Read It Later Reviews #54 – Thanks, Mom; There’s a Changeling Under My Bed; Blankets; It Doesn’t Matter Now; A Brief History of Time · 9:22pm Aug 25th, 2016
Well, it seems folks are pretty happy with My Fluttering Heart on the whole. It was fun coming up with a personality for a seven-and-a-half year old Flurry Heart, as well as packing as much foreshadowing into Flurry Heart’s perspective as I could. Not to mention the dad jokes. Thanks to everyone who has read that story, and thanks especially to you who talked to me about it; I appreciate it.
I’ve got a blog post planned about some stuff I was doing with Flurry Heart’s perspective and synesthesia that I think might be interesting to talk about, but alas, this is not that blog post.
But on the upside, I did get a number of additional stories read and reviewed for your reading pleasure!
Today’s stories:
Thanks, Mom by Oroboro
There’s a Changeling Under My Bed by Summer Dancer
Blankets by Midnight Dancer
It Doesn’t Matter Now by Loganberry
A Brief History of Time by Doppler Effect
Thanks, Mom
by Oroboro
Slice of Life
2,148 wordsWhen Twilight visits home for Mother's Day, along with Shining Armor, Cadance, and their newborn daughter, she learns that a mother's work is never truly finished.
Why I added it: Oroboro is a good writer, and noted his disappointment in Read It Later #53 that the “Thanks, Mom” story I reviewed wasn’t his.
Review
This is very much a Mother’s Day story. Mother’s Day stories are a genre unto themselves, combining practicality with fluffiness. Mother’s Day stories don’t shy away from the unpleasantness of being a mother, but tend to depict the mother as being a trooper and loving it all, even though it is a lot of work, with the story ultimately justifying her choice.
This story fits neatly into the genre and is a good example of such; we see Twilight Sparkle’s outside view of being a parent, both of her brother and sister-in-law, as well as of Twilight Velvet. It is big on family and the importance thereof, and the weight Twilight Velvet carries to try and help look after her grandchild.
If you’re in the mood for a Mother’s Day story, this is worth checking out.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
There’s a Changeling Under My Bed
by Summer Dancer
Sad
1,194 wordsI should feel safe, knowing that Chrysalis has been vanquished. But now, I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm used to staying up all night...but not like this.
Why I added it: It is short and its premise and title interested me.
Review
This is A Canterlot Wedding reaction story, set a couple days after the wedding, when Twilight returned home. Twilight is worried that the changelings are still out there, somewhere; they might sneak into her house; they might replace her friends; they might do horrible things to ponies. She has to will herself to go to sleep, and tune out her worries about changelings being all around her.
This is a decent enough piece for what it is; it draws within the lines for the genre, but it does a good job of it, and the closing bit of it is quite solid in its potential ambiguity, but also showing Twilight’s resolve at the end.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
Blankets
by MidnightDancer
Romance, Slice of Life
2,556 wordsMarriage is the hardest thing Carrot Cake has ever done, second only to being a father to his two foals.
Woken by a chill and finding himself quite bereft of blankets, he finds himself pondering the canyon that has appeared between he and his wife.
Why I added it: The Royal Canterlot Library.
Review
This is one of those slow burn stories that gets better as it unfolds itself. It starts out fairly normally – with Carrot Cake feeling disconnected from his wife – and then goes on to build a structure around that feeling, explaining to us why it is that Carrot Cake feels like he has been drifting away from his wife, the source of his feelings, his self-loathing for his own behavior and his lack of trust, as well as his own critical eye.
It does a good job of capturing Mr. Cake’s emotions, as well as grounding his fears in all-too-human fears in the show, as well as him contemplating the cause of it all, and what he can do to fix it – if he even wants to.
If you’re in the mood for more serious fare, a story about adult insecurities and fears, this is a solid choice.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
It Doesn’t Matter Now
by Loganberry
Random, Slice of Life
1,334 wordsThe Spirit Pony is responsible for the End of All That Ever Was. It has always been so. This particular End looks like being a straightforward one – until a certain pink pony intervenes to prevent it happening. Pinkie has a very, very good reason for stopping the Spirit, too...
Why I added it: The Royal Canterlot Library.
Review
All that Spirit Pony wants to do is to end the universe, consign it forever to oblivion, then go away.
He’s down to one last atom of hydrogen… and one Pinkie Pie.
