R4 (Reactions, Reviews, Reference, Redirection) #0094 · 9:54pm Mar 29th, 2015
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Here are five old reviews:
Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind by Just Horsing Around
The Incredibly Boring and Uninteresting Adventures of Maud Pie and Boulder by Jet Kusanagi
Bitter Harvest by Esle Ynopemos
The Sweet Taste of Apple by Icecane
The Sun Will Die! by Crackers
Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind by Just Horsing Around
[story link] [my original review]
This one was fun. Also a good example of a simple slice of life. Just the ups and downs of ponies living their lives. Another story I’m reading is a pretty good example of a Mary Sue and this is a nice contrast. Nothing big happens, but there are ups and downs. The downs are important, even if they are small and don’t really mean much. Not just downs in that something goes wrong, but that the characters have texture to them. That their personalities aren’t just a list of virtues and flaws, but have various facets that could be good or bad depending. Anyway, this is my favorite Spitfire I’ve run across so far. Just the right amount of confidence and brashness. How she reacts to Ponyville, and some of the ponies who live there, is quite a treat.
The Incredibly Boring and Uninteresting Adventures of Maud Pie and Boulder
by Jet Kusanagi
[story link] [my original review]
I liked this one a lot. Probably because I really like Maude Pie. This story was a really good look at things from Maude’s viewpoint. Plus it did a really good job at making her seem like one of Pinkie’s sisters. Not in a obvious way, but in the fashion of just presenting the fact that the Pie family is just a bit off-kilter from the rest of the pony experience. Maude and Pinkie are quite different from each other, but the story (in my opinion) does a pretty good job of showing that they are both off-kilter in the same direction from reality, so to speak. Plus Boulder is in the running for best pet in my head now because of this story. Boulder is now tied with Gummy for best pony bet. Philomena is, of course, in second place for being so awesome that she used her own cremation to play a practical joke on someone.
Bitter Harvest by Esle Ynopemos
[story link] [my original review]
Okay, this one was pretty good. Runs into the problem I have with some stories. It’s clever, fairly well written, and the main character is someone I want to smack. Still, this story had some clever turns of phrase and is a really good stream of consciousness kind of thing. The style vaguely reminded me of Long Story Short actually. Not that the two stories have anything in common except the rolling along narration style. Heck, they aren’t even the same point of view/perspective. I’ll also say that I found the cover image for this story amusing as heck.
The Sweet Taste of Apple by Icecane
[story link] [my original review]
Cliche! Cliche everywhere I look. Pushing through to the end of this story was an effort. I mentioned back in the Journey of Graves reviews that those stories were pretty cliche, but under that was some neat ideas and decent writing. This story doesn’t have either. Just a shallow empty cliche, a lot of it taken from the generic anime romance checklist. I think the best example of how poor the writing is that more than once we have characters spending time with each other, which is covered as ‘they passed the time talking about nothing in particular’. You could deconstruct this story as a how not to do things example of ‘show, don’t tell’. The main character is flat, most of the mane six are barely there and we don’t get any real picture of Ponyville as a place or any real picture of anypony that lives there. I’d recommend The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian as a much better version of this exact same concept.
The Sun Will Die! by Crackers
[story link] [my original review]
Writing not so good in this one. The author gets Twilight okay, but Celestia and Luna are just sort of random. Noticed one wrong word use, tale instead of tail, and probably more typos I didn’t notice. Plus waaay to many modern wolrd references. Also, at least one continuity error.
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