Paul's Thursday Reviews LXIX · 10:35pm Apr 6th, 2017
Well, this was a dud week for writing. Spent the weekend at my parents' place (crawfish boil = worth it!), then spent the last three days in training for my new salary position that went for 10 hours a day on top of a 1-1/2 hour long drive to get to the training facility. Anyone else ever notice how these big corporations like to send you to the fancy, carpeted, architecturally unique building with the on-sight cafeteria and park for your training? It's like they're telling the gullible new guys "Look, look, see how amazing your company is?" Then, of course, you finish said training and BOOM, you're booted out of the nice office and placed into a little windowless room with three other people in a tiny cubicle where the trash will get dumped once a week (if you're lucky) in a building where all the kitchen appliances remember the Reagan administration.
Way to disenchant your new recruits, guys.
Anyway, after a mandatory hiatus, I'm back and can hopefully get some writing done once more. But more important news to you regular review readers: this is my last week on break from reading MLP! And yes, I really did abstain from reading MLP stories the whole time (so far). I'm eager to get back on the wagon, and right on time since after today I'll be out of backed up material.
Stories for This Week:
The Confessions of Clyde Pie, Prince of Rock by Casca
Who Is This Lord Tirek You Speak Of? by Bucking Nonsense
On the Care and Construction of Bridges by Ebon Mane
Fillystata by adcoon
Remembrance by Viking ZX
Total Word Count: 121,933
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 3
Worth It: 1
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
The Confessions of Clyde Pie, Prince of Rock
1,761 Words
By Casca
Having never seen a story about Igneous Pie (at the time of publication, still regarded as Clyde), I was immediately drawn to this one. It ends up being a letter written by him to be read by his family after his death, in which he confesses to having once been a rock star.
The premise? Pretty interesting. In fact, I’d say this idea deserves the full treatment of a multi-chapter slice of life/romance. Alas, all we are given is this brief glimpse. I am divided on the… shall we say ‘dry’ delivery? The entire letter felt reserved in its emotion, but then, Clyde seems to often be depicted as a reserved individual. As such, one can argue that the style fits the character perfectly. Then again, if this is deathbed a confession letter, shouldn’t the emotion be all the more powerful as a result?
And yet, I don’t think the weak nature of it is due to the author so much as to the choice of medium. To Sue and the Pie girls? This is probably a stirringly emotional piece. To anyone who doesn’t know Clyde Pie with the intimacy of a wife or daughter? I see shrugs.
So, to summarize: great concept, meh delivery. Had this been given a more personal treatment (i.e. living the events rather than a letter after the fact), this could have been an awesome piece of literature.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Who Is This Lord Tirek You Speak Of?
64,574 Words
By Bucking Nonsense
I didn’t want to read this. The baseline concept was old and dull roughly two seconds after the first episode began to play for the first time on TV screens across the country, and before that by a factor of decades if you move beyond the fandom just a smidgen. Oh, sure, I had friends insisting it was worthwhile, but I just wasn’t interested. Nonetheless, they cajoled and annoyed and pestered me for long enough that finally, grudgingly, I added it to my RiL just for the sake of shutting them up about it.
Whelp, far be it for me to not admit when I’m wrong. Curiously, the author himself may have inadvertently put down in words how I felt about this story: “The ponies of Equestria hold a great deal of faith in certain pillars of our society.” Granted at the time the discussion involved Lovecraftian horrors and how knowledge of their existence might affect the everyday mortal, but try shifting it into the world of literature.
We all fall into the traps. We have rules that specify what is good and what is bad writing. Even if we don’t agree on it, everyone has their own set rules that define to them what ‘good’ stories are. Then we come across a story like this, with its Gary Stu protagonist who has the perfect answer for pretty much every solution – except when the plot requires otherwise, of course – with all the physical, magical, intellectual and even musical might to achieve everything that is needed at the given moment, all wrapped up in a baseline concept as old as the act of storytelling. Red bars flash in our minds, the computer starts crying out “Red Alert!”, we start to raise our Shields of Literary Superiority and arm the Photon Torpedoes of Imminent Lecture.
Then a certain witty Cardassian steps out of his tailor’s shop, gives you a charming smile, and says “Relax, Doctor. It’s all in good fun.”
