.
Would you believe that I didn’t actually spend very much time deliberately researching this story? Sure I did some research, but I feel like I spent more time looking up stuff I already knew just to refresh my memory than I did seeking out new material. Really, I’d just been reading a lot of music reviews since 2004-ish, and my tastes leaned towards indie rock and other hipster trash—the native habitat of this kind of review sophistry. So I passively absorbed that BS for over a decade, and it formed a thick primordial stew in the back of my mind. Then J-teeth’s Octaves was the spark that brought life to the sludge, and my reviewer pony was what crawled out.
KitsuneRisu, if you're reading this you can post images to the archive.org and use the on FimFiction.
Hey man, thanks so much for the review. I've just been away from fimfic for so long ALL my images just busted.
Actually if I recall, a lot of those 'images' are actually just invisible boxes to purposely push stuff down the page. This was an age ago when formatting text like that on purpose was not possible on Fimfic's system and I still don't know if they're allowed. So actually you didn't miss anything except for some shameful ergodic flagellation.
5777456
I was just about to ask this. Thanks so much. I'll have to repair it one day.
Hey have you reviewed Of The Last Millennium ?
Because if not I'd like to request it
5777940
Consider it done...
...in September 2025. Sorry, it's the earliest opening I've got for a story of that size.
5777942
I'll be marking my calendar 📅
Also>the-artifice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hyperion.jpg
Haruhi