Read It Now Reviews #30 – Modern Medicine, Clop Clop!, You Turn Me On, For Want of a Book, Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows · 9:41am Apr 4th, 2015
‘Twas the night before season 5, and all through FIMFiction,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a griffin.
Computers idled on streaming websites all night,
To make sure that their slots weren’t filled by dawn’s light.
The bronies were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of alicorns danced in their heads.
Knighty in his fansite, and Obs in his beard,
Were resting their eyes ‘fore the influx they feared.
When out on the blogs there arose such a clatter,
They all rolled their eyes and said “No matter.”
TD was just posting more bad reviews
That no one would see before the big news.
“Just ignore them,” they said, as they closed their eyes,
Knowing that feeds would fill at sunrise.
Authors’ blood freshly spilt on the page
Would be ignored when the Sun was raised.
And so into the night, launched without care,
Are five more reviews: let the reader beware.
The stories I read today:
Modern Medicine by GaPJaxie
Clop Clop! by ThatOneWriter
You Turn Me On by Vengeful Spirit
For Want of a Book by Hoopy McGee
Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows by Manaphy
Modern Medicine
by GaPJaxie
TragedyA strange mare arrives in Twilight’s library, claiming to be her future self—here to stop a terrible plague. But Twilight worries that this stranger’s bold claims may hide something more sinister.
Why I added it: GaPJaxie is a good writer, and I guessed from the introduction that it might be using an idea I myself have long toyed with – long before ponies even was a thing.
Review
Princess Twilight Sparkle goes back in time from the future to cure a plague which “only afflicts the elderly” – old age.
Younger Princess Twilight Sparkle isn’t so sure that future Twilight really is herself, and is very dubious of what her future self is up to.
This is very much a transhumanist story, and when I found out that the writer was a member of Less Wrong, I knew how it was likely to end. Which is a good thing, because that means it isn’t the story I was thinking about.
I think I liked the idea of this story more than I actually liked the execution; someone going back in time to cure death and evade their own interference in such is a good idea, but honestly, a lot of it ended up involving Twilight just kind of being lead around by the nose. Twilight didn’t have any real agency throughout the story, and it showed. The fact that Twilight just sat around twiddling her hooves for several hours while someone she didn’t trust enacted some crazy scheme didn’t sit right with me either. It is tremendously passive behavior from someone whose natural impulse is to grab stuff by the horns and who feels uncomfortable about being left out of a solution of any kind. Applejack felt even more prop-like to me in the story, and didn’t really feel like she showed much agency or character either. The strings were glistening in the stagelights for me, here, as the characters were pulled around to make the plot work, rather than feeling like independent organic beings.
Finally, Future Twilight doesn’t sound or feel very Twilight-esque, and while I do get that people’s speech patterns change over time, there’s a reason that we frequently cheat on such things in stories. Part of the point is indeed to make her unlikable, as well as to add to the plausibility of the idea that future Twilight is not OUR Twilight, but it ended up kind of disconnecting me from her. Twilight’s outright hatred of “future” Twilight feels bizarre and unearned as well – disliking her is reasonable enough, but outright loathing? But worse, she doesn’t seem to really do anything about it unless future Twilight is there to yell at.
“Having my coat color and cutie mark doesn’t prove you’re me. You don’t look anything like me. And besides, Starswirl’s time spell only works once ever.”
“Once for each caster,” the strange mare corrected, raising a hoof in a single smooth motion. “Once per pony. But that was a thousand years ago for me. And you aren’t the pony you used to be. Are you?” She gave a wan smile, and then gestured down at the bags. “Here, I can prove it.”
As Twilight watched, the strange mare pulled up her legs and wings—what seemed an unmanageable amount of bone and feather somehow nearly folding beside her. She did not leap from the shelf so much as drift from it—seeming half to float to the ground and half to walk down the shelf’s vertical front. Her hooves hit the ground without a sound, and in a single step, she crossed the room to stand aside Twilight.
“Woah! Hey!” Twilight eyes went wide and she quickly scrambled backwards. Her gaze shot between where the mare had been and where she now stood—thirty feet at least, covered so quickly Twilight had no time to react. So close, her eyes barely came up to the strange mare’s chest, and she had to back off several steps before she could comfortably see her face.
