Zaid Rants: Relaxing Dragon's 'First Week of Winter' · 10:29pm Jul 12th, 2016

Sometime ago, in my endless quest of procrastination, I stumbled upon the story "First Week of Winter" by Relaxing Dragon and, as a ravenous fan of John Carpenter's movies, I was immediately hooked. After all, how couldn’t I? The cover was eye-catching, the description enticing, it had an exceedingly positive up to downvote rating, and I thought a crossover could be fun.

So, once I finally got around reading it, how did it turn out? Well, let’s say I ended up having a very different experience than what I expected.

Fair word of warning, if you haven’t read the story, I’m about to spoil it to hell and back. As well as some plot points for a few John Carpenter movies, so if you haven’t read this story and you’d rather not have me skew your perspective on it, proceed to ignore this review.

Also, before I go any further, I want to make clear that I’m grateful to Relaxing Dragon for going through the effort of making this story a reality, and whatever else I may say know that I don’t mean any disrespect to him, the story, or those who have enjoyed it.

So, yeah. After saying something like that, you know I’m going to be talking some smack here...

Anyway, let's start at the beginning. The description makes it clear that the story will take influence from Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy. For those not familiar with his movies, here's a small rundown of each of them, so you'll know what to expect:

- The Thing deals with a group of scientist at an arctic research facility who encounter a shape-shifting alien.
- Prince of Darkness deals with a group of scientists finding a tube full of green liquid that is a physical manifestation of Satan.
- In the Mouth of Madness deals with a writer who has control over reality.

As you can see, all of these movies depict apocalypse scenarios that wildly vary in style and scope, and while the argument can be made about the central topic of the three movies being the potential downfall of society, it doesn’t change the fact that these plots would be next to impossible to blend into a single story. What’s more, I suspect the author was probably aware of that as well.

But before getting into the meat of the issue, I’ll go over the things that I did enjoy about the fic.

The first eight chapters are without a doubt the best part of the story, a perfect rendition of The Thing—with very few elements from Prince of Darkness—, you have a secluded research facility in the far north, the protagonists are isolated with no hope of immediate way of getting back, and there's an alien creature picking them one by one.

This part of the story is superbly done, it manages to get across a real feeling of tension and dread as you sit there wondering who may be infected, and who may be next. It's really suspenseful and the gore doesn't feel gratuitous. Not to mention that the characterizations are spot on, everyone behaves in a believable manner, almost as if you had pluck them straight out of the show and tossed them into a situation of unimaginable horror.

I would say that this could be one of the best crossover stories out there.

Until, that is, you reach chapter nine.

Oh, sure, there were hints something else was going on in previous chapters, and there were a few loose ends, so the story clearly wasn't over. But once you reach chapter nine, it all goes out of the window and you're thrust into a rush to prevent the Elder Gods from taking over Equestria.

Yeah, you saw that coming, right? That the creature from the green tube that turned everyone it touched into body horror monstrosities was actually the herald of the Elder Gods, and that the author of the books that were sparsely mentioned throughout the story had made a pact with them so they could give him powers to alter reality through his writings and bring forth the apocalypse?

You see, just as the ‘The Thing’ arc is about to reach its climax, it’s suddenly revealed that those books Pinkie Pie was reading early on were all part of a map to the ancient city below, and they were supposed to guide them so they could seal away those beings and prevent the downfall of Equestria.

And it all goes off the rails from that point onwards.

Do you remember those first two thirds of the story you spent invested on the group's survival? The time spent trying to figure out who could be infected, and who could be next? The times you felt bad when someone died? Yeah, all of that was Sugar Cane, trying to wrap things up so the Elder Gods could take over Equestria, no biggie.

Gone is the tension of figuring out who will survive, gone is the rich atmosphere of the claustrophobic research facility, gone is the dread and fear that build up with every passing moment as you followed the characters as they slowly lost their minds, gone is the entire tone, gone is all the investment you had in the first two thirds of the entire story.

By the time you reach the part where Twilight and Sugar Cane are debating about the nature of fiction you'll have already forgotten everything about the first part of the story.

It's almost as if the author forgot that he also wanted to adapt In the Mouth of Madness halfway through the story, so he wrote a few more chapters focusing on that, because I cannot for the life of me fathom why the story has such a jarring disconnect between those two segments and then draws itself out for another nearly forty thousand words the way it did.

Why do that? It would be as if you were eating a perfectly cooked steak, and once you're about to finish it, the waiter came and replaced it with a roasted chicken. It may be good on its own, but you were eating a steak, and you wanted to finish that, not change to a completely different dish just as you were about to finish.

If I sound bitter, it's only because I am.

This story has elicited more negative feelings and intense emotions from me than any other in quite some time. I'm so frustrated, I'm almost tempted to make a rewrite of chapter nine onwards and give the "The Thing" crossover a proper resolution. Had the first part been shorter and better integrated with what was coming, I'd probably would have enjoyed the story as a whole. But as it stands, the first segment is so well done and the tonal shift to the last third of it is so jarring, it just adds insult to injury.

I'm sorry, everyone... I’ll go weep in a corner now.

Report Zaid ValRoa · 678 views ·

Comments ( 2 )