Paul's Monday Reviews IV · 9:41pm Mar 16th, 2015
Well, I've got some interesting stories for you folks this time around. Or at least I thought so. I really don't have much to add this time around. Not a lot's happening, really, unless you count Frequency ending. Which is pretty awesome, don't get me wrong, but that's not why we're here. Monday is for reviewing stories! So let's hop to it, shall we?
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 2
Not Bad:1
None: 0
Today's selection:
Days of Wasp and Spider by Luna-tic Scientist
From the Eternal Love of a Sister by Scootareader
Six Followed By Nine by -TGM-
Of Mirrors and Madness by Violetta Strings
To Romance a Magician by Mooncalf
It is no secret that I love Princess Luna – she is Best Pony, after all – and I’ve never tried to hide my disdain at the apparent fallacies of her elder sister. The dirty little secret, however, is that my love for Celestia rivals that of Luna. My appreciation of these two is so great that I am rendered physically ill when bad things happen to either them, or driven to levels of anger unusual for my usually placid demeanor. There are exceptions: in Upheaval: Breaking Point, I actually cheered when terrible things happened to Celestia, specifically because she had it coming in spades.
The reason I bring all this up is to point out that few stories can rile me up more easily than stories involving the royal sisters. Days of Wasp and Spider achieved that, and with phenomenal effectiveness.
Days of Wasp and Spider is a revision of the history of Equestria. In this alternate universe, the world was created by an almost robotic ethereal presence known as ‘The Pattern’ that is devoted entirely to the act of study. When the Pattern exhausted its methods of discovery, it decided to spread its intelligence to a race of non-sentient lifeforms, effectively cutting itself off from self-awareness and total control in favor of creating a ‘master race’ that could pursue research in its stead. The race it chose? The Diamond Dogs.
The story focuses on Fusion Pulse and Gravity Resonance – Celestia and Luna before they were known by those names – living the somewhat normal lives of ponies enslaved to the ‘Masters.’ It should be noted that in this world all ponies are alicorns (although there may be pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns elsewhere in the world we are never made privy to). Due to a near-fatal accident while taking part in a test within a particle accelerator, Fusion Pulse’s horn is severely damaged. As the story unfolds, she gradually comes to recognize that The Blessing – a right of ascension for all ponies enforced by the Masters – is actually an act of permanent brainwashing that renders the victim completely subservient. Through the Blessing, acts that displease the Masters (or may conceptually displease them if none are present) cause intense pain, whereas praise brings unfiltered joy. In this way, every single pony in the world is an unwitting, happy slave to a race of uncaring, even hateful Diamond Dogs who see them as disposable tools rather than individuals.
Fusion Pulse’s accident breaks her Blessing, rendering her completely free of the conditioning. The story thus revolves around her gradual self-awareness, her analysis of the situation and, ultimately, her decision to rebel against the Masters. Coupled with this is her connection with Chaos, the arch-nemesis of The Pattern who manipulates Fusion by triggering her emotions, feeding her false memories and even teaching her at a subconscious level how to connect to the boundless energies of the sun to channel her magic. Note that Chaos is not Discord, although the subject does come up.
There are so many factors at play in this story, and it’s all held together with delightful sturdiness. The internal division of the Masters’ organizations; the focused and eager subservience of the ponies; the hard training and culture of the griffons; the vast abundance of futuristic technologies and a sense of a sprawling international culture. The world feels remarkable complete, prompting me to wonder just how much pre-preparation Luna-tic Scientist went through with this story. Turns out, not much, and that makes it all the more impressive.
What really brings this story to the forefront to me is the credible sense of horror that Fusion often feels – very appropriately – of her situation. Her terrible memories of the Blessing, of seeing others Blessed for the first time, of knowing how fundamentally evil the Masters’ actions are, are fully realized. When the situation seems desperate and horrible events are knowingly seconds away, I felt her fear. In the sense of emulating dread in the reader, this story is really well written.
Another great factor is Luna-tic Scientist’s clear understanding of the differences between the sisters. At any given time, you can clearly identify that Fusion is Celestia and Gravity is Luna. Their characters are remarkably well-kept throughout the entire story, from Celestia’s reluctance to act and fear of causing undue to harm to Luna’s forceful aggression and determination.
