Fic recs, July 29th: Swift Selections edition! · 12:46pm Jul 29th, 2016
Scarlett Blade's newest reading is of Dashiel's (less than satisfactory) A Piece of Cake! ABagOfVicodin has done a reading of Taranth's Little Deceptions!
Swift Selections was a contest run by Estee in June, where writers were given a prompt and had to pick one genre tag to use, meaning there were a limited number of slots open and it was first come, first served. Thankfully (from where I sit), only six entries were actually finished, so I thought I'd give them a read!
And just because I'm reviewing one contest doesn't mean I can't promote another! There are three days left in the Soft Hands writing contest! We've got entries now! As of this morning, there will actually be a fight for the winner of the non-mature category! More are welcome, nay, demanded! I need to write a story. ._.
H: 1 R: 2 C: 2 V: 0 N: 1
Where Parallel Lines Converge by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Magic: The Gathering Crossover
Blown off course during a delivery, Ditzy Doo finds herself in a strange little town.
This is a story somewhat along the lines of Alarm Clock or The Big Butterfly Brouhaha, where Derpy/Ditzy has some weird powers that explain her eccentricities, eyes, etc. It's also, unfortunately, something of a fixfic. I mean, I get that it's taking place in an AU — accessible other than the fact that the events of season five, episode one never happened — but the message is "One mare could have beaten Starlight Glimmer, provided she had access to supreme magical ability and was also secretly some kind of eldritch horror". I am equal parts upset and confused by that. This is just sort of a weird headcanon dump based around MTG lore, and you might actually need to read the original story to get the full effect, which I would have done were it not over 90k. :|
Recommended for Magic Fans, I Guess
Sweetie Spade and the Diminutive Dozen by Zebrarian
Genre: Slice of Life
Caught up in her sister's Shadow Spade novel, Sweetie Belle tries to unravel a real-life mystery on her own.
At its heart, this is a simple, cute slice of life involving some childish fantasizing of mundane events. But, for all that the stakes are fairly low, there is an actual mystery here, and watching Sweetie puzzle it out is fun, even if there's really no way for her to actually figure it out without Rarity just telling her the answer. There are some bits and bobs that could be smoothed out, not to mention a lot of really goofy horse puns, but if I liked anything, it's the solid child writing. Sweetie and her friends are characterized perfectly and never feel like adult characters in small bodies. That said, my one criticism would be the ending. It does a good job showing who the client is without just coming out and saying it, but this raises a whole lot of questions that aren't addressed at all. It's apparently a setup for a sequel, which leaves me feeling a tad cheated, but I definitely want to read that sequel now. Certainly the best thing you can say about a story!
Recommended
Small Favors by Latrans
Genre: Epistolary
A series of letters chronicle Comet Blaze's journey into space.
I and other reviewers have lately been complaining a lot about epistolary fics and how they tend to not sound like letters, journals, etc. This story does not suffer from that problem. If it suffers from anything, it's that sticking to just letters leaves it a tad thin; we move from flight camp to guard camp in the span of two letters, for instance. But with that said, once the sci-fi kicks in and our protagonist starts working on going into space, things get interesting, and the final letter is absolutely worth reading this for.
Recommended for Sci-Fi Fans
The Care and Feeding of Exotic Sapiants by Brumby_Run
Genre: HiE
Lyra summons a human in her basement. Bon Bon is not pleased.
I'm slightly confused by this. Some bits are funny, but overall, it's just sort of your standard Lyra Loves Humans fic, and usually I like those. This one didn't make much of an impression on me, though. Maybe it's the fact that little of it was truly humorous, leaving the whole thing just sort of sitting there. Maybe it's how it jumps through all the standard plot points at breakneck pace. Maybe it's the "*arbal" used for the human's speech, though I'll admit I appreciate he couldn't communicate with them. This may have just needed more attention.
Not Recommended
Space, Intentionally Left Blank by GroaningGreyAgony
Reading by Illya Leonov
Genre: Wordplay
...Princess Luna flies east.
My initial impression of this story was "literary word porn" (something I am always happy to read), but it's just so playful, so downright goofy. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Don't let the sex tag scare you, it's nothing unseemly. Definitely the kind of thing for people who want to read rather than necessarily read a story, though the ending does raise some tantalizing questions.
Recommended
Pas de Deux by Dafaddah
Genre: Romance
I've always found the Fancy/Fleur ship to be somewhat lacking, a very pedestrian and easy explanation for why two ponies are seen together in the show. This story dares to show that a romantic relationship between the two is anything but pedestrian. This is everything I love about Fancy Pants and upper-class Canterlot society — to say nothing of all that I demand from romance and relationship-centric stories — wrapped up in a near-perfect package. Fantastic reading.
Highly Recommended
Yeah, I probably should've just gone the Equestria Girls route. Didn't want to take the low-hanging fruit. Oops.
Thanks for the review of Pas de Deux., and for reminding me to come back to it polish up the editing.
BTW this story would never have been written if Estee hadn't pushed me out of my comfort zone, so my thanks to her as well!
That's a fabulous title for a science fiction story.
Wow. Several of these added to my TBR list.
I got DQed because Estee insisted "trollfic" wasn't a genre.
4120014
Easily one of the best story titles I've seen in a long time!
Ack! People are looking at me! What did you do?!
In unrelated news, thanks for the positive review! I'm really glad you liked it. I've got a couple other micro-fix ideas to put up, I just need to, you know, write them first.
4120050
Pfft! What does Estee know! >:V
4120348
Yeah, I know that feel.
So the first two out of these I read were "Lui, Elle, Elle et Lui" and "Space, Intentionally Left Blank," and I wonder if it's just coincidence that the first has Fleur describe herself as a nightmare dressed like a daydream, and the second ends with "daymare who’d dressed as a nightdream."
I very much get what you meant with "Space," and it being more for people who want to read than read a story, and the excellent and immersive flow it had was a real draw. However, for me, the very fact that that was so much of what the story was meant it did outsized harm when in at least three cases obtrusive and unnecessary outside references pulled me from it, breaking that flow. Still, a very positive experience.
As for "Lui...", it really was wonderful. While not an overwhelming experience in the way reading "Space" was, it too offered a linguistic treat, this time married to an engaging story and two rapid character studies, and a seemingly unbroken stream of cleverness. And I think it makes good use of one of the advantages of tropes and stock characters: by building this around two ponies who closely resemble cliches, it can immediately and parsimoniously develop them by drawing attention to those aspects where they don't conform, where they reject and invert what they appear to be. All that, and it hits at least two of my guilty-pleasure (quality independent enjoyment?) buttons: Fancypants, and misplaced self-loathing.
"Letters" excellently brought forth that "Blue Marble" feeling, and while the last letter is where most of my reaction was brought forth, I don't think it would have succeeded in doing so without the others. Establishing a connection to Blaze and building a tone first was key there.
I think your review paragraph almost perfectly describes my reaction to "Sweetie Spade," though I'd add that the title of the third chapter would ideally be changed to preserve the mystery a bit longer, even if I had my suspicions of that (second or third down the list) beforehand.
4130529
Not at all; I do believe "a nightmare dressed as a daydream" was the contest prompt!
4130619
See, that's one of those places where that "paying attention to stuff" thing I keep hearing about might have come in handy.