I was on yellow alert for the majority of this story, but as time went by I slowly came to understand what may have been a fundamental point of all of it: this is for entertainment purposes only. Sure, I prefer my serious, dark, adventurous or dramatic tales, but sometimes it’s good to read something written purely for the purpose of having fun. This story pulls that off well, and does so while running a Bagger 288 through some of the most established writing no-nos of the current age. The minute you learn to roll with it is the minute you start to enjoy and appreciate what you’re reading.
This story isn’t amazing. It’s not meant to be. But what it is is surprisingly clever and constantly self-aware, fully acknowledging its egregious offenses with a steady stream of good humor and not-so-subtle winks at the audience. It is, simply put, a good bit of satire with the simple goal of telling everyone to chill out and enjoy the guitar shredding.
And from that standpoint, I can honestly see no good reason to point out the mistakes. In fact, I honestly couldn’t tell you how many of the errors within this story were legitimate. For all I can tell, every move made by the author here, from the extrapolations to the distracting tangent chapter, was put in intentionally for the sake of laughing at the hard nosed critics tearing the last of their hair out.
And you know what? I’m cool with this. All of it. Even the parts that are normally my own personal triggers (like inputting youtube videos in the middle of a story). I learned to roll with it, and in so doing achieved great entertainment. It’s not inner peace, but I’ll take it.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
On the Care and Construction of Bridges
4,286 Words
By Ebon Mane
Recommended by Titanium Dragon
Well. That took a sharp left turn.
In this story, we learn that Rainbow is a bit more aware of things than she lets on. It begins with her confronting Applejack about her clear crush on Rarity, and then doing the same thing to Rarity. When she doesn’t get the results she wants, however, she decides to go to Twilight to ask “What’s up with that?” The end result is a story about the building – and burning – of relationships.
It might not have a ‘Romance’ tag, but anyone who reads the opening scenes of this story is almost certainly going to expect the same thing I did. Which is why the end result is at once surprising, disappointing, and yet also refreshing. I think it’s safe to say I approve. Ebon Mane took a common start and turned it into an uncommon lesson, thereby creating a pleasant change of pace.
Of course, anyone who is into romance is going to be put out, but hey, you can’t please everyone, right? As much as I would have liked to have seen things resolved, the resolution we do get is nice enough to keep me satisfied.
I think the only odd point in the entire story is Twilight, whose reaction to Rainbow is… I think I’ll go with ‘subdued.’ She approaches the entire problem with logic and reason, which is fine considering it’s Twilight, but I still would have expected a bit more excitement in the prospect presented to her.
Other than that? Nicely done.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Fillystata
36,992 Words
By adcoon
Requested by DeathFox4
DeathFox4’s requests have thus far been of questionable quality, so I was understandably hesitant upon going into this one. But this time? I was pleasantly surprised.
In Fillystata, Twilight is visiting a small town fair with her friends when she stumbles upon an ancient journal that belonged to her ancestor, Midnight Spindle, also known as Fillystata. Working together with Trixie and Princess Luna (who, coincidentally, were also at the fair), she becomes obsessed with learning everything she can about the mare, going so far as to purchase her old home and live there for months. As her obsession grows to an unhealthy degree, Trixie starts to wonder if Twilight shouldn't have left well enough alone.
The story starts off from Twilight’s perspective, but soon switches to be largely from Trixie’s and Luna’s as they start trying to unravel the mystery of just what Twilight has been up to. When things begin, it feels as though we’re about to watch a slice of life tale in which Twilight helps Trixie and Luna while learning a bit more about her history. Harmless stuff, really. It soon evolves into a mystery that grows more and more ominous by the chapter, complete with graverobbers, disappearing foals and blood-based magics.
And I must say, it worked marvelously. By the final third of the story, I was constantly anxious, at once eager and afraid to know just what would be around the next corner. That’s not an easy thing to achieve, and I applaud adcoon for managing to bring that effect to the forefront. In this aspect, I have absolutely nothing to complain about.
And here comes the but:
Buuuut, there were a number of unfortunate mistakes. The first is a tendency to gloss over details. I get the impression that adcoon is trying to mirror the old writing styles of the 1800’s and early 1900’s at points (referencing The Thing in the Moonlight only further backs this suspicion). There are long segments in the story were weeks, perhaps even months pass by in a summarized blurb of events. The content of these summaries is as interesting as the rest of the story, but loses most of the emotional impact through a lack of description and atmosphere. These scenes didn’t happen often, but when they did they were glaring.
