Paul's Tuesday Reviews I – "I'm Not Dead" Edition · 10:07pm May 26th, 2015
That's right, I live! And before anyone goes and jumps me for being late, let me just give you a blast from the past via my very first set of reviews:
I've decided to begin writing a review blog, which I will manage once a week every Monday or Tuesday.
So hah! I'm not even a little late, suckers!
But Goddess, what a weekend. My parents bribed me to come home with crawfish and barbecue, and while at home I went out to celebrate my cousin's birthday. The next day I discover that my all-leather, hand-made, customized, imported-from-China and (in case it's not obvious) expensive wallet... is gone. So after turning my parents' place upside down but noting that I still have all my cash in my accounts, we've come to the conclusion that, while not stolen, it is lost for good. So yeah, I spent all day today in disaster control. Fun times.
And to those of you who asked via PM or Skype: I spent all weekend at my parents' place in Louisiana, so the heavy flooding and that one tornado that hit Houston this past weekend has had no effect on me. I assure you all I am safe and sound, even if the bad weather meant I had to go without internet almost the entire time (darn satellite network).
To the reviews:
Stories for This Week:
In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep by Lucky Dreams
The Box by lunabrony
Queen of Queens by JawJoe
Elegy of Emptiness by Bad_Seed_72
A Cause Worth Dying For by Signas
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 2
Not Bad: 0
None: 1
This is a curious one. Lucky Dreams wrote this to be a children’s story and, as is appropriate, it is rife with imagination. In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep is about a little girl named Mia who, being playful, wants to run with wild horses in a very literal sense. After her mother scolds her for playing when it’s time for bed, Mia wishes to be taken to the place the wild horses sleep, prompting a visit from Princess Luna who kindly delivers her to Canterlot.
Yet Canterlot isn’t what Mia seeks: the ponies of Equestria are all ‘tame’ and well behaved, whereas she wants to run with wild horses. Luna, realizing her mistake, gives Mia precisely what she wants, delivering the girl to a herd of horses and even turning Mia into one herself.
This is a very interesting story, mixing in narration and poetry to give the whole thing a whimsical, fantasy vibe. It’s very fitting in subject for a children’s story, although sometimes Lucky Dreams vocabulary and sentence structure drifted a little too far for what I would think kids would like to see. It managed to stay under that threshold for the majority of the story, though.
One small issue was in the presence of the Mane 6. I don’t really mind that they are there in the first place, but I question if their presence was really necessary. Moreover, I think that if the Mane 6 are going to make an appearance, the attention should be spread evenly. Twilight got a line or two all her own, but the rest did nothing save to name their elements (twice). I would think that in a dream featuring the Mane 6 they would each get at least a little something to show Mia rather than to simply be there.
My only serious regret in this story is that I wish there could have been pictures in the story itself. Normally I am adamantly against using pictures within a story, but this is a children’s story; images are both appropriate and – due to the simplified writing style necessary – helpful. Yet I don’t hold it against Lucky Dreams for not having them; that’s obviously a very tall order that we shouldn’t expect to see.
All in all, In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep is a neat little fantasy experience. I enjoyed it, even if I had one or two nitpicks.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Well, that…. happened.
The concept behind The Box is simple: a package has arrived at the Golden Oaks Library, but nobody can open it. Twilight and Spike promptly go on a small quest to find out how to open the box and who it was actually meant for.
This entire story felt weak to me, in every way a story can be weak short of grammar. The humor consisted of needless cameos, leaned on direct character quotes like a crutch and tries to take nonsense as a proper explanation for the funny. lunabrony apparently has no sense of plot continuity either, given by the fact that right after Twilight tells Spike to stay at the library we find him travelling around with her in the next chapter (amongst other examples). The twist is completely unexpected in a bad way, in that it has nothing to do with anything. I’ve often said that I prefer ‘smart’ funny over ‘stupid’ funny, and while this one feels a bit nebulous in definition it most certainly leans towards the latter.