“Sorry,” the strange mare said, still smiling that odd smile and looking down at Twilight. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” She glanced at the table, and her horn came alight, floating the green bags over to Twilight. “Ever since we were ten, we wanted a set of dragon-scale saddlebags, because Starswirl the Bearded had them and they’re awesome. But we felt... you feel... incredibly sleazy for wanting swag made from a sapient being’s skin. So we never breathed a word about it to anypony.”
Twilight paused, and then leaned forward to inspect the bags. Upon closer examination, what she had taken for a steady green was a regular scale pattern, bright and shiny under the library lamps.
Recommendation: Folks who enjoy transhumanist ideas might enjoy the idea behind this, and I suspect Less Wrong types may enjoy the execution more than I did. But for me, the passivity of the characters was pretty jarring, and the more I thought about it, the less I liked it.
Clop Clop!
by ThatOneWriter
Sex, Comedy, Random, Bait and Switch, FeghootPinkie Pie just won't stop clopping. It's getting on everypony's nerves.
But Twilight's got a plan. She's going to stop the clopping once and for all...
Why I added it: Someone pointed it out to me after I asked the question of whether or not anyone had written a “clopfic” about banging two coconuts together.
Review
This story isn’t actually about banging two halves of a coconut together, but it is full of terrible innuendo. It is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a story like this, and you probably can guess what it is from the first few lines of the piece:
Pinkie Pie loved to clop. She clopped all the time, every single day. She clopped when she was bored. She clopped when she was in the road. She clopped when she was alone. She even clopped in front of her friends, who were less than appreciative of the gesture.
Indeed, there weren’t many ponies who put up with Pinkie’s perpetual clopping. The Cakes did, right up until she started clopping around Pound and Pumpkin. They were even less tolerant when her clopping in front of customers started to chase away business from the Sugarcube Corner. The customers themselves got really mad about her clopping, which Pinkie didn’t get. Didn’t everypony clop at least occasionally?
At least there were a few ponies who were willing to put up with her clopping. Big Macintosh still stuck around.
“She’s family, more or less,” he said. “If her own family won’t stand by her, who the hay will?”
You can pretty much guess if you’re going to enjoy the rest from there; the whole story is in that vein, down to the intervention at the end.
Recommendation: Worth reading if you like obvious innuendo and feghoots, but if you’re looking for something sophisticated, you’ve come to the wrong place.
You Turn Me On
by Vengeful Spirit
Sex, RandomWhile in the Ponyville Hospital for the fourteenth time, Rainbow Dash gets an interesting message from a certain lascivious lamp.
Why I added it: It was featured and it looked like it was likely to be punny.
Review
I ended up pretty disappointed by this story.
It starts off with a doctor tearing into Rainbow Dash for crashing (yet again) and breaking her wing (yet again) while failing to do a stunt (yet again), and then goes to Rainbow Dash waking up in the middle of the night when her lamp starts hitting on her.
Yes, the lamp by her bed.
This is one of those “juxtaposition of the pony-verse with crude language and memetic references” stories. The idea of this sort of juxtaposition wore rather thin for me years ago when I was watching Robot Chicken, so rehashing it with ponies has never really worked for me; these stories seldom amuse me, and this was no exception. I suspect the fact that I’ve read a story based on nothing but terrible furniture puns which reveled in them far more than this did didn’t help; I was kind of disappointed that there weren’t more of them.
I suspect there’s a target audience for this sort of thing, but I’m not it.
Rainbow Dash woke up to the sound of heavy breathing. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, trying to make sense of who was making that sound. She didn't want to think about whatever he (at least she thought it was a he) was doing to make himself sound like that.
"Hey, who's jerking off?!" she asked bluntly.
"Who said anything about that, baby?"
"Bwu?!" Rainbow quickly reached over for the nearby lamp, slapping the button to turn it on. The room was quickly lit up, trails of light splashing against the dark shadows. The single, lonely light gave the room an ominous feel.
