Read It Now Reviews #113 – Enduriance, The Moondela Effect, Horsefeathers! (Or: I’ll Say She Isn’t), All You Ponies, The Land of Glass and Stone · 12:36am May 8th, 2018
Happy Monday, folks! I’m actually writing this on Sunday, in an effort to actually have something done ahead of time; I’m actually hoping to spend Monday trying to work on one of my own stories, trying to get something up towards a real first draft done, so I can actually publish a story. If only I could decide which one to focus on…
Ah, well. In the meantime, enjoy some reviews of some recent tales.
Today’s stories:
Enduriance by Estee
The Moondela Effect by Fourths
Horsefeathers! (Or: I’ll Say She Isn’t) by Estee
All You Ponies by Mitch H
The Land of Glass and Stone by RazgrizS57
by Estee
Comedy, Random, Slice of Life
12,197 words
The Cakes have received a special commission: making some of the desserts for a global conference which will be hosted by the Diarchy themselves. As such, they're a little nervous about creating the right dish. And so after consulting a very old book, they're going to make something which nopony has seen (or smelled) for a very long time, a cake which requires one extremely special filling.
A very old book, the Princess, and a certain fruit.
Combine, then bake recipe for disaster for one day on low simmer.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer, and I, too, have heard about the [durian.]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian)
Review
For those of you who aren’t familiar, durians are a spiky and rather fragrant fruit found in southeast Asia. To quote Richard Sterling:
...its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.
So, naturally, Estee’s version of durians, much like Estee’s version of Canada Geese, is even worse.
Or at least, more frustrating.
Sadly, this is a story that basically has its humor center almost entirely around two things: the fact that durians smell really, really bad, and that Estee’s version of durians are nearly impossible to open. And while durians being smelly and hard to open is funny, I don’t think it is 12,000 words worth of funny (though it could be a funny little cartoon).
The problem is that these jokes can only carry you so far, and this story isn’t particularly brief in its sojourn through the trials and trevails of trying to get durians open to get at the (apparently quite tasty) insides, and while the various descriptions of just how bad it smells are kind of funny, that gag ends up getting a bit tired by the end of the piece.
As such, this ultimately one of those comedies that feels like it overstayed its welcome; while the story constantly escalates the comedy of just how awful durians are, the length of it wore out the story’s welcome by the end.
Recommendation: Not Recommended
by Fourths
Comedy, Tragedy
5,247 words
Lyra is pretty darn sure that she remembers Princess Luna dying in exile on the moon. Bon Bon is pretty darn sure that her marefriend's an idiot.
Why I added it: It was a different story in the dimension I come from, about Octavia and Vinyl Scratch.
Review
Alright, all joking aside, this is pretty much just straight-up a story about the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect got its name from a small group of people who, for whatever reason, thought that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s, though I think the best example of such collective false memories is the spelling of the Berenstein Bears (it is actually the Berenstain Bears).
Here, Lyra believes (incorrectly) that she heard some radio report about the princess on the Moon dying years ago, so clearly this whole Princess Luna thing is a big hoax.
And she (and a group of fellow idiots) are going to go out and speak truth to power, yo.
While the idea seemed amusing to me, honestly, this story felt like it was playing it pretty straight – yeah, people being idiots is on some level intrinsically funny, but the story is more or less just playing out the Mandela Effect with Luna instead. It doesn’t really feel like it has a whole lot to say about it beyond “this is a thing and it is dumb.”
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
by Estee
Slice of Life, Sad
11,581 words
There are many things which Luna is still trying to catch up with in the modern world, and entertainment is high on that list. She appreciates some of the current musicians, enjoys a few books, and sees the potential in cinema. But when she doesn't enjoy being at a play, she's going to say something about it.
And when a Princess talks, a lot of ponies listen.
Why I added it: Estee is a good writer. Plus, seriously, how could I not read a story about criticism?
Review
Luna and Celestia go to a play – specifically, the Equestrian version of The Cocoanuts – and while Celestia loves it, Luna doesn’t like it. In fact, she not only doesn’t get it, she hates the chaos of it.
Naturally, while leaving the Royal Box, the press come to ask the princesses what their opinion of the play was. Celestia gives a non-committal response. But Luna?
Oh, no. Luna has to let them know. Let everypony know. She has opinions, you see – and she wants to share them with the world.
What could the harm be?
Oh, right, she’s the co-ruler of Equestria.
This is a rather sad story about a very angry Luna failing to recognize that being the leader of Equestria puts her into a rather awkward position as far as being a media critic goes. She pretends to think of herself as an ordinary pony, but obviously, she isn’t, and indeed, given her imperious behavior, doesn’t, and a lot of ponies take her word as law – with disastrous consequences for the things she criticizes.
Of course, such an idea is a bit quaint in the modern world – most people don’t care what the Prime Minister or President things of some show or other – but on the other hand, it is still a bit of awkwardness, where people in charge of countries have to be careful about what they say, lest they cause Problems (or at the very least, piss off the wrong people).
One odd note I had with this story was, as part of the larger Triptych verse, that it felt a bit strange – in some of the other stories, people seem to be determined not to listen to the princesses, such as about the eclipse back in A Total Eclipse of the Fun. But here, ponies seem to be much more slavish to Luna’s opinions, giving them much more weight than the combined voices of the princess in the other story.
Still, I don’t think that ultimately takes away from the core of the story, which is the idea of the Burden of the Crown, that one who is in charge has to be careful about what they say and do, lest they create problems they never intended to when their opinions are taken as being The Official Stance of the government. And in that, I think, it does a solid enough job.