Simply put, this story exists and I have no idea why. I didn’t find it remotely humorous nor was there any point to it. If you’re the type who thinks the inane is raucous, have at it, but I’m afraid this one did nothing for me.
Bookshelf: None
Queen of Queens
By JawJoe
Request
JawJoe is one of those peculiars writers who is always very hard on himself and agonizes over a lot of things he really doesn’t need to agonize about. I should know, I pre-read I Want to Take the Wings Off, but I Can’t and am helping him develop Monsters. Really, there’s a lot of things that JawJoe does that strike me as odd and, at times, needless. Perhaps it’s a cultural difference, or perhaps he’s just eccentric.
Whatever the case may be, he’s one hell of a writer, and don’t ever let him tell you otherwise.
Queen of Queens is JawJoe’s attempt to tell the life story of Queen Chrysalis, from her birth to the developments leading to her invasion of Canterlot and concluding in her death years later. It goes way, way beyond being a character study of everyone’s favorite bug, though. In Twilight Sparkle: Night Shift and Monsters, JawJoe demonstrates that he knows how to worldbuild.
In Queen of Queens, he goes above and beyond the call of duty and demonstrates exactly what worldbuilding can be in the right hands. He demonstrates an entirely new culture, showing us facets of changeling life that differ vastly not just from that of Equestrians, but from our own. He creates a fully fleshed-out world that is entirely believable and delightfully rich in flavor. Learning about the changeling nation and their culture was every bit as fascinating as the true purpose of the story.
Did you get that? Whereas many writers (myself included) focus more on the story than the worldbuilding and other writers focus a lot on worldbuilding at the cost of the story, JawJoe has managed to strike a superb balance between the two. Chrysalis’s existence – her motives, life goals, ambitions and faults – are put on full display as she works as hard as she can to become a Queen whose works will last into eternity. Her great successes and horrible failures are all laid bare, and it is as delightful a journey as it is tragic.
Writing Chrysalis as a tragic creature deserving of pity is nothing new, but the sheer scope and devotion JawJoe put into this story is deserving of more than just a little praise. If you’re one of the few who hasn’t read this yet, stop what you’re doing and read it now.
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You Read These Yet?
Elegy of Emptiness came highly recommended, and Bad_Seed_72 is someone I have a lot of respect for. As such, my expectations with this story were high. Elegy of Emptiness is about the relationship of Octavia and Vinyl Scratch and how, sometimes, friendships can flounder. The entire story is told from Vinyl’s perspective and alternates back and forth between Vinyl having a really bad month in the present and reflections of the important moments in her eight year relationship with her best friend.
I loved how Bad_Seed_72 chose to forgo the usual elements of the fanon Vinyl/Octavia relationship; there’s no attempt at romance, they aren’t bickering over preferred musical styles and the two of them get along almost instantly. I was scratching my head at the idea that Vinyl is made out as the daughter of Hoity Toity and Photo Finish, but it’s an interesting bit of headcanon that I can’t find any fault in. Curiously, while we know exactly where Vinyl comes from, there is no mention at all of where Octavia calls a home.
Above all else, the relationship between Best Background Pony and Vinyl feels very real. I was at first concerned when Octavia immediately started referring to Vinyl as her ‘sister’ on the day of their first meeting, but as that scene played out I came to understand a distinct desperation in Octavia that gave the moment credence. Bad_Seed_72 went on to create a streaming line of events that give rise to the conflict between the two in a way that I applaud, making sure we saw the seeds of the coming storm. This is something a lot of writers miss, and as such I am quite pleased.
And of course, we get our ending and a sense that, while not everything is resolved, the friendship between Vinyl and Octavia isn’t over just yet. I found this extremely satisfying; so many authors feel the need to wrap up everything and cover all their bases. I feel that authors should take a step towards reality and recognize that not all problems can be magically solved in the space of a single story, at least not believably. To Bad’s credit, there’s no attempt to try: we are left with a sense that Octavia and Vinyl are on the road to reconciliation, but that road may be a rocky one.