Yet after all my glowing praise, there must be some consideration for the flaws, and there are certainly a few. I think the biggest flaw in this story is its unflinching attention to detail. It’s one thing to describe a scene or an object, it’s another to stretch those descriptions for several paragraphs trying to paint the image perfectly. Within the first few chapters, the level of technology in the world becomes apparent, as well as the ways it works, but Lunatic Scientist refuses to stop, constantly throwing lengthy descriptions of things we really don’t need to know chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter, often repeating things that by chapter five can be taken for granted.
Worse is the endless devotion to in-world units of measure. Luna-tic Scientist almost stalwartly refuses to specify things in readily-understandable terms: there are few references to days, hours, minutes, weeks, and so on. Instead we get terms like ‘kiloseconds’ and ‘megaseconds.’ Forget about having any concept of the passage of time; you’ll be lost fast. Luna-tic Scientist does try to rectify the issue in an early chapter by noting the actual, equivalent time lengths, but if you have to do that for the reader to understand then you’re taking it too far. Even lengths are difficult to fathom as they are all described in terms of ‘bodylengths,’ an anomalous unit at best that forces the reader to either guess or just throw away the information and come up with their own picture.
Another significant problem is the frequent, over and over again changes in PoV. This is mostly only applicable to the more actiony chapters, but there were some scenes where we get five minutes of one character, then two minutes of another, then three minutes back to the original, then four minutes of a third character, and so on and so forth. It was jarring and outright ruined the flow half the time, and more often than not there was no reason to do it. It also necessitated repeating the same material over several times, something I’m sure strained Luna-tic Scientist’s capacity for differing narrative descriptions. Combined with the excessive descriptions, removing problems like this would have probably saved 50,000 words of unneeded information.
There is, however, one distinct advantage to this style: it shows us all views. Throughout the story we get to see how things appear from the perspective of Fusion and Gravity, the Masters, the griffons, even from the still-enslaved ponies. As such, the reader is rewarded for slogging through it all with a pristine view of the big picture, letting us see the cracks in the Masters social structure or the flaws in plans, just as an example. If that kind of thing interests you, then the frequent shifts in PoV may not be such a bad thing, but if you favor not having some idea of what’s coming (or just don’t like small snippets between PoV shifts) then it might not be your cup of tea.
There were a few more common stylistic nitpicks, a tendency for telliness and issues with LUS being the most dominant. Even so, the story is very clean and easy to read, with an almost complete lack of typos.
All in all, Days of Wasp and Spider is a compelling read that at times is very hard to put down. This is one of those stories that makes only reading during my work breaks during the weekdays incredibly challenging. It has its bumps like any story, but they are nothing compared to the overarching yes that dominates it. I will be adding the sequel to my RiL, and eagerly.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Many things could have come out of this story, and I went in with neutral expectations. Turns out that was a good thing, because what I got was unlike anything I anticipated, even as it flirted with those expectations. From the Eternal Love of a Sister is a complete re-interpretation of Luna’s story, from before her banishment up to her recovery upon returning. At times, the story is very direct – sometimes painfully so – but at others it acts like a psychological journey without a clear path. It’s hard to tell if Scootalove was as uncertain of the route as Luna is or if it’s all planned.
There are a number of great elements to this story. We get to see how Celestia mistreats her sister’s worries and concerns, and in the end Luna’s fall seems almost reasonable. A more curious treat is getting to actually witness a little of Luna’s banishment in the moon – I emphasize in the moon, because Scootareader is among the camp that thinks she was literally inside the moon, like waiting in solitary confinement with nopony but Nightmare Moon for company.
Scootareader earns some points for creativity. His interpretation of how dreamweaving works is appropriate and interesting at the same time. We are also given a slightly different interpretation of the royal duties, as well; Luna does not control the moon, but the moon is a living being and Luna is her subject. It will not be forced if it does not wish to do something, even by one as powerful as Celestia. The sun, too, is a living entity, but its behavior is wholly different from its smaller counterpart. There were plenty of other creative touches, but these were the most interesting to me.