Recommendation: Worth Reading.
by Mitch H
Drama, Time Travel
6,245 words
Chrysalis had come a long way from absolutely nothing - a humbled bug-horse left to fend for herself in the howling wilderness. But she's not the
ponychangeling she used to be, and she's set her hoof upon the path of conquest, for herself, for her crown, and for herchildrenminions.All she had to do was seize the commanding heights of the pony principalities, and feed her brood upon that endless supply of pony happiness which was her birthright, by all that was villainous!
If only her mother didn't keep tripping her up.
Why I added it: Because I know where I came from.
Review
All You Zombies is a classic story by Robert A. Heinlein involving a time loop. Unfortunately, it is a gigantic spoiler for this story, as if you are familiar with All You Zombies, not only are you going to immediately recognize what is going on, but that the closest thing this story has to a “twist” is given away by the title itself. As a result, going through this story, it all felt like it was sort of going through the motions – I already knew how it was all going to end, and I knew why things were the way they were, and the story didn’t really throw me or any sort of unexpected loops.
The other issue is that neither of the protagonists of this story are terribly interesting here, and feel kind of one-dimensional. Chrysalis is evil, Cadance is motherly, and the latter doesn’t feel terribly strongly voiced, nor does she really present anything terribly interesting. Because Cadance knows what is going to happen the whole time, there’s no real sense of conflict, and she just feels blandly motherly, as even within the context of the story, let alone because we’ve seen the show, we all know this is going to end badly for Chrysalis.
The combination of knowing what was going to happen because I’ve read All You Zombies, knowing what is going to happen because I’ve seen the show, and knowing that Cadance is in absolutely no danger whatsoever and is putting on a false face because she’s a Peggy Sue of sorts, just kind of sapped my interest. Part of the fun of All You Zombies is the fact that the audience doesn’t realize just how convoluted the whole thing is until they get to the end of it, but this just felt like it took the premise of Heinlein’s story and ran it forward in its simplest form.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
by RazgrizS57
Death, Dark, Lost Cities
1,663 words
The southernmost reaches of the world are quartered off by a grand desert. It wasn't always like this.
Why I added it: Razgriz is a good writer, and I love me some Lost Cities.
Review
Lost Cities are stories about abandoned cities, cities that have been lost to time, destroyed by some calamity, abandoned by their inhabitants, or otherwise left to ruin. While these stories are pretty unusual as far as stories go, I feel like the best of them actually don’t violate the “rules of writing” as much as they seem to be – they follow the universal engagement curve of hook, rising action, climax, and resolution, but do so in an unusual manner.
This is something I feel is often lost in stories that try to imitate this style – it isn’t enough to create an evocative description of a city, there needs to be a hidden story interlaced into it, and it needs to grab the reader while slyly feeding them a story by implication, with each scene description hooking into the next.
The Land of Glass and Stone starts out with a ruined tower of stone, some sort of watch tower or observation tower. We then see a village, which contains bones, and it isn’t until the third section that we get to something really grandiose or attention grabbing – the gigantic canyons, which contain some stone buildings. But even here we’re not given a really good idea of what is going on. And indeed, the whole story feels very vague, even through to the ending, where we finally get the implication of something having destroyed the kingdom due to the pharaoh’s greed, but we don’t really learn how or why. The plot comes in too close to the end, and the disaster feels too vague.
Thus, for all the nice prose, I didn’t end up getting much of a story out of this piece. It contained some descriptions and some implied tragedy, but it didn’t really feel like it came together for me.
Recommendation: Not Recommended.
Summary
Enduriance by Estee
Not Recommended
The Moondela Effect by Fourths
Not Recommended
Horsefeathers! (Or: I’ll Say She Isn’t) by Estee
Worth Reading
All You Ponies by Mitch H
Not Recommended
The Land of Glass and Stone by RazgrizS57
Not Recommended
As a side note, I've noticed that these posts seem to always add an extra line break between paragraphs nowadays, something they didn't used to do, regardless of whether or not I've got the line break in the actual text. Does anyone know how to prevent that autoformatting from happening?
Number of stories still listed as Read It Sooner: 224
Number of stories still listed as Read It Later: 673
Number of stories listed as Read It Eventually: 2239
I dunno, I add extra paragraph spaces manually and it works out.
If you're copying all this from another document, maybe use the ctrl-shift-V paste?
4855846
The problem is that this:
Shouldn't have paragraph spacing in between the title and the recommendation. There is no extra line break in between them, but it is spaced as if there were.
It should look like this:
All You Ponies by Mitch HNot RecommendedThe Land of Glass and Stone by RazgrizS57Not Recommended4855856
I got nothin', then. :B
Hm, I will have to respectfully disagree with your rec for All You Ponies. Of course, I am coming from the standpoint of not even knowing All You Zombies existed before reading it...
4855856
There was a big update about … half a year ago? … in which knighty changed a lot of site CSS and code to enforce more formatting conformity, so that readers could control their preferred style (indented, continuous paragraphs; or spaced, unindented) and every story/blog they went to would fall into the same style. You can control your personal view, now, in your settings, but you can't control how other people see your text.
There are a few new BBCode commands to kluge around it, though, for things like poetry. They mostly work. :\ Check the first section of the updated bbcode guide.
I think the common thread there is "ponies are awful". Not only are ponies stubborn and opinionated, they're not even reliably so; just when judgement and personal discretion are needed, they'll turn around and succumb to herd mentality.
Estee's stuff is kinda cynical, in case you hadn't noticed.
4856265
Sometimes I worry about Estee.
4856264
Sadly, pre-line didn't seem to work. Bahhh.
Though I have now learned about the Embed command. I might have to try it out in future posts.
4856272
There are some that don't work in blog posts. Also, I think CSS-wise they're <div> or <span>-level elements, which means they interact strangely with some other formatting commands. I'm not really a fan.
(also tagging 4855846 to the thread since he commented on the formatting earlier)