There were only two things that really bothered me about this story. The first was Bad’s desire to explain things that, all in all, didn’t need explaining. For instance, there’s a point early in the story when Vinyl and Octy are fillies meeting for the first time. When Octavia is shown to be lonely, Vinyl immediately checks to see if she has a cutie mark – which she does. Then, for no reason whatsoever, we get a paragraph about why Vinyl wouldn’t have cared if Octavia was a blankflank. Considering the topic was a non-issue, I found myself questioning why we were being told all of this. Bad does this a few times throughout the story, but aside from that one moment it’s not all that bad.
The other issue I took with the story was exactly how the collapse of their friendship was portrayed. Bad spent a lot of time showing how Vinyl and Octavia had become strong, dependable friends. Even the major moment where hints of the future problems are provided, it’s done in such a way as to seem entirely positive towards their relationship. And then, suddenly, we get a single scene where everything comes crashing down out of nowhere.
In Bad’s defense, she does deign to inform us that this has been a slow and steady decline over a period of… two years? Something like that. But even so, it felt a bit sudden compared to how their relationship up until that point seemed to be getting better and better. On the one hand, I can see why this might have been the better choice – the story’s already a significant 13,000 words long. At the same time, I can’t help wondering if Bad should have devoted time to detailing their collapsing relationship in a manner similar to how it had been built up.
Even so, I consider myself thoroughly pleased with this story. It was interesting, well written and above all real.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Alternative title: In Which Lightning Dust Decides Her Life Is Meaningless.
Let me be abundantly clear: I like Lightning Dust. I have always liked Lightning. She is an interesting character just waiting to be developed into something far grander than what the show gives us, be that as a hero or a villain. In the proper hands, she can be the center of something awesome. As such, I tend to take notice when the (criminally) few stories about her pop up.
A Cause Worth Dying For has Lightning now working as a Royal Guard scout on a mission to look for dragons around a certain mountain. While there, Lightning questions her purpose, both for being in the Royal Guard and for being on the mission. The entire story centers around her trying to answer the question “What am I fighting for?”
The story itself is quite simple in structure and statement, shadowed by undertones of deeper possibilities. Sadly, I felt it could have been much more than the sum of its parts. The opening hits us with a pack of exposition – never a great start – only for Lightning to talk at length about much of the same information with her scouting partner, which renders a large chunk of said exposition needless. Lightning then goes on to do something profoundly stupid… but which made perfect sense from the perspective of her character in this story.
The ending also left me unsatisfied. There was no sense of completeness or closure to this tale; it took ‘open ended’ to its unpleasant extreme. I’m all for leaving questions behind, but this one took that view too far.
Despite this, I enjoyed the story. It was well written and makes its point succinctly. Is it a great story? Maybe not. Even so, it raises a certain characterization possibility for Lightning that I readily approve of, and for that alone I consider it worth my time.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Stories for Next Week:
The Queen and The Stray by Eden Eclipse
Dream by Cascadejackal
TEK: The Beginning by Jet Fly
Tea Party with a Dreconequus by Arcelia
Princess Twilight Sparkle's 500th Birthday by Autumnschild
Liked these reviews? Check out some others:
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Paul's Monday Reviews V
Paul's Monday Reviews VI
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Paul's Monday Reviews X
Paul's Monday Reviews XI
Paul's Monday Reviews XII
Paul's Monday Reviews XIII
It occurs to me that I haven't commented on any of your review blogs yet, so: hey! I like reading your review blogs!