"Where are you?" she asked, looking around to spot whatever jerk had decided to take up residence inside of her hospital room. "I-I know kung fu!"
"Oh please," the voice said, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. "Your fit as a whistle, but that doesn't mean you know how to fight. Still, I'd love for you to hit me harder."
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
For Want of a Book
by Hoopy McGee
AdventureTwilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia, is sent by her teacher to retrieve a very specific book from the Royal Library. The only problem is, she doesn't know what it's called or where to find it.
Fortunately for her, libraries are the most orderly, most mundane and certainly the safest of places one could possibly be. Or, so she thinks.
Twilight is about to find out how very strange the world of books can truly be.
This story takes place before season 1.
Why I added it: It was featured and Hoopy McGee is a good writer.
Review
Twilight thinks there’s no value in fiction, despite her guilty pleasure of reading the Daring Do books. Celestia thinks differently, and tells Twilight to go deep into the Canterlot Library in order to retrieve a certain book – a book without a title, which Twilight will know when she sees it.
Naturally, Twilight goes off on her little mission, but as she heads further and further back into the stacks, she gains the creeping suspicion that the library cannot possibly be so big. And there’s something else back here, something that isn’t a pony…
The adventure here is mostly in Twilight wandering into an unknown space and encountering a strange creature; somewhat strangely, the typical aspects of an adventure aren’t even really there. Twilight doesn’t actually really do much herself, and has very little agency in the story; rather, she is simply sent from one place to another, but only ever makes one decision of any significance at all, and even that is pretty much set up for her.
The writing on this was kind of rough in some spots, much more so than the other stories I’ve read by Hoopy McGee; I noticed a typo in the very first sentence and an unnecessary comma in the first paragraph, along with a few awkward sentences here and there before I got sucked into the story. Up-front errors like this are the most noticeable, both because they serve as a first impression and because once you’re really engaged in a story, they’re more likely to be overlooked as you read what the author meant to say rather than what they actually wrote.
At least nopony was around to see her so out of sorts. With little laugh at her absent-mindedness, she moved forward, breaking into a quick trot. The sooner she got out of here, the better, she thought, which was the first time in her life that Twilight Sparkle had thought anything of the sort when in a library.
She trotted down the definitely very straight aisle for a few minutes, and had managed to put her previous unease behind her. At least, until she came across an intersection of two different aisles, which stopped her cold in her tracks.
Here was another feature that she didn’t remember. She looked to her left and then to her right, her face a perfect study of confusion as she stared into the darkness. More shelves with more books stretched as far as she could see, which wasn’t very far at all.
“They really need to get more light back here,” Twilight muttered peevishly. Obviously, that was how she’d missed seeing this. It was simply too dark. She hurried through the intersection, head down and her ears plastered firmly down on her head.
The intersection fell into the darkness behind her, and nothing came rushing out of the darkness at her. Not that Twilight had expected it to. In fact, her only reason for her frequent glances back over her shoulder was just to confirm that she’d been completely right about the lack of horrific monsters in the darkness.
She began to walk a little bit faster.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows
by Manaphy
Slice of LifeIt's been a while since Twilight Sparkle has heard from the changelings. Queen Chrysalis hasn't stirred any pots or burned any stews that Twilight hasn't heard of. Yet, when she is asked to visit the Changeling Hive for trade negotiations, she had to settle the score.
Twilight wished the score wasn't as shocking as it sounded, as Queen Chrysalis had more on her mind than just trade negotiations.
Why I added it: Manaphy has long been struggling to improve his writing, and this was the first thing he ever wrote which got featured.
Naturally, this meant someone told me I had to mercilessly crush his spirits read his story and leave my thoughts on it. Apparently he has earned some enemies, for them to throw him to the dragon in such a way. Either that, or he needs better friends.
Review
Twilight goes to talk to Queen Chrysalis about a reconstruction package for the Changeling Hive. Twilight is confused by Queen Chrysalis’s strange hospitality – and by Queen Chryaslis trying to give her advice.