She made a promise, you see. And nothing – not even death or the End of All Things – can make her break a Pinkie Promise.
I had no idea what this was going to be going into it, I only knew that it was featured by the Royal Canterlot Library, and was recommended by a bunch of people. It is a bit of cosmic silliness, but some folks really, really liked it, and I wanted to see what it was.
Ultimately, I wasn’t really left feeling with a real sense of profundity here. It was mildly amusing, but it was no The Nine Billion Names of God or The Last Question. Rather, it is a fairly simple story about Pinkie Pie, taken to its logical extreme.
Ultimately, though, I wasn’t left feeling terribly satisfied by this piece. It was mildly cute and whimsical, but it felt a bit one-note in the end, which was all it was really trying for.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
A Brief History of Time
by Doppler Effect
Drama, Sci-Fi
5,861 wordsTwilight and Minuette discuss Starlight Glimmer's timeline disruptions.
Twilight just wishes the conversation had happened in chronological order.
Why I added it: It was featured in the Royal Canterlot Library. Also, time travel.
Review
While waiting for Minuette to show up, Twilight hears a sound coming from her throne room. When she enters, she sees Minuette disappearing through a time portal.
Later, Minuette comes over to Twilight’s castle to talk about the messed-up altered timelines created by Starlight Glimmer’s time travel, as well as how to fix what might or might not have accidentally maybe shattered causality.
This is a story which feels directed at folks who aren’t terribly familiar with time travel tropes, and is actually a bit meta; the story is itself about a predestination paradox, and it uses said paradox (and Starlight Glimmer’s own tampering with time) as an excuse to spend a lot of time talking about theories of time travel. Twilight is a bit confused throughout the piece, but it should be simple enough for the reader to follow along, even though it involves two time loops, one contingent on the other.
If you’re interested in dipping your toes into stories about theories of time travel, this is an okay starting place, but ultimately it is kind of dry; if you are an old hand at time travel, this may feel overly hand-holdy, as it spends quite a bit of verbiage on setting up a fairly simple situation, without all that much tension, and you’ll see the end coming from very early on (literally).
Indeed, in many ways, this is less of a story and more of an excuse to talk about time travel mechanics, and it shows; there is little meaningful conflict in the story, and the stakes simply never feel as high as they should, with Minuette seemingly constantly defusing the situation whenever it might escalate.
Recommendation: Not Recommended if you’re familiar with time travel tropes. If you aren’t too familiar with time travel tropes and the Novikov self-consistency principle and are interested in learning about them via a story, you might get something out of it.
Summary
Thanks, Mom by Oroboro
Worth Reading
There’s a Changeling Under My Bed by Summer Dancer
Worth Reading
Blankets by Midnight Dancer
Worth Reading
It Doesn’t Matter Now by Loganberry
Not Recommended
A Brief History of Time by Doppler Effect
Not Recommended
I’ve got most of Read It Later #55 done, so expect another review post in the next couple days.
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 154
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 540
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 1956
Intriguing as always n_n Now get back to writing!
Thanks for the review!
My favorite thing about the story is that it's basically a self insert, based on my own experiences in how my mom stepped up as Grandma when my niece was born. And then written in 1 hour as a mother's day present for my mom right before we went to go celebrate mothers day with her and my brother.
Thanks for the review! This is like my third time being reviewed by you
I'm glad you liked this one 
4171473
You're welcome! And yes, I am too.
4171460
Yeah, I think I read a blog post or a comment or something by you that mentioned it. It was a solid example of a Mother's Day story. I hope your mom liked it!
4171778 Yeah, she loved it a bunch. (And again the next year when someone did an audio version.)
your mom loved it a bunch too oh snap
Blimey, you don't ask for much, do you?
Seriously, thank you for the review. I won't deny I'm a little more disappointed than last time,* but I don't think there's anything I could object to in what you wrote. I remain happy with the story as it stands, and tales of great depth and profundity are never going to be my thing, but a "simple story ... taken to its logical extreme" is exactly what it's supposed to be. If that's not what you want from the setup, then this won't satisfy you -- as was the case.
Also, I find it amusing and almost fitting that you start two paragraphs with "Ultimately", given the story's subject matter.
* Shining Armor's Amour's Armour, which was never intended to be more than a piece of silly fluff.
4173604
Just the world, nothing more.
Thanks again for the review. I'm glad you enjoyed it
4177757
You're welcome! I've been meaning to get around to your stuff for a while now.