Agent Con Mane in Doctor Ironhoof
By Fairytail

Reviewed by Asilin

Bond. James Bond.

Doesn’t matter whose voice you heard, everybody’s got a Bond.

And apparently, Equestria does too. Let’s dive in to this one.

At first glance, I really dislike the Bond name here. Rinnaul though tells me that it’s a canon name.

I’m still disappointed. Does not roll off the tongue at all.

But that’s not the author’s fault. So moving on, we’re introduced to Strange Ways, who’s at some sort of card game. It’s not established what, but Ways is winning. However, he must leave in order to receive a call from his work.

He won’t make it, as he’s stabbed to death by a not-so-blind assassin. His secretary, too, is killed in the next scene as the killers recover a file labelled “Dr. Ironhoof”.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’re taking our cue from Bond’s sixth book and first film Dr. No. Like wholesale. But I’ll get to that a bit later.

Anyways, Mane6 is in an uproar, and we cut to our hero: Pony/Donut Joe. AKA Con Mane.

He’s avoiding the Gala, despite having an invite. It’s about here that a glaring problem of this fic begins to rear its head: it’s desperately trying to be a movie. Yet it doesn’t follow through with the full shots and keeps falling short of the full feel. For example, in our opening of the second chapter:

But not everypony who was invited to the Gala attended. There was one pony who decided instead to tear up the golden ticket, and go to work just as he always did. A few blocks away from the Castle Grounds, sitting on the edge between the nobles’ quarters and the shopping district, on the corner of Celestia Avenue and Harmony Street, sat a lovely little donut shop.

For a movie, this shot would be all wrong. We started at the castle, we should pan to the donut shop, then focus in on the pony who’s tearing up his ticket as he gazes at the festivities before going inside, allowing the camera to then follow and pick up the details of the shop.

So to make a long story short here, Joe has an upset Spike in the shop who’s picked up by Twilight, although both mostly ignore Joe. I’m guessing that’s their sole purpose here, but it seems kind of a waste given a later scene where he declares his identity to a mare called Red Velvet. Sure you’re explaining the name, but, dear Lord, he’s a former spy! This is a strange mare! He should know better!

Points for the awesome Bond girl name, though.

He’s summoned to the palace, doesn’t want to go, Red convinces him, and off we go.

Chapter three wants to remind us that this is a Bond story. Let’s see:

many of which had the words ‘FOR YOUR EYES ONLY’ printed on the front in bold, red print.

I guess this will teach you to never say never again.”

These were very forced. It’s fine if they come up naturally, but it was rather apparent that you were setting them up.

Joe takes the mission, gets the requisite watch, we find out that Mane6 exists because the Elements of Harmony don’t which seems kind of excessive, but what have you, and Con Mane is on his way.

Only to have this suave move in the office:

The two ponies drew closer. Joe closed his eyes as he felt Raven’s horn brush against his. Buzz! With a jolt the two ponies separated and giggled awkwardly.

Really? Really? A Bond character getting flustered over an interruption? To the point of giggling like a schoolgirl? And Miss Moneypenny Raven is supposed to be the girl that Bond can never win. Sometimes by bad timing, sometimes because she plays better than him and deflects. And this is the best you give her?

Ugh. You could’ve won me over on this being a Bond if this scene had played right.

Anyway, we meet the real Bond girl back at the shop, and fade to black as Joe delays his trip for some “fun”.

Chapter four just really told me that this is no Bond. And, frankly, it’s because of poor POV handling. So I’m just going to jump to the review and start discussing technicals.

The idea for this story is sound. I can buy the background, although it seems a bit convoluted and extraneous to me, and, frankly, Bond in Equestria? I can dig it.

However, several things spoil the effect.

First, there’s the constant minor errors throughout the story.

“Strange Ways is that you?" she approached the figure. "‘bout time you show up. Canterlot is on hold and...”

She should be capitalized, as should ‘bout even though it’s a contraction.

“No, just voice. Carrier Wave is still connected.” The relay pony fiddles with more knobs

No terminal period.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Joe yelled out to the filly, “Long time no see!”

The comma should be a period.

And so forth. And as the story continued, these sort of errors began to occur more frequently. A quick glance over before publishing would catch most of these.

Next, there’s the character of Con Mane/Donut Joe himself. I just don’t buy him. There’s no way this pony was a former spy. At no point does he begin to check and double check himself like Bond would: heck, the driver of the carriage had to tell him that they were being followed. I’m not familiar with this film in a specific sense— only in the generic overall plot sense— but I’m sure the film showed shots where Bond may have glanced to the side or gave sidelong views to imply him looking. A camera can do that. A book cannot. So you need to dive more into his head and give him a bit more paranoia, particularly for an experienced spy who quit over a traumatic incident. Also, you need to decide if he’s Joe or Con in his head during a mission or in general. Flipping back and forth between the names causes more confusion, plus it adds to the idea that he’s not really Con Mane, he just plays him sometimes.