A bit more in the technical side of things are the constant breaks. I’ve seen many an author do this, and it confounds me every time. Scene breaks are meant to indicate a passing of time and space and, at times, subject. So why in Luna’s name would you put a scene break into your story only to start right where the last scene stopped? It makes no sense and serves only to be extremely distracting. adcoon does this again and again and again ad nauseum, and it’s frustrating.
But the single worst aspect of the entire story? The ending. No, seriously, there are so many things wrong with it that it alone ruins everything. I won’t go spoiling it because I imagine some readers will disagree, but just for example: do you seriously expect me to believe that Princess Luna can be defeated or at least have her life seriously threatened by wrapping a cloak around her head? The mighty alicorn princess who almost overthrew all of Equestria by sheer force of will, brought to her knees by old, threadbare cloth. There’ so much WTF going on here that even WTF is ashamed.
And that’s just one quick moment in the climax. I can think of four other things far more egregious than that off the top of my head, at least two of which are sure to piss readers off. This ending is nothing short of crap.
Then there’s the ‘bonus chapter.’ Honestly, I don’t know why people do these sorts of things. If you’re going to add a new story that is only marginally related to everything else that’s going on in this one, post it as a new story. Don’t get me wrong, the bonus chapter was solid and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it makes no sense to tack it onto the back like this. Make it a new story and link it as a sequel or a side story, but don’t throw it on the backside where it's most likely to go ignored.
To conclude, Fillystata is a story that shows a lot of promise for the majority of its writing, only to end up throwing all of it away with a hamfisted ending. While I fully acknowledge that adcoon has some clear skill in terms of atmosphere and the weaving of plot, the terrible mistakes made in the conclusion force me to knock this story down a couple levels.
The good news? This author does indeed show promise. I have every intention of reading the (almost certain to be tragic) prequel, just to see if adcoon learned any lessons from the climax fiasco.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Remembrance
14,320 Words
By Viking ZX
Sequel to Emoticon
Ah, another Dusk Guard story. As with the rest of the shorts in this series so far, this one focuses on the day off of one the team members, specifically Hunter.
After reading this, I can’t help but feel that this – more than any of the others – was all about fleshing out Hunter’s backstory. Not that there isn’t a lesson or purpose for Hunter, it’s just that said lesson seemed to not have quite the emphasis. But I’m perfectly alright with that. Out of all the members of the Dusk Guard, Hunter was one of the two I was most interested in learning more about; it just felt like he’d had among the least amount of attention in that regard in the main story. I feel similarly about Dawn.
The catch to this is that the intro feels a little long winded. I get what Viking ZX was going for, or at least I think I do, but I believe a more direct method might hold potential readers' interests better. As it is, the primary hook of this story seems to be the fact that it stars Hunter, which is fine for those who know and care about the Dusk Guard, but not so much for anyone hitting this story without the background knowledge.
Still, it was mostly a nice and interesting little look at the past of Hunter. Save for a nitpick or two (yes, we know his manecut puts his hair a few inches above his shoulders, I got it the first three times), I enjoyed myself. Not my favorite of the shorts (that still falls to Nova), but definitely worth my while.
And now we face a serious problem: there’s only one Dusk Guard story left for me to review and still no sign that this regularly hinted at sequel involving everyone’s favorite Crystal Tyrant is going to be showing up soon.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
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Damn, isn't Fillystata fucking old? O.o
Believe me, I'm despairing about this just as much as everyone else. If I were able to be writing full-time (as in my full-time) it'd be a different story, but with the hours of my part-time job trying to vacuum up my life (because of course it belongs to the company, along with my soul, right?), progress on Jungle is slower than I'd like, and I can't work on Hunter/Hunted until I finish the first draft of Jungle.
So basically ... money woes slowing my writing down. It sucks bad, but I can't do much about it.
4486699
I know exactly how you feel. I've been trying to get the rough draft of the first chapter of Bulletproof Heart written for over a week now.
4486696
Came out in 2012, so yeah, pretty dang old.
4486721
On the plus side, you've got Colony and Unusual Events to tide you over, and Discord Day Care is moving into Beta at the moment.
I'm glad you enjoyed On the Care and Construction of Bridges; I liked that story a lot and I think it had an interesting moral and went off in an interesting direction.
i was waiting to see your review of FillyStata :). The Mare in the Mirror is a sequel btw. Its good either way. Cant wait to see you get to that.
Isn't Fillystata a half-clone of a Lovecraft story? This dude locks himself in the attic, only getting the necessities from the maid while he slowly becomes his grandfather or great-grandfather?