Paul's Thursday Reviews CCLXXXIII · 10:14pm Feb 10th, 2022
Because it amuses me to no end, I figured I'd spotlight this Change.org petition for SpaceX to send Princess Luna to the moon. Although I have to criticize BoredNerd0703’s description. In what way does sending Princess Luna to the moon indicate our collective desire to “emulate the values of the show”? Last I checked, banishing people to the moon isn’t a value of the show nor something we particularly want to promote.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. Why not get to those reviews?
Stories for This Week:
The Room of Stars by Word Worthy
Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead by Rune Soldier Dan
The First Adventure by bkc56
Crystal by TheEveryDaySparkle
Total Word Count: 106,910
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 2
Worth It: 2
Needs Work: 0
None: 0
The Room of Stars
4,559 Words
By Word Worthy
There is a planet in a distant solar system that you have been blessed by fate to investigate. This planet is a source of many curiosities, not least of which is the concentration of magic that can only be artificial, and you dearly hope to find some archeological evidence of a past civilization there. What you find instead will be beyond your wildest expectations.
Given the flowery not-quite-purple descriptions of this story, it might qualify as scenery porn. It is also an experiment on Word Worthy’s part regarding second person narration. In one of the better examples of such a narrative perspective that I’ve seen, the author goes to great pains to ensure the protagonist’s anonymity, even going so far as to be elusive about the individual’s species. On top of that, the story sets us in a post-armageddon Ponyville as your expedition team explores and marvels at the advanced “technology” (read: magic) of the presumably extinct inhabitants.
Then, as I’m sure you can guess by the cover art, the inhabitants prove to not be so “extinct” as originally assumed.
I came away from this one very pleased. It can feel a little slow at times due to the nature of the writing style, but it makes up for it with a unique vision and an unusually effective use of second person as a narrative choice. It even comes with a cameo of Best Pony. If this all sounds like something you’d be interested in, there’s no reason not to indulge.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author! (And long overdue…)
Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead
91,201 Words
By Rune Soldier Dan
Remember that time Sunset became a demon? Or three girls brainwashed the school? Or Twilight started blasting holes in the fabric of the universe? Sunset does. Specifically, she remembers how her principals treated those events like any other day. She decides to confront them about their attitudes, to which they offer a simple, obvious, perfectly normal reason:
They and the entirety of the CHS staff happen to be monster hunters.
Yeah, there was no way I wasn’t reading this. I’ve wanted to ever since it was released, and lament that it took this long to get to it.
This was a story written purely for the sake of fun. It involves two overlapping elements. The first is Sunset and Principal Celestia forming a rather delightful mother-daughter bond. The second is, of course, monster hunting, including zombies, giant spiders, a lich, and one extremely petty and vindictive vampire. Oh, and changelings, because of course.
Added to the bloody good fun of Momlestia and Adorable Teenage Sunset kicking undead butt with smiles on their faces are Luna as the unappreciated loner who wants us all to know that scythes suck, a Cheerilee who gets more confident and stronger the less clothes she happens to be wearing, a Cranky who seems to like using the fights to relive his war days, a Redheart having way too much fun with fire and explosives, an Iron Will who is… uh… Iron Will, and a Harshwinny who puts as much fear into the undead as she does her students.
And I haven’t even gotten into what the minor characters are up to. Be prepared for recurring LARPers, professional-but-underage werewolf hunters, a shotgun sharpshooter, a were-manatee (yes, really), and several cameos of everyone’s favorite bug queen with a princess fetish. The farm girl shipping was cute, too.
It’s a ton of fun, which is the only thing that Rune Soldier Dan was going for. This was a story written to be amusing and goes all out. As a nice touch, it doesn’t sacrifice the CelestiaxSunset mother-daughter bonding element to do so, and it even gives Luna some delightful character growth in the process.
An all-around delight to read. I happily recommend this one, on the condition that you’re willing to roll with everything and not consider the logistics too much.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
To Try For the Sun — WHYRTY?
