For Those That Yearn For Adventure #23: Imploding Colon's "Austraeoh" · 6:14pm Apr 15th, 2016
Sometimes, you go into a story not having a clue what it's going to be about. The title may not give you any hint of what it's about, and the description the author provides is about as simple or as cryptic as one can get. Your engagement with the text would then be solely based on the title, or perhaps the cover art, and it's going to be one of those stories where you don't have many assumptions upon entering.
This is one of those stories.
Austraeoh
by Imploding Colon
Year Published: 2012
Tags: Adventure, Alternate Universe and Random
Word Count: 212,744
Rainbow Dash flies east.
What will Rainbow Dash find as she flies east?
...
Uh...
...
Is it any good? Read the story to find out!
Before I begin, I would like to say that my review is not meant to be belittling, discouraging or insulting. It is simply my observations as I read it. Please take what I say with a grain of salt; I'm not particularly bright, so I may miss or misinterpret something. Please take what I say with a grain of salt, as I'm still trying to figure out how to review with giving the author and story their due while pointing out what could be better with it.
Commence Review Now
I'll try to do my best to describe this story without giving away too much, in case you're trying to decide whether you want to read it or not. I suppose I should begin by addressing the chapter lengths. To give you an idea of what it's like, the longest chapter in the story—the last one—is 2,520 words long, and the shortest one is 91; every other one falls in between. The chapters are very short, but there are 200 of them, so the story's very segmented.
How does this affect the story quality? From my own experience, it actually works to the story's benefit. It firstly accentuates one of the themes of the story: Rainbow Dash must constantly be moving, and so there's not a lot of time to appreciate anything. Each chapter is just a brief moment in Rainbow's journey, and the brevity of chapters reflect the struggle to appreciate anything when she's all alone.
Speaking of appreciation, with how segmented the story is, each chapter is an opportunity to appreciate a part of Rainbow's journey. She can't take the time to reflect on her predicament, but we can see each moment and dwell on how fast Rainbow Dash must keep moving. I feel that Imploding did a great job focusing on each special aspect of every chapter, zoning in on each individual moment and giving it both its own weight, and a fleeting special place in Rainbow's journey.
I suppose it could be criticized—and I, being the stupid bastard that I am, feel the need to point it out—that some of the more... I guess "plot-driven" moments are fragmented the same way, and the transitions between these more drawn-out moments may seem abrupt. If you like serious threads of plot to be drawn out within a chapter, then just know that there are moments where things like discussing plans and working one's way through a mission will have multiple chapters to them, these chapters being short. I'll defend this choice, though, as it both keeps with the rhythm of the overall story, and shows how much in motion Rainbow Dash is. I feel that although it may not quite show that Rainbow's focusing on the task, it does show that she's trying to deal with everything as quickly as she possibly can, to seem both speedy and loyal to the cause.
Speaking of Rainbow Dash, she's characterized with a great deal of complexity and depth. She breezes through everything, whether that means she gets through everything flawlessly or she gets beaten up along the way. She's cocky to a fault, but you find out throughout the story that she's got both nothing and a lot to lose, and the cockiness is shown as both her personality and a defense mechanism. It marries both intentions beautifully. The dialogue is snappy, quipful and essentially Rainbow Dash. Luna also has a fair amount of dialogue, and she comes off as both herself and as invested in the situation. I can't think of anything to complain about the dialogue.
All of the original characters are lively, organic and feel like they have a place within both the story and within their own setting. Speaking of that, the settings are very vivid and solid. Different cultures are written with enough vivacity to make them seem like real places, and the ponies and other creatures are like witnessing real people doing real things. I seriously can't think of any character or setting that fell flat.
And that's just talking about the inhabited places; Imploding Colon writes the isolated places with the skill of a landscape painter. A lot of sights and textures come across in a few simple words, and each sound and touch is that much more powerful in the quiet places. It enlivens a sense of discovery when Rainbow stumbles across these areas, and they're written beautifully.
If you can't tell, I loved reading this. Have some more gushing.