But creativity can have its slipups, and Scootareader managed that too. For instance, the story proposes that when Luna was banished the moon remained still, unwilling to set, and this caused all the crops in Equestria to whither. Anyone who farms knows that such a concept is ridiculous; the moon isn’t needed to grow crops, the sun is. Scootareader tries to fix this at one point by specifying that, for some inconceivable reason, Equestrian crops need light from both the sun and the moon in equal measure. I found this a rather tough pill to swallow, but others might not see it as so strange as I do.
The one place where Scootareader really and truly messes up – at least in my opinion – are the more direct scenes taken from the show. Luna’s defeat to Celestia, as shown in the Season 4 opener, is replayed with exacting precision, all of it. Then, to my disdain, the story later goes on to repeat with equal devotion the scenes from Friendship is Magic. In truth, I don’t mind this if it’s done well, but Scootareader’s method of recreating the show didn’t really work in my mind. The scenes focused more on what we already know and very little on what we don’t. Instead of seeing Luna regurgitate the events in literary form, I would have appreciated much more how the events were affecting her.
This is not necessarily the fault of Scootareader’s intentions so much as the writing style of the story as a whole. It is persistently calm and collected, at times introspective but usually strictly observational. Moments that should have been exciting, frightening or at least worrying were rendered bland by the seeming disinterest of Luna portrayed by the narrative style. The dialogue tried to rescue this, but just wasn’t enough to pull it off. Simply put, the writing style of the story doesn’t work very well for actiony, active or urgent moments.
On the other hand, the narrative was perfect for the more introspective chapters. This saved the story, because that is the case for most of the chapters. It worked wonders when Luna is describing her feelings, her sense of loss, betrayal, self-lecturing or fears. These chapters came out just right, and even broke into cases of real emotion when the time called for it (the next-to-last chapter comes to mind).
Above all else, this story did a great job of showcasing Luna’s mixed feelings towards herself, Celestia and their relationship. Luna’s winding thoughts – at times outright rambling – reveals her uncertainty about her own view of things. This works wonderfully towards the end of the story, when Luna has returned but is still struggling to come to terms with all that has happened over the last millennium. Her final confrontation with Celestia – both of them – were delightful to read. In the end, we never really feel as though Luna has recovered… but it’s apparent that she’s on her way, and that’s just as good.
I enjoyed this story. At times it was a touch confusing, and at others it was so direct as to make me cringe, but I am satisfied with the overall product. I definitely think it was worth my time.
Bookshelf: Worth It
As an aside, check out Scootareader’s startlingly good story, And I Will Always Love You. No, seriously, do it. It’s in my favorites for a reason.
This story was about what I expected, and basically involves Twilight travelling all over Ponyville trying to figure out what’s so funny about the number sixty-nine after a math lesson sends Spike into a laughing fit beyond control.
Okay, I’ll admit it: this made me smile. For the sake of being humorous, it does what it set out to do. The author even manages to keep everypony in-character (unless you count headcanon), which is uncommon for a story such as this. The ending was a bit ‘meh,’ but it could have been a lot worse so I’m okay with it.
The one thing that really bugs me about this story is that it relied on unrealistic conversations. I know that’s fairly common for stories of this variety, but that doesn’t mean I should tolerate it. Twilight goes around trying to explain her dilemma, and does so in just the right way to make sure nopony understands the context and gets the worst possible ideas imaginable. That’s not a good way to carry on the story in any situation.
Oh, and this:
He collapsed again. “Even funnier! Hahahahaha!”
Meet another pet peeve of mine. I can’t stand when people actually write out the laughter. It looks crappy. We don’t need to see exactly how many ‘ha’s were in the laugh. Just say ‘he laughed’ and we’ll get the idea. I feel the same about most sounds a character can make, such as ‘Oof!” from being hit. There are rare exceptions where it is acceptable, but generally speaking it should be avoided.
Still, those few annoyances aside, this wasn’t bad for the time invested.
Bookshelf: Worth It
I had been told this was a decent story, but I’m afraid it failed to deliver. Of Mirrors and Madness tells how Celestia goes to the Crystal Castle to confront and remove the Door of Fears that Twilight and Spike had to pass through during the events of The Crystal Empire. The idea, while not original, is pretty good. After all, seeing what terrifies the untouchable, infallible (ha!) Celestia makes for an interesting topic. Unfortunately, Violetta Strings takes far too many missteps in trying to convey this potentially powerful moment.