The particular thing that's gotten me to break radio silence, though, is your comments on In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep. I agree with you that the main six felt a bit superfluous (that was my only criticism of significance regarding the fic, in fact), but I don't think that giving each of the cast there own "thing" would have been the answer. To me, even if what they each had to offer was relevant (and maybe directly caused Mia to realize that these weren't the
ponieshorses she was looking for), it would have turned a brief and somewhat unnecessary scene into a full-blown "check off the boxes" situation, where the protagonist has to talk to all six ponies because that's how these stories go. There are already shades of that in the story, with all six showing up and telling Mia their elements even though most of that ends up being only indirectly relevant, but I don't think giving everypony a few lines was the way to address that.Of course, that's just my two cents. Regardless, I really enjoy your reviews, and over the last dozen-plus posts I've put more than a couple stories on my to-read list, all thanks to you. Keep it up, please!
3100795
Now that you've pointed it out, I feel obligated to agree. Just giving each character a presence that way might have felt... forced. Even so, it still bus me that they were all there apparently just so that they could be in the first place.
Glad you're enjoying it! Sometimes I wonder if I'm just talking to myself here.
Hey Paul! Thanks so much for the review and the constructive feedback!
I'm glad you enjoyed the story and will keep your feedback in mind for the future. 
3101014
You are very welcome!
Good to hear you're alright brother! Was wondering what was going on. I think I'll give Babs story a lookise, always looking for good Tavi/Scratch story.
I'm glad to hear that you're all right, and sorry to hear about your wallet going missing. That sucks. Did you go to the theater whilst with your parents? I know we find oodles of wallets at the theater that I work at. We're not supposed to riffle through them to try and find out who they belong to either because that would be 'tampering.'
And I'm thinking that I'm going to have to move to a general review system as well, the last couple of fics that I've read have been stinkers, and reading less-than-good stories are not conducive to writing posts about stories that you should read.
But enough pontificating! Onwards!
The Place Where Wild Horses Sleep was a great story. Though easily forgettable now that I look back on it. When I read it, I was blown away, but reading your review, I was astonished by how much of the story had completely passed from my memory. Odd.
The Box. Firstly, Obligatory 'the box' reference:
Secondly, this:
This sounds . . . oddly familiar. I mean, a mystical box that none of the cast can open? I just can't place it--
fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/341/0/9/and_now_we_have_a_box_by_pikachu913-d6x3m1e.png Oh.
I really hope that this story predates season 4.
Queen of Queens was a very interesting story. The inversion of the Equestrian society--that the drones are all immortal and the Queen is the one with a definite life-span--was a stroke of genius. At least, it was, until the Minions movie ripped it off. Which in turn will make any future readers think that it was inspired by the minions movie. That's just my take on it, but the first thing that I thought when learning that the minions of Despicable Me are practically immortal, was QoQ, so I'm all but certain that the reverse will hold true.
I don't have anything to say about The Elegy of Emptiness other than it has an awesome title. Same goes for A Cause Worth Dying For.
Until next time.
3101798
Yes, we checked the theater, it's not there. to be honest I'm expecting my parents to contact me sometime within the next week to reveal they found it hidden under that one place we didn't check or something.
I don't mind writing reviews and whatnot for the less-than-decent stories. Well, sometimes I do, but not usually. At the very least I can entertain myself with how horrible said stories really are. I do try to maintain a sense of professionalism in the review, but oh, the snark going on in my head.
Oh, hey, the actual reason you are a real reviewer. Joining the cult of those who have reviewed In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep is just a fringe benefit.
Oh my. This title now makes me wonder what kind of statues Vinyl and Octy would make if they actually played the Elegy of Emptyness, and if their instruments of choice would affect the magic of the song, and the statues therein.
For those of you who don't know, this song is from TLoZ: Majora's Mask, whereupon playing the song would leave a soulless, lifeless husk of a statue with creepy visuals based upon which Transformation Mask Link is wearing at the time (as well as one for his normal form). They would usually be posed based around the attributes of the mask as well. They were used to reach, and throughout the of the Stone Tower Temple (arguably best temple. Best theme anyway.). Just, go play Majora's Mask already.
Anyway, welcome back Paul!