The First Adventure
10,050 Words
By bkc56
Sequel to High-Water Mark
Actually a prequel. Authors and their quirks…
In High-Water Mark we met married scientists Misty and Quicksilver as they endured an emergency situation. In this story we learn how they went from foalhood friends to properly married.
If I had to describe this in one word, it would be “brief”. Yes, I know it’s 10k words long, but the way it’s written made it feel that way. We start off at a science fair and a cutie mark earned, fast forward to a few quick scenes in which their mutual best friend betrays them, fast forward to forgiveness and marriage, the end. It’s the “fast forward” part that bugs me; it feels like there’s a lot of depth and nuance that got skipped over in favor of getting to the juicy bits.
I doubt that was bkc56’s intention. I think it’s more an issue with their writing style than anything else. Here’s a great example. Context: Quicksilver just got back from the hospital after one of his experiments literally blew up.
“It’s okay, Quicksilver. Nothing’s wrong. Please relax. It’s fine.” Quicksilver opened his eyes and looked at her.
Misty continued just above a whisper, “You’ve got to go finish mixing. Every bit has to be mixed in to react so there are no impurities left. Then you can move on to the next steps getting it ready to use. I know you can do this. This isn’t like last time. Really, it’s okay.”
Quicksilver turned to look at the fume hood again. He dropped his spell and let the glow fade from his horn. Stepping forward, he took up the mixing spoon with his magic and continued to stir the solution. Misty moved forward, leaning against him slightly.
“I knew you could do it.”
Look at that third paragraph again. How does Quicksilver feel? Is he confident? Is he nervous? Is he struggling to do something so simple? Is he fighting to overcome his fear? There’s no way to know, because the only thing we’re told is the bare basics of what he did. No clues as to how he did them, i.e. hints as to his emotional state, are offered. In context, you get that this is probably meant to be a challenge for him, but even with the context it’s impossible to get a bead on his emotional state.
I know this author is capable of Show. Other scenes demonstrate it. They just don’t utilize it in the most effective manner.
This is bkc56’s primary weakness. If they can get a handle on it, I feel the quality of their stories would go up by leaps and bounds. As it stands the story’s not bad, but it’s not a shining example of literature either. It gets the job done, explaining the characters’ origins sufficiently, but also with the wrong kind of efficiency.
I’m by no means done with this series. I’m hoping for and looking forward to improvements. After all, I figure if the author actually wanted me to skip the pertinent early stories then they must think the later one is a legitimate improvement over them. I look to the next story with great curiosity.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
High-Water Mark — Worth It
Crystal
1,100 Words
By TheEveryDaySparkle
Sequel to Chaos;Pink
Rarity decides to inform some random individual that she is not what she seems.
By now we’ve learned that Twilight is a source of the world’s magic, Rainbow Dash is royalty in hiding, Fluttershy is a goddess and Discord’s wife, and Pinkie Pie is a spawn of Discord. In this story, Rarity reveals that she, too, is a goddess, one of the first and specifically of gems and jewels.
Wait, wait, wait. If Rarity is an immortal goddess, why the heck did this story open with her being afraid of… wait for it… falling off a cliff? Some goddess.
Other than that, I had nothing against the story overall. It’s more of the same stuff we can expect from the series. I admit I was anticipating Rarity being, like, the original Crystal Princess or something of that nature, as that’s the direction a lot of people like to take this general idea. I suppose it’s technically still true, given she apparently created the Crystal Ponies in the first place. Although I do find myself wondering about King Sombra. I mean, Rarity was there, and she presumably wishes only the best for the species she literally birthed, so surely she didn’t just stand aside and let an evil king take over the Crystal Empire.
The only real issue I have with the story is that it goes right back to the conceit at the beginning of the series: that there is some random, nameless individual wandering Equestria whom ponies with huge, world-altering secrets trust enough to give up those secrets without any prompting whatsoever. This time there can be no dodging of “it’s just a writing style” or “they’re just talking to themselves”, because the story opens with Rarity outright speaking to this mysterious stranger. Offering them a seat, responding to questions, those kinds of things. I still would love to know what makes this nameless nobody more important to her than, you know, her best friends. I still can’t get over this idea but the author has already vehemently defended it, so I’ll just have to acknowledge it as a quirk of theirs and move on.
