Read It Now Reviews #11 – Horn Marrow, An Apple for Ya Trouble, Not an Adult, My Final Confession, The Marching Madness · 10:04pm Jan 23rd, 2015
The weekend is coming, and bringing with it the More Most Dangerous Game deadline, which may well bring a flood of unusual stories onto FIMFiction; I hope that there are some good ones this time around, as there were the last time. I have my eye on a few unfinished stories, but I did end up reading one finished story by a new writer which ended up decent enough.
However, the bulk of these stories are unrelated to the contest, with no less than two stories by the prolific Sapidus3 in this set.
The stories I read today:
Horn Marrow by Sapidus3
An Apple for Ya Trouble by ellie_
Not an Adult by Sapidus3
My Final Confession by jmj
The Marching Madness by orbiting kettle
Horn Marrow
by Sapidus3
Slice of LifeShining Armor has been infected by a Changeling poison that threatens to destroy his magic or worse. When Twilight and her family are tested to see if they could be potential horn marrow donors, an old family secret is brought to life.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
I have to say I’m impressed by Sapidus3’s output of late; they’ve been turning out stories week in and week out and occupying the featured story box pretty frequently.
On the other hand, their stories have been hit and miss for me.
This story is no exception to that rule, though for entirely different reasons.
Something is wrong with Shining Armor, and he needs a horn marrow transplant. Rarity is there to keep Twilight and her family company, along with Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, when the doctor comes back and announces that… Twilight isn’t a match for Shining Armor at all, and that Rarity, a totally unrelated pony, shares four out of six alleles necessary to prevent rejection.
Rarity is happy to help, but Twilight freaks out upon being told that she isn’t a match, and knows that it means that she can’t really be related to her brother. And indeed it turns out that she is not, though the actual story of what she is is… very weird, as she was, apparently, created by Nightmare Moon when Twilight’s parents and Princess Celestia wished upon a star.
It is a very bizarre twist, doubly so when Rarity reveals that she herself was adopted… which really only raises further questions. I was expecting some sort of reveal that Rarity actually was Shining Armor’s sister (which wouldn’t make much sense given that her parents noted that they couldn’t have more biological children), but it just went completely unaddressed and felt like a very strange dangling plot detail in light of her being a compatible donor and the fact that she, too, is a white-coated unicorn.
In the end, the story’s weirdness kind of threw me, as really it didn’t address the issues which were raised very well; it was just a “it is okay to be adopted” story, but it went with such a wacky premise for why Twilight was adopted it completely derailed my attention from the actual plot. Sometimes, doing something too flashy can distract from the purpose of your tale, and here, the idea that Twilight was created via magic and that Rarity was adopted ended up feeling like very significant details which didn’t end up mattering at all.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
An Apple for Ya Trouble
by ellie_
Romance, Slice of Life, HumanSundays are always special for her, but through the thick and thin, this was certainly Rarity’s best Sunday ever.
Why I added it: It is a RariJack story that hit the featured story box. I’m obligated to read it. Also, it would be terrible for me not to after I made a joke at ellie about how her icon showed the right ponies kissing but she’d never written a story about that.
Review
A “how they met” story, this has a young human Rarity going to the market, losing her hat, and subsequently running into Applejack, who cheers her up with both a caught hat and an apple.
A very simple story, I have to admit that this story just didn’t really end up impressing me. Told in the first person perspective, Rarity’s voice in the prose felt a bit stilted, like it was trying too hard and ended up being overwrought. However, the main problem was just its simplicity; the story wasn’t really bad, but it didn’t really go anywhere all that exciting. Someone loses their nice new hat, someone else catches it for them and cheers them up… I feel like I’ve seen that story before, even if I haven’t, and this didn’t really do anything that exciting.
Formatting quibble: this story appears to have a double line break between paragraphs rather than a single line break. It makes the writing really widely spaced out; having one full line of white space is good and improves readability, but two full lines is just too much of a good thing.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Not an Adult
by Sapidus3
Sad, Slice of LifeTwilight Sparkle has been living a lie. Everypony told her what a beautiful and accomplished mare she was. Everypony thought she was a responsible adult. They were wrong. She was still just a filly trying to stumble her way through life.
Why I added it: It was featured.
Review
Sapidus3 has written so many new stories there are two in the same post! And at last, as hoped, I have found another one of their stories that I liked.
Or did I? I don’t know if I can say that I actually liked this piece. However, I certainly have flirted with this sort of sense of ennui; indeed, it is a very easy trap for some people to fall into. You aren’t struggling, and thus end up feeling like there is something wrong because they don’t have anything to push back against; you feel like you have everything you actually need, and it all is kind of pointless. Why aren’t you struggling with these things that everyone else has to deal with? Does it make you a child?
I think this story captured a very decent thought process. That being said, I don’t feel like it was Twilight’s thought process; while some other person thrown into Twilight’s horseshoes might feel this way, I don’t buy that Twilight does. I can see her feeling like she is a bit stymied – indeed, the season 4 finale showed this off – but it is more that Twilight likes to feel useful than that she has this feeling of ennui.
Still, I think that it did a good job of presenting the ideas that it did, even if it is likely a bit depressing to some people. First world problems, eh?
Recommendation: Recommended if you want to read 4,000 words about Twilight fretting over her life being too easy.
My Final Confession
by jmj
Gore, DarkFuture Perfect, the greatest reporter in Equestria, is bringing to you loyal readers of The Canterlot Herald an exclusive interview with the most heinous criminal in Equestria's long history: the infamous 'Cupcake Killer', Pinkamena Diane Pie.
Why I added it: jmj is a good writer.
Review
A Cupcakes continuity story, Future Perfect goes out to the woods to meet with Pinkamina Diane Pie, who has promised to give a full accounting of her crimes and motivations in what she does.