The biggest issue, though, is the POV. You’re writing in omniscient because you’re basing this off the movie. Which itself was based on a book that was written in omniscient. But where an omniscient author/narrator will vary the closeness of the camera, so to speak, the narration stays fixed at the surface. This means that scenes like the carriage chase fall flat because we don’t get any sense of urgency or worry from the characters: it’s just something that’s happening. Our emotions are defined by how the characters react. An author can shock if a character responds differently than the norm, can heighten our natural reaction by aligning the character’s reaction to the norm, or can change our feelings entirely.

By refusing to close in on the characters, you lose all of that.

For example, let’s see how Sir Ian Fleming describes the moments up to Strangways’s death:

Automatically, another part of Strangways’s mind took in the three blind men. They were tapping slowly towards him down the sidewalk. They were about twenty yards away. He calculated that they would pass him a second or two before he reached his car. Out of shame for his health and gratitude for it, Strangways felt for a coin. He ran his thumbnail down its edge to make sure it was a florin and not a penny. He took it out. He was parallel with the beggars. How odd, they were all Chigroes! How very odd!

We start off in a mid-close range where we get the surface thoughts of Strangways (the other part of his mind) and get closer in until we’re in his very thoughts (How odd). The camera then pulls back out for the moment he’s shot. This is the power of the omniscient author. The ability to show us depth and breadth of description. It allows an author to emphasize particular ideas through narration, rather than dialogue or thought (Fleming focuses his first chapter on the idea of time, order, and routine, which shows exactly why Strangways was able to be killed and gives great insight on how the killers operate). But it means that your authorial voice must be strong.

To give another example from Fleming, here’s how Dr. No opens:

Punctually at six o’ clock the sun set with a last yellow flash behind the Blue Mountains, a wave of violet shadow poured down Richmond Road, and the crickets and tree frogs in the fine gardens began to zing and tinkle.

You can’t tell me you didn’t just see and hear that scene. That’s Fleming’s voice. Precise. Detailed. Descriptive.

Omniscient requires a narrator, and this story is lacking in that.

Biggest tip is to find your authorial voice. An omniscient POV requires a narrator, even if he’s treated as an aside. Pretend they’re a character of their own. Fleming’s narrator is obviously another spy or a military man. His story is detailed, yet precise. Technical details that a military operation would be interested in are included. This lends the narrative more character and allows for easier transition between the big picture and the close ups.

You can’t treat omniscient like it’s a movie camera. A movie can show faces and emotions in ways that the written word can only dream of. But we authors can show the inner world and thoughts of our characters in a much more direct manner that makes movies jealous. Use that. Because without the actual action and without character emotion, your action scenes fall flat.

Once your find your narrator, settle on Joe a bit more. Figure out what his motivation and background are instead of trying to pull wholesale from Bond. Make him the spy he should be for this setting and then sell it. It’ll come off much more organically and make the character more believable.

I’d recommend reading Dr. No to get some good ideas.

Good idea, decent adaptations to get Bond here, poor execution. I give it

Needs Work

Thanks for the review. I'll take everything you said into consideration and try to incorporate it into my series

4383659 personally a giant fan of the Moore films, even Moonraker.

4383659
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I'm with Asilin on Connery & Brosnan, though I've liked a number of Moore's films as well.

As a fairly experienced writer I have known for a long time that Con Mane has not been my best work. I have always known that there was something missing holding the stories back but I've never been able to objectively see just what that was. This is why I sent in the story for critiquing in the first place so I can figure out that something. You made some very valid and interesting points, and after allowing the critique to set in to eliminate emotional and defensive bias, I can agree with a lot of what was said.
Ever since day one, I had an inkling that Joe wasn't reaching his full potential as a character. I knew what I wanted (a gruff and blunt man that was more Brooklyn baker than Sean Connery) but I just couldn't quite hit the right note. I do agree that the narrative voice has a lot to do with that. Normally narrative voice is actually something I do quite strongly (usually better than my dialogue) but perhaps my original intent on trying to keep the writing style of Con Mane intentionally different from Flemming (whose Bond books I have been reading as a sort of prep work for my series) ultimately hurt me in the end.
I now know what I did wrong, what I need to do, and how I'm going to implement it to improve the story. I'd like to thank you once again for actually taking the time and reviewing my story. I never intended for my Con Mane stories to be taken that seriously and it is just a for fun project for me, so just knowing that someone was willing run a fine tooth comb through of this tangled, wet, dirty mop makes me feel happy. I really appreciate your brutal honesty and poignant bluntness as it was just the kind of review I needed even if my ego didn't want it. (I was once part of a review circle where I was known as the brutally honest one so I know how that feels). So again thank you.