All of this—the entire story, in fact—is held together by the prose. His writing is what I'm sure he wouldn't call it, but I'd call it masterful. Perhaps it's in the brevity that he, she or it writes the chapters, giving time to focus on each thing. Perhaps it's in how relentless he writes all the beautiful and depressing moments. Perhaps it's simply in how much he focuses on the adventuring aspect, and how little fat he has to get in the way. Whatever it is, it held me spellbound throughout.
For this story is an adventure at its core, one that is constantly pushing Rainbow to dive into uncharted territory and deal with what's there, in order to do something that I neither can spoil nor understand completely. There are other stories in this series, and this one does end on a cliffhanger, and not everything is clear at the end. There is enough, though, to tantalize my interest like caramel does on a regular basis, so the story has that going for it.
There are two things I feel like I could fairly criticize about the story. The first is the editing. It's not lazy, but it has a noticeable amount of errors. They're uncommon, but they're not quite rare, either. And I don't remember anything that was common for me to point out.
The second thing is something I may be nitpicking, but since I'm a stupid bastard, I'll point it out: I don't think it handled its point-of-view completely well. It's mostly written in third-person limited, but there are moments when it will focus on other characters, and I don't think it fits in this story. For example, in the chapter "Hypothetically," there's a conversation between two ponies about the state of their village, and instead of Rainbow eavesdropping at first, she enters the scene in the middle of it. The more noticeable instance was in the chapter "Change," when it completely switches to another character's point of view in the first paragraph.
Ember Speak drifted into the infirmary, her ears twitching at the sound of a familiar voice. She stuck her head in through the dangling curtain and gazed with curiosity.
Even though it's a small instance, I found that very much out of place in Rainbow's own story, and I don't know if there's any benefit from having it there.
Still, those are small things in an otherwise-excellent story. I had no idea what to expect, but it really swept me away. It was gripping, relentless, spectacular, and overall adventurous. I'll admit that I still have no idea what exactly austraeoh is, or what any of the other titles mean.
There's also a lively running-gag of including artwork and references to readers and fans, so that's something to keep an eye out for, should you decide to read this for the first time.
So in conclusion, Imploding Colon has created something that's magical and well worth the read. I can't call it perfect, but I can call it immersive and exciting. And as I prepare to set out on my own adventure story tomorrow (which I doubt will come close to the grandeur that is Austraeoh), I can be inspired by such a great piece as this, as well as others that I've read in the past. This story is truly something special to behold, and I recommend it as one of the quintessential FimFics on this site. It's that special.
I don't know about Eljumbyro, though. I have no idea what that's about. Perhaps the names are meant to be something to be discovered as well. Only time will tell.
Sorry for making this review so short; I couldn't find much else to say about it. I just think it's beautiful.
Imploding Colon, if you read this, the criticisms in this review are not meant to belittle, discourage or insult you in any way. They are just my honest opinions on what I thought about your stories. I praise you for writing them, and wish you continued success in the future.
If You Yearn for More Adventure
November 1st: Words Failed Her by Nonsanity
November 2nd: Great Big Sky by shortskirtsandexplosions
November 3rd: 30,000 Feet by the Grey Pegasus
November 4th: Stop Me by Wing Nut
November 5th: Yearbook January by Regidar
November 6th: The Three Sisters by Wanderer D
November 7th: The Lonesome Drake by Bok
November 8th: Making Friends by arcum42
November 9th: Wheels of Fire, Wings of Fliers by ChaoticHarmony
November 10th: The Lone Crusader by Cute Reality
November 11th: The Frozen West by Cozy Mark IV
November 12th: A Rumble in Time by Lab Matt AND Broken Roads by Not_A_Hat
November 13th: Pip by Invictus
November 14th: Raiders of the Cutie Mark by DJLowrider
November 15th: The Ancient Heart of the Everwood Dragon by Grey Faerie
November 16th: The Motion of the Stars by Carabas
November 17th: Complaints Department by TheDarkStarCzar
November 18th: Height by PoweredByTea
November 19: Blue Steel Railway by writer
November 20th: device heretic's "And the Temptress Came Unto Her" and Glimmerglaze's "It's Also About Time"
Please don't be discouraged by the fact that there will be twelve of these tales, each 200 chapters in length. (The current one, Utaan, is up over half a million words with a couple dozen chapters to go.)