"Verse Averse": New anthology live! · 3:51am Apr 18th, 2015
(Tagging "Fugue State" for sequel notification.)
As I write this[1], I've just clicked Submit on an awesome new group project weeks in the making:
Verse Averse: Tales of the Versebreakers
When musical mayhem threatens Equestria, the brave and misunderstood ponies of the Versebreakers are on the job. Ten music-themed stories by eight talented authors.
You might recall me putting out a call for stories. The response far exceeded my expectations: what started with my 600-word Writeoff Association contest winner grew out to almost 25,000 words, spanning genres from adventure to comedy to musical to noir to horror. In this post I wanted to give a brief introduction to the anthology and showcase the awesome stories included.
[1] (As I post this, it's eight hours later. I was away from home when the collection cleared moderation. Sorry for the delay.)
So what's a "Versebreaker"? Every author took the word and turned out their own unique take on the concept. (These stories don't share a continuity, but a surprising number of themes kept recurring.) At its heart, it's about a vision of Equestria where the musical numbers we see on the show literally occur (as I explored in 2013's "Fugue State"), and the consequences that creates. Most of us ran with the vision that the Versebreakers are an organized group of ponies who stop musical numbers for the greater good. Often misunderstood or feared by the average pony, they have a sacred duty, to stand athwart Harmony in an effort to save it from itself.
When I originally came up with the idea of "Versebreakers," one of my major influences was a song battle narrated by AugieDog in his published fiction "The Blood Jaguar" (reviewed here), so it was an honor to have him contribute to this anthology. His story "The Clattering Crash Of Destiny" leads off the collection, showing us the trials of a young pony struggling with music who learns that her (lack of) talent might be put to better use.
Similarly, FanOfMostEverything's slice-of-life piece is an excellent introduction to the concept. "The Sound Of Silence" is primarily about the reactions that the misunderstood group inspires. When the arrival of a Versebreaker in Ponyville spooks Sweetie Belle, Vinyl Scratch has to not only calm her down but figure out what brings her uncle into town.
Sharp Spark contributed not one, but two tales to the collection. "Manehattan Takes Rarity" offers a comedic look inside the inner workings of the group responding to a musical visit from the Mane Six. On the other hoof, the epic adventure "Heart of Silence" takes a very different tack — following a Versebreaker on an ill-fated expedition into Zebra jungles, in a pitch-perfect homage to Joseph Conrad that sends the anthology out on a high note.
Another author offered a homage of a very different sort. Flink's "Master Class" is a romp through a trio of ponified Disney musical numbers, as a pair of Versebreakers square off against an experienced villain and discover that their traditional methods aren't working. How does a Versebreaker stop a villain when they themselves have been drawn into the song?
Speaking of singing Versebreakers, Caliaponia wrote what might be the collection's most hilarious piece. "Anthem" embeds the Versebreakers within the larger structure of the Royal Guard, and passes down a directive from on high: Every department has to come up with a theme song. I won't spoil this one by saying any more — it's short and punchy.
The anthology puts it almost back-to-back with BlazzingInferno's "Song and Seal" as a showcase of the wide variety of tales the theme attracted. This short horror piece gives Versebreaking a much more personal approach, as a lonely young stallion struggles with a dark family legacy which music threatens to set free.
That's not the only darkness in the anthology, though some authors played it a little more tongue-in-cheek. Orbiting Kettle delivers a great send-up of film noir with "The Badge," a look at the smoke-filled rooms and wailing saxophones of a jaded, grizzled veteran with a job working for the Canterlot courts.
We briefly see that same veteran in the story which started it all — my own "4th District Court, Canterlot, 11:35 a.m." If you didn't see it in the Writeoff Association, this is a short and whimsical court transcript showing the sentencing for Flim and Flam's latest scam taking an unexpected turn. And last but not least, I wrote a new story for this collection titled "On The Roof": this is a direct sequel to Fugue State, following Lyra as she accepts a job offer from the Versebreakers in the wake of her panicked, untrained breaking of her first musical number. However, on her first day, she has to deal with an unexpected request to sing one, and what she learns might just be the most important lesson the Versebreakers can teach her.
Hopefully one or more of those stories have gotten you interested in reading through the collection! There's some real talent on display here from a broad spectrum of FIMFiction authors, and I've appreciated this chance to work with them all.
—horizon
It's been looking good so far.
I am hype! I honestly haven't read anything new that's longer than a couple thousand words in a while. This will be good for me.
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I'm pretty hype, too! It's cracked the non-mature featurebox, so the hype is helping.
I was definitely gratified by the quality of the submissions.
It was a great joy to work on this. Thank you for the opportunity.
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You submitted it at 11:50pm, thus dooming it not to be featured. A story approved after 1AM Eastern time can't be featured, because the featured-box algorithm doesn't divide the number of views a story gets by the number of users online at the time. Though I've pointed this out to knighty and mods many times over the past 2 years.
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Not arguing with the math, but "can't" is too strong a word:
tomorrowlands.org/images/pony/verse-averse-20150417.png
The story that more immediately disproves your point: Our toehold was knocked out by "Celestia's Desire" at approximately 4 AM EDT, which scored 50+ upvotes within an hour of its initial posting in the middle of our night, and is now #4 and on the rise. (It may have benefited from being stuck on the top of the New Stories list overnight, or from being a Twilight pregnancy story in a clopless 'box. Possibly relatedly, the Mature and Immature featureboxes are identical again.)
Unless something newer has overtaken it, the anthology might still be #8; a strong morning showing from folks catching up on blogposts might get it back on the bottom again, though I won't hold my breath.
I'm a little confused by your timeline, though: when exactly do you think I submitted it? It went live at 4:20 p.m. Pacific after a four-hour moderation delay. Did you switch AM and PM in your comment?
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You wrote "As I write this, I've just clicked submit" on a post dated 11:51 PM EST.
I was surprised at seeing Celestia's Desire there. I saw it probably around noon EST, and it still had less than 400 views. Stats say it had 82 views and 0 ratings as of midnight last night, which is very weird. It was probably one of those stories that got a freak batch of views in its first 15 minutes.
How do you know when it kicked you out? Have you got a bot watching fimfiction?
Oh, cool, I was just wondering when this would pop up.
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Enclosed please find an invoice for blackmail fees. It would be a shame for GhostOfHeraclitus to learn that you don't read footnotes.
(Plus, you commented on the story itself two hours before the blogpost went up.)
If I'd submitted it at midnight Saturday morning, though, you're right, it would have been pretty suicidal even with half a dozen signal boosts. Friday day was a bad choice, but the DDoS screwed everything up.
As for Celestia's Desire, I happened to be up at the time, and was checking the featurebox periodically to see if there was any drift in the ones above Verse Averse that might indicate an old story starting to fall out. When it vanished from the box I was startled and tracked down why.
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Watching for a changeling of the guard, so to speak?