Let’s start with the stylistic and grammatical issues. First of all, the story is far too telly. I’m not sure the author has even heard of ‘show don’t tell.’ A simple, brief example:
“Don’t even dare think I would hope that to become of Twilight!” Celestia vehemently defended, not willing to put up with the mare taunting her about her most beloved student.
As the quote demonstrates, the narrative does its very best to tell us everything that the dialogue already (clumsily) said, just in case you’re incapable of determining emotion from a character’s voice. Violetta does this kind of thing almost constantly and it kills the immersion, to say nothing for the struggling attempts to evoke emotion.
Also troubling are the awkward plot decisions. In one scene, Celestia and Shining Armor are there as Cadance is opening the path to the Door of Fears. Celestia sees Cadance using the dark magic and knows exactly what it is to be used for, but for some reason she still reacts as if she’s about to be attacked. Then, after casting that one spell, Cadance essentially says “Oh, I’m tired, you take it from here,” and heads off to take a nap. No kidding, Celestia’s going to face some of the darkest magic known to the Crystal Empire and put herself in severe jeopardy for Cadance, and Cadance is going to take a nap. Oh, and Shining has disappeared, because he doesn’t go with Cadance or Celestia. He’s vanished into the abyss, apparently.
Other weird decisions abound. The author wants to give an image that Celestia is all politics and haughty aloofness to the public, but takes it way too far. Take this moment when a random citizen greets her on the way to the Crystal Castle:
She almost smiled at them genuinely, but held herself back from doing so. She was here on important business. Despite her interactions with indirect family, the matter was no less urgent.
Now come on, you expect me to believe that her image of statuesque perfection and royalty demands she can’t even smile at regular ponies? Ignoring that this isn’t even close to how she is in the show, it makes no logical sense. Yet even as she and Cadance are shown constantly working to maintain the façade, they blatantly throw the image away on at least three occasions in the story without so much as a ‘oops.’ The author needs to make up their mind: are the princesses ridiculously detached or are they 'normal?' You can’t just switch between the two whenever you feel like it and expect me to ignore it.
Then there’s the actual encounter with the Door of Fears. Simply put, it’s way too straightforward. Celestia asks the apparition she discovers “What are you?” and, like any B-movie villain, it promptly tells her. No room for mystery, no attempt to give the reader time to appreciate the situation, not even a sense of subtlety: I’m the villain, this is what you fear, hahaha I’m evil. It was about as anticlimactic and uninteresting as could be.
Again, the idea behind this story is good. Really good, even. Violetta also did a decent job of trying to build a backstory around Sombra, and of Celestia’s millennium of rule. Even so, the pitfalls heavily outweigh these attempts. The story isn’t terrible, but it will need a lot of revision if it’s going to be worthwhile.
Bookshelf: Not Bad
My greatest weakness, as a writer and a reader, is humor. It’s hard for a story to make me laugh, and even harder for me to write a story aimed at making others do so. As far as reading goes, I face a constant danger of going into a story expecting things to be taken seriously only to find I’ve stumbled into an emulation of the show where nothing is taken seriously. In the worst case scenario, I completely miss the point and slam the author for mixing seriousness and humor in inappropriate ways – another one of the things I hate. The reason I bring all this up is to point out that good comedies are hard to come by, and I respect those capable of managing it.
Mooncalf established the style of the story very early on. I quickly grasped that this story was meant to mimic the show in terms of humor, and as a result I didn’t hit my usual nasty speedbump. It let me relax and get into the style of the tale in general without triggering my usual overcritical nature.
The idea behind this story is straightforward: Twilight, after months of fantasies she doesn’t understand, comes to realize that she’s in love with Trixie and so travels to Manehattan to woo her beloved magician (with her friends following in secret to help). It’s a rather absurd premise considering they’d only met twice, and both times under poor circumstances, but this story flaunts the absurd like Rarity flaunts a new dress. I know there are both vehement defenders and ardent deniers of the Twixie ship, but I personally think they make a cute couple and won’t object to reading a story on the subject (and who can resist that cover art?).
