When I was looking through the queue of all the other stories, this one was better than the other 90%. Sturgeon’s law and all. Despite the relatively solid prose, though, I couldn’t really enjoy it. The story starts out with a long description of Daring Do’s surroundings, and without a very good call to adventure. With a cold open like that, I thought it was asking a little too much and not giving quite enough.

There are lots of descriptions, descriptions of the temple, of Daring Do’s supplies, of her surroundings, of the rocks, etcetera, but none of them explained why Daring Do was exploring the temple. Sure, treasure, excitement, all those things, but I felt almost like we were supposed to go in and take this sort of thing at face value rather than to experience it with her as the readers.

It’s definitely an above-average story, though, and if you’re a fan of Daring Do then this one might be a keeper.

I like this story. It’s got Daring Do. I like Daring Do. (And so should you!). Who doesn’t love adventure? Only boring ponies don’t like adventure. For non-boring ponies, there’s plenty of adventure and mindscrew abound in this story.

Before anything else, I do have to point out the poor hook in this story. As many of you know, a good hook is the most important aspect of a story; without one, a story will often go unread. But that doesn’t stop this fic from finding its footing a little further in.

If the dull, three hundred-ish word intro isn’t enough to make you close your browser tab, the story quickly picks itself up by the bootstraps and marches along with style. There are hiccups in the writing—the redundancy of information one normally finds in fanfiction and the like—but nothing that interrupts the flow of the story or the mystery within.

Give this story a go. You won’t regret at least that much.

This is a Daring Do story. From what I gather, usually there’s high risks and high rewards involved, and almost always these bear resemblance to Indiana Jones in both structure and setting. In short, adventure played straight, with ponies.

It’s funny how much of a gambit WUtG is, similar to the themes of hope, loss, insanity and choices it presents. Most of the story is Daring Do walking around in a cursed temple on her lonesome. I’d like to say that it’s as interesting as it sounds, but what surprised me was that it was interesting to an extent. The details are lush but not overbearing. The actions are consistent, and the perspective never stops moving as Daring Do is pushed by both circumstance and self to progress and act. But it’s also actions and scenery revolving around a character that doesn’t get all that much in-story establishment, and as a result, I felt some degree of detachedness to everything going on. If the descriptions and planning were mediocre, I would have panned this for being several thousand words of a pony whom I don’t care for doing things I don’t care for. But I cared, because I was interested, because it was interesting, and that counts for something.

Halfway through the fic, I was beginning to worry whether I would be disappointed, whether anything of relative import would actually happen. 17116 words is no simple investment time- nor effort-wise. But the ending actually gave me a good sense of closure, and changed my opinion of the story from “all right” to “actually worth something”.

And that’s where the gambit aspect lies. The story requires a good deal of investment from the reader, almost as much as it requires from Daring Do. It requires one to gear up and work through a first chapter in which nothing of high intensity happens. Hope flickers with paragraph after paragraph of strange, shifting tunnels and dead ends, flickering with Daring Do’s own resolve as she meets these in their narrative. There’s just enough twists to keep you from wandering off, directly related to how Daring Do loses important things one after another, yet never all at once (which I’ve only noticed in hindsight). But when dawn breaks forth, and you reach the exit of the temple, and the ending comes, you can look back on the process and say, “That was worth it”.

Well, I did, at least. Perhaps some readers will need a little push to get going. Consider this review that little push.

What's Under the Ground

Eh, I don't know. Morlocks? Mole people? C.H.U.Ds? I have no idea.

Anyway, It's certianly a good read. Thanks for recomending this one guys.

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No worries! Glad to be of service ^_^