This story possesses very little tension – the start tries to awkwardly build up the tension, but there’s never any real point where the tension increases. Instead, the tension gradually drains out of the story as it goes on, as it becomes clear that Queen Chrysalis isn’t plotting anything, and is simply trying to rebuild her power at the moment.
Unfortunately, there’s really nothing more to the story than this; Queen Chrysalis is utterly uninteresting in this, drained of almost all real personality, and Twilight is strangely passive, mostly just asking questions rather than really going anywhere or putting any pressure on the changeling. There isn’t really a whole lot that happens, and despite being 6,000 words, I didn’t really feel like the story went anywhere or did anything all that interesting.
The writing, too, remains awkward in places; it is never terrible, but the prose is seldom gripping, and there are odd word choices here and there which are distracting.
My other complaint is the original character, General Thunderstorm. This character is present throughout the story, but is a non-entity; she doesn’t really seem to say much, have strong opinions, or really contribute to the story in any meaningful way, and I kept forgetting she even existed. Characters need to have strong personalities, and the personalities of everyone in this were subdued, but the general’s personality was vague to the point where they didn’t even really feel like a person at all, just an NPC.
"Princess Twilight, are you okay?" a raspy voice asked.
Twilight shivered for a split second, her head swiveling toward the voice's owner. Sitting next to her was a pale yellow mare donned in the Royal Guard's signature armor, its gold-like plates somehow shimmering despite the lack of light. Twilight locked gazes with the mare and bobbed her head. "I'm fine, General Thunderstorm, but seriously, it felt like a good idea at the time."
"I understand that you're nervous about meeting with her again—" Thunderstorm cracked a slight grin. "—but let's be real here. She'd have to be a complete idiot to try and trick you."
Twilight sunk into the carriage's plush, maroon seats. "But what if I fall into a trap?"
Patting Twilight's shoulder, Thunderstorm then crossed her legs. "Look, you're one of the most powerful alicorns— no— beings in the known world. Chrysalis knows this, as you've defeated her with the help of your friends once already. And do you remember why we're heading over to the Changeling Hive in the first place?"
"Of course I do."
"Good." Thunderstorm paused and rubbed her muzzle. She turned away to clear her throat, then brought her attention back to Twilight. "Well, I think it will go swimmingly."
Raising an eyebrow, Twilight cocked her head. "Um, are you sure? This is Queen Chrysalis we're dealing with. We should still be careful, after all."
"Good point." Thunderstorm nodded. "We should be extra careful."
For all my snark about Manaphy's enemies, I really am glad to see that he has managed to keep plugging away at writing and trying to improve, rather than just giving up. I do hope that someday he will write a story I actually enjoy reading. But apparently today isn't that day.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
Modern Medicine by GaPJaxie
Not Recommended
Clop Clop! by ThatOneWriter
Worth Reading
You Turn Me On by Vengeful Spirit
Not Recommended
For Want of a Book by Hoopy McGee
Not Recommended
Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows by Manaphy
Not Recommended
In other news, Mistletrapped’s fourth chapter has been edited and gone over by the requisite three people, and will be posted in the next couple days.
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – Important": 65
Number of stories still listed as "Read It Later – High Priority": 225
Number of stories listed as “Read It Later”: 1551.
2943266
It's a well-known transhumanist site. While they have some interesting essays, they can be rather cultish and insular.
I like the poem you had at the beginning.
Also, I read these often for a chance to look at what others think of stories I may or may not have on my read later list to help keep it from getting out of hand like it did when I first joined the site. Even though I don't follow your recommendations some of the time, it gives me a fair sense of what guilty pleasures await me in stories I may not have considered before. As an avid bibliophile(minus actual book-like objects) on a fanfiction website, blogs like this please me greatly.
Keep at it.
2943397
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it, and find my reviews interesting to read, and sometimes useful for finding new stuff. It is always nice to hear that they're worthwhile to folks.
I'm in a funny position, because I do actually take some of your non-recommendations to heart, and my usual move is to drop those stories from my RIL.
However, nowadays I will occasionally add stories to my notes doc instead, which means I have nothing to remove (on short notice, anyway). What I'm trying to say is that's why I ended up reading I'll Kill You With My Tea Cup. :B
2943275 I am never going to stop reminding people of the time someone tried to tell the guy who runs the site that not all Christians support intolerance, and he compared that to calling yourself a Nazi who doesn't support genocide.