Alone.
By himself.
It ends about as well as you would expect, but there isn’t really much in the way of on-screen gore; rather, it is primarily the rather messed up Future Perfect’s ego clashing with Pinkamena’s murderousness, with Pinkamena describing her many awful crimes in gruesome detail.
Cupcakes has long been somewhat derided in the fandom, and thus, a story about that Pinkamena, a serial killer who murders and eats people, is obviously not going to be to a lot of folks’ tastes. It is hard to say that it is bad, though; the story is well-written, and Future Perfect and Pinkamena are both extremely messed up characters. However, it is an interview with a pony serial killer who kills and eats ponies for no good reason
I wasn’t especially fond of it, but if the description of this story sounds appealing to you, you likely will. If you want to read about a deranged serial killer explaining themselves to a journalist, this is the story for you. But for myself, I didn’t particularly care for it.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
The Marching Madness
by orbiting kettle
Gore, Tragedy, Dark, Alternative UniverseThe wilderness is a chaotic mess, dangerous and hostile, that can only be tamed with music. A colt and his family need to travel, but not everpony will arrive at the end of the journey.
Why I added it: Because it was written by someone whose name is a reference to Russel’s Teapot.
Review
A More Most Dangerous Game contest entry, this prompt posits a world in which Discord won, a world full of madness and insanity and chaos which can only be tamed by music. Our protagonist, a young colt, heads out into the wilderness with his family as his settlement begins to give way to the chaos. His mother, a musician, plays to hold back to madness of the world around them, but in the end, it isn’t enough, and our protagonist is saved by a band of strange musicians who are journeying to Ponyville to form a part of a grand concert which will end the chaos once and for all.
This story is about the madness of the world and the order that music brings to it, and the price that the ponies are willing to pay in order to save it. It is a weird story, full of descriptions of a bizarre, nigh-unrecognizable world full of chaos. The fact that they’re ponies isn’t really very important; it could just as easily be set in a different world, as the only character who (sort of) shows up is Twilight Sparkle, and even there in nothing more than the form of a letter calling together the musicians.
This is a pure fantasy story, and I mean that in the sense that the world presented is very alien to our own; the writer suggested that they were trying to build a sort of death world as envisioned by early sci-fi writers, as opposed to a blasted desert wasteland, and I think they succeeded in making a very different sort of apocalyptic wasteland. The idea of the mad world was very strong, and I think on the whole it helped to carry the story well, as the idea of them navigating their way through a very bizarre world was a good one and lead to some interesting visuals. This is a world where something like this would not appear out of place in the mad wilds:
If I did have a complaint, it would be that the world may be almost too alien – it is a cool idea, but the danger with going this far out into fantasy is that you create a place which is so strange it can overload people. This place is much stranger than Wonderland, and may push things a bit too far.
Still, it was an interesting idea, and is worth reading if you’d like to see a different sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Summary
Horn Marrow by Sapidus3
Not Recommended
An Apple for Ya Trouble by ellie_
Not Recommended
Not an Adult by Sapidus3
Recommended
My Final Confession by jmj
Not Recommended
The Marching Madness by orbiting kettle
Worth Reading
If any of you do end up reading The Marching Madness, let orbiting kettle know what you thought of the story; he’s a new writer who had only two followers at the time of writing this, and I’m sure any feedback would be appreciated.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later - Recommended": 186
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1547
I find my work again on one of your reviews and I appreciate it again. Thank you for the review even if it wasn't to your taste. *slaps knee* Get it?
Seriously, thanks. I always wanted to write a Pinkamena story based on Cupcakes and this was, and probably will be, my definitive idea on that topic. You didn't like it, most people won't, but you gave it a chance and reviewed it fairly. And now, your reward:
Thanks for the review, I think I understand your objection to the alien nature of chaos, and it wouldn't probably work for a longer story. I have frankly no idea if I will ever develop the setting further, but in that case maybe I can try to turn the weirdness dial a little bit back. And it's true that it doesn't need to be a pony story, but having a shared mythology with which to start helps a lot in my opinion, more so that people have a concrete reference on what was lost and which entities were the cause for it all.
2742554
I wouldn't really turn down the weirdness dial on this story at its present length; I think it does what it is trying to do. But yes, it might wear on a reader in a longer story. Then again, it might not; hard to say, really.
2742526
Yeah, I figured that's what it was. Thank you for the song link.
I'll probably end up covering a few more of your stories at some point.
2742554 Writing in an established universe is always easier than making your own up from scratch. I'm going to give your story a read in the next couple of days. I would read it tonight but I'm trying to knock out my entry for the contest tonight. I'll leave you a comment as well but the synopsis sounds great so far. I also like that you used your own line of characters. I look forward to reading it and good luck with the contest, sir.
2742590
Don't tease me, sir.
I look very much forward to it.
The what deadline?
2742617 The More Most Dangerous Game contest deadline is tomorrow night (Saturday the 24th) and I am about one scene from having my entry finished but I still have to edit and find a picture and stuff, so ... maybe.
2742623
I don't know what that is or where to find it. I would very much like to know those two things. Could you tell me those things?
2742666 Here you go!
2742692
Thank you!
Well crap, that is way too close for me to pull off. I wish I'd known of this earlier! But perhaps next time.
Man, I might have RiL'd "The Marching Madness" on the strength of that sweet cover art alone. Add the premise and a rec from TD and it's a surefire to-read.
Ah, Horrible Hordes, the last creature to ever have rampage.
In any case, I'll definitely check out The Marching Madness. Thanks for the reviews.
2743837
Alas, poor Rampage. I remember the first time I saw a card with rampage, I was like, "Wait a second, isn't that horribly overpriced?"
Probably one of the very few such cards which is actually remembered for any reason at all.