There are a number of great things about the story. In-character behavior all around, unexpected twists (Cheese Sandwich in particular threw me for a loop), and a bit of self-mockery on the author’s part leads to a story that never quite takes itself seriously, even as it dances around the concept. The story felt very self-aware, and I enjoyed that aspect of it immensely, enough so that I could ignore the occasional telly line or odd description.
At the same time, the attempted romance between Twilight and Trixie was… well, a bit of a roller coaster ride. Trixie proves very hard to get, and her reasons are curiously ‘real’ for a story where nothing else is. While the entire world seems focused on being goofy, the romance is still treated seriously. This is made even more strange by the hints of seriousness all around – Rainbow fretting over how the weather team back in Ponyville is getting on without her, Coco Pommel noting the importance of making connections in the fashion scene, and so on. Then throw in a scene where the Wonderbolts are all being lazy good-for-nothings and Spitfire is just a little nutso.
The good news: there’s so much silliness in the story that the occasional mention of serious topics didn’t bother me too much. That’s hard to manage; usually any injection of seriousness in these kinds of stories rouse will my anger, but Mooncalf kept such things toned down enough to keep the beast in check.
So, is the story romantic? Not really, no. Mooncalf focuses way too much on the humor for the romance to hold any weight. This may perhaps be the one serious flaw in the story, but that depends upon your tastes. If you’re looking for a lovely romance between everyone’s favorite mages, you’re looking in the wrong place. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a cute, silly and at times downright ridiculous tale that somehow never quite descends into crackfic territory, you can’t go wrong with this one.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Stories for Next Week:
Dead Silent by plumander
Sweet Celestia by Rust
Eclipse by 8686
Heads in the Cloud by PresentPerfect
Rise from the Ashes: Book 1 - Canterlot by Sparklecat
So couple things,One: Word Count. Could you include it ?
I don't really care for shorter stories all that much; I like to sit back, kick my shoes off, and bite into a big chunk o' story.
Days of Wasp and Spider I can get behind, even How to Romance a Magician. But stories like Six Followed by Nine are like cake to me: sweet, but ultimately unfufilling.
Two: You're looking more like Present Perfect with each one of these reviews that you write.
You actually did it.
You actually sat down, read, and reviewed what is effectively one of my crackfics. >.>
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did it, but it's not even a fic I spent that much time on, or that I'm even particularly proud of.
Nonetheless, thanks for the review, and I agree with all of your points.
2883511
I guess I can consider adding word counts from here on, although I don't see what's o hard about clicking a link and finding out for yourself. Plus, it's a real shame that you just don't do shorts anymore.
*sigh* So demanding.
2883527
I haven't sworn of shorties completely, I just don't read very many of them nowadays. For example, just a couple of days ago I woke up in the middle of the night, and, because I was entertaining the possibility of actually going back to sleep, perused my RiL for something on the shorter side, I ended up reading Applejack: Princess of Eyebrows by Alexmagnet. It was hilarious, and I will probably end up featuring it at a later date. But for the most part, I prefer the longer fare.
ohhh snap :O
2883634
*charges critique canons and locks on*
2883696
*gets out the camera to record the reviewer fight for the gladiator list*
Ahhh... More other people's effort to coast along on.
2883794
A fight? *tsk-tsk* This is a friendly spar, that's all. *slips knife up sleeve*
Saw your review of Frequency. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you for the review, much appreciated.
Fair point on the POV and level of descriptions; the former I'm reducing somewhat, the latter I'm trying to stick to 'first unique instance', but it's probably not making much difference. I still regret using those units of measure (on my next editing pass I'll probably keep the 'digital time', but the arbitrary length unit will go). I very nearly had my own units for everything, but fortunately resisted that particular foolishness.
I remember thinking, on seeing your comment on chapter two about 'too much detail', that we are not going to get on at all. I nearly warned you off; glad I didn't.
2884836
I pulled through 120k words of The Seventh Element, so believe me when I say that your attempts to warn me off would have gone unheeded. If I start a story, I always intend to finish it, even if doing so might be a painful experience for all the wrong reasons. After all, someone's got to do the dirty work and warn the world what literary atrocities need to be avoided! Doing my duty for the people... or some sort of noble statement of that sort.
At any rate, I'll be looking forward to part II. It's a shame that it's going to be so long before I get to it.