Only just now do I realize that Rarity has a sibling and parents. Where do they come into this picture?
And suddenly I realize that this story made a big deal at the start of being set at the spot where Rarity got her cutie mark, complete with the hollowed out geode still present and accounted for. This is an event which, as far as we the audience can tell, shouldn’t have happened if she really is a goddess who has existed since almost the beginning of time. Intentional decision to add mystery? Evidence that the author is making decisions without any consideration for the consequences? As much as I’d love to give TheEveryDaySparkle the benefit of the doubt, everything I’ve seen in this series strongly suggests the latter.
This one perhaps suffers the most from one of the flaws of this series, namely the scope. The author gives us 1,100 words to describe an idea, but 1,100 words is not near enough to address the topic in full. I’ve already brought up a few topics and I’m sure there are plenty more that are missing. The revelation of this story has consequences but makes no attempt to explore them. I’m not saying TheEveryDaySparkle should have created some grand story of adventure or whatever, I’m just think they could have improved greatly on the story if they’d bothered to address more of the ways this idea impacts what we know about Rarity; her family, her relationships, and specific events from the show. Particularly those that she canonically wasn’t too involved in but now, logically, would have been of great interest to her. All the stories lack this to some degree, but this one felt the most severe.
Leave it to me to get over-interested in a story about Rarity.
This isn’t bad on the surface provided you can ignore an immortal’s apparent fear of heights and the whole “let’s tell an anonymous individual all our deepest secrets” bit. But it brings with it a ton of questions and makes no attempt to answer any of them. Rather unambitious, I’d say. Still, I’m closing in on the conclusion of this, er, “story”, and I am very curious to know what the last two will reveal.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Hidden Goddess — Worth It
Royalty Forgotten — Worth It
One and All — Worth It
Chaos;Pink — Worth It
The Order of The Rainbow — Needs Work
Stories for Next Week:
Exchange by getmeouttahere
Prevaricator by scifipony
Anon-a-Miss by Dainn
Our Illusion by Monochromatic
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That second one sounds great, and I've always liked Dan's writing. Unfortunately, the word count puts it outside my opportunity cost limit.
I vaguely recall one ponefan paying to send a photo of Luna into space, so honestly a plushie on the moon seems like the most logical step up. Though if they decide to leave her there, I dunno, it's reflective of the show, but there's something incredibly sad about her being all alone up there, potentially for millenia to come, in the dead quiet, staring down at Earth. I've had to process Luna's spacey loneliness a thousand times already through fanfic, I'm not prepared for it to happen in real life
I kid. Mostly. Still gonna sign it.
5635314
That is a shame. I plan on reading the sequel too, although it won't be until the year's practically over.
That first one is going on the RiL list. I'm intrigued to see a good used of 2P in a story, something there isn't exactly a lot of.
5635394
Whether it's "good" or not is subjective, of course. I just thought that out of all the typical attempts to use 2P perspective, which are generally crap, this was one of the best attempts I've yet to witness. That's entirely due to the great pains Word Worthy went through to maintain "you's" anonymity as a character/individual, something most authors fail at completely due to the inherent issue with 2P narration: "you" is never actually you. The moment the "you" character does anything at all, that illusion is shattered.
But in this case, I'd say the author manage to limit it to "a few cracks".
5635408
I think my personal benchmark for "good use of 2P" is Cold in Gardez's For Whom We Are Hungry. I'd be surprised (and very impressed) at anyone reaching CiG standard, of course, but the story you reviewed is short enough that I think it's worth a go anyway.
I'm glad you enjoyed Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead! I had a baller time writing it, myself.
5635449
For Whom We Are Hungry raised the bar so high I question if I'll ever see something comparable ever again.