2943485
That sounds why I plan to read For Want Of A Book despite its grammatical errors and somewhat foregone conclusion. TD does keep spoilers to a minimum, in my opinion.
Blogs like these help me get more of a sense of stories out there that I do not notice or can not make time for... They also help me find stories that I don't mind reading even if they are considered "flavor of the month" or "Too [DESCRIPTIVE] to notice." They might actually be stories that I would enjoy that I would otherwise miss out on.
Understanding the likes and dislikes of the blogger give me a better feel for what flaws and strengths these stories have. Take, for example, Modern Medicine. That sounds like a story I might enjoy, but my two favorite of the Mane 6 are OOC for TD(Who I believe has a good grasp on one of them[Applejack] and I take my Applejack seriously[in parody and tragedy], so I would trust his judgement just on that). I might read a chapter or two, but it would be easier since I was forewarned. I might leave a comment on the story if I agreed it was not recommended to help the author improve. If I did enjoy it, I'd continue reading until I didn't and still throw in a comment or two. Author gets traffic regardless and may come out with a better story in the future.
These blogs bring stories to my attention that avid readers miss whether one finds them well done or tasteless.
2943521 Oh! How about that time the entire community had an existential attack because someone suggested that a malevolent Post-Singularity AI might be torturing artificial copies of them if they don't donate to AI research?
pinkie.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/141935968498.png
I think that's the first time one of my stories has gotten a negative review from you! I do not enjoy it.
Modern Medicine could have been a bit better I admit. I struggled a lot with the execution, but I felt the premise was good enough I wanted to write it anyway.
Hopefully, the next story will be more to your taste.
My god!
I just looked up Roko's Basilisk because of this blog post.
It's always good to know that there is someone out there who is nuttier than you.
Ha! Now your face gets eaten by an AI!
Backlogs... backlogs everywhere
2943485
Ah, but did you like I'll Kill You with My Teacup?
Incidentally, do folks find the excerpts from the stories useful? I decided to try doing it with every story this batch to see if folks thought that was handy.
2944243
Well, I've liked most everything you've written (that I've read, at least) - you're a good writer. I was pretty enthused about the premise of Modern Medicine, and I figured that future Twilight was going to win, but I didn't end up really enjoying the journey very much (for the reasons I specified in my review). If there is one thing I have to compliment you on, and didn't, it is the use of the tragedy tag combined with the end of chapter 3.
I'm sure a lot of people will read and enjoy it anyway (it did get featured, after all) but I have the feeling it is not destined to be the most beloved of your stories.
Ah, well. Ca, c'est la vie. I look forward to whatever you end up writing next.
2943521
The worst part of that is that if you take the teachings of Jesus seriously (which, let's face it, a lot of Christians don't), being a Christian who supports intolerance is like being a pacifist who is pro-war.
I mean, I'm critical of religion, but it isn't fair to paint all religious people with the same brush.
2945083
Yeah, my backlog is terrible. Though once I read Off the Edge of the Map, my backlog may actually start to shrink.
2945444
It's in today's blog!
2946121
Yeah, I should have checked my feed first.
*looks at checklist* Gimme a sec while I check off 'disappoint TD'. :D
2946455
2946458 Now I'll just add 'make TD happy' to the list.
I didn't read the review, but I wanted to read the rainbow injection story. Problem is, the writing (technical skill) was so bad from the get-go that I gave up somewhere in the first couple of sentences.
Maybe that's a prejudice I should temper.
2948940
Interesting. I can see how the first paragraph would be offputting, but GaPJaxie is a pretty good writer (he's the guy who wrote those Actingverse stories, about the actors portraying the ponies from the show, if you remember the first of those from the writeoff).
2949394
Ooooooooooooh. Yes, I do remember the first one, and I liked it very much. Although I wasn't in the Writeoff then. That was shortly after I stumbled headlong into Fimfiction, and it was one of the first stories I noticed on the front page that I took an experimental gander at.