The Symphony of Canterlot by Disavowed ASH

Well, this is a welcome surprise. Someone sent me a story to read and it's (partially) based on the works of Lovecraft. So let me get started on what we have. The story is told from the perspective of an investigator, think private eye/40K inquisitor as those seems to be the closest approximations, so +1 for drawing me in as investigators are good Lovecraft fauder, and while a little powerful for pure Lovecraft, it makes sense for what other crossovers are involved. From there we are presented with a mystery involving; Octavia, the history of the alicorn sisters, and a shit ton of culty goings-ons, all told in a “someone telling you the story” way.

In terms of what I liked about the story one of the better things about it is that we are kept from knowing all too much about what is going on for most of the story. This is one of the critical things for a mystery, especially when channeling Lovecraft, so it was nice to see that the author made sure to keep their mouths shut on what was going on and why. Additionally, I quite enjoyed the lore surrounding the central mystery as it as I am a sucker for culty shenanigans in a story about things beyond our comprehension and power [yes I am remaining vague about what happened, it's a mystery, that’s how mysteries are meant to be enjoyed]. And finally, the main character is right in the personality vein of characters I enjoy. The ‘I’ve been around the block one too many times and seen more shit than you could ever hope to imagine’ character is one of my favorites so it was nice to get to read one of those rather than the usual starry-eyed or overly positive character you would see in the fandom or the cowardly or ‘hopelessly outmatched’ characters in Lovecraft [though I still love those latter two for that style of work].

So, time for the downsides. To start out with, the style of writing. I am fairly confident that the author was going for the style of how Lovecraft wrote. The problem, this is one of the harder styles to do right, even I struggle to do it right and I have been trying to get it down for the last three years. The issue is that Lovecraft's style is very verbose and full of words that just never get used by anyone, so trying to emulate it tends to go wrong in one of two ways from what I have seen in attempts to use it. Way one is that they just make everything creepy to the point that creepy just becomes normal. The other way it can go wrong, and what I see as happening here, is that the author overdoes the verbosity to the point that the story not only comes to a screaming halt but becomes a chore to read. Something that became immediately apparent to me since I had to work on not doing it in my own writing as 3+ line sentences were a norm. While this is the style of Lovecraft, the eloquence of description I found to be lacking; it's descriptions a most unwieldy thing that ill provokes the same ominous tone and vivid mental imagery as seen in the works of the late author. Granted, the author did say that their story was inspired by three other stories, none of which I possess prior knowledge of, so their style might be in line with those ones instead of Lovecraft’s. The second issue is that there seemed to be a lack of an editor. I say this because I noticed the words were either missing or that the author had an idea for how they wanted the sentence to progress but changed their mind halfway through writing and didn’t go back and read over what was just written. But the most irritating aspect of the writing is its flow. I can not count how many times we were given clunky description after clunky description, many of which were unnecessary. But to be totally honest, the the story overall is in a desperate need of a good editor. If I had to hazard a guess, I would have to say that around 40% of the story would need to be reworked due to poor construction. And finally would be the characters. There is just something off here, whether it be the general ‘I know everyone’ connections of the main character or the manner that everyone tends to talk, the characters don't give me the vibe of real people. It's strange, I can't give a concrete reason for what I found wrong on a fundamental or intellectual level but everytime mouths were opened and words came out I just wasn't feeling like I was reading the transcription of real people talking.

Final scores:

Writing; 4/10, I know what is going on and what the author is trying to say but this is far from elegant and has a tendency to use FAR too many words. A good editor would really need to be brought in to work on what was done here to bring out what is trying to be done here.

Pacing; 4/10, This story had some really poor pacing. Things seemed to happen far faster than they needed to as many sections that should have been at least a few pages were reduced to just a few paragraphs. A primary culprit being fights as they often come across as Doom Guy vs imp for all the challenge they seem to pose to the main character. Past that the mystery seemed to get sidetracked in several chapters in favor of adding backstory. While this can be fine in some situations, the fact that chapter 4 is almost entirely a flashback and it is fairly unnecessary in terms of progressing the story saddened me.

Atmosphere; 6/10, This was a mystery story, correct? I just feel that there is a distinct lack of mystery. While yes, there is a mystery to be solved, there just doesn't seem to be anything ominous going on and threats don't really seem like threats. To do a good mystery, especially if you are taking inspiration from Lovecraft, using every warning tag, and rating it M, there needs to be a sense of struggle on the part of the main character. Note that getting ones shit kicked in is not a valid substitute for a struggle. A struggle is when there is a valid chance for the individual to fail, and in a way where that failure would mean something, not just ‘i didn’t wake up in time so now I won’t be able to have breakfast’. A good example of how to do mystery well would be Threshold by mushroompone.

Characters; 7/10, They work for the story but there is just something… off. And when I say off I am not referring to the fish faces one sees in Innsmouth, I am referring to matter that they talk and behave in ways that I am not sure people in the real world do. It just took me out of the experience most of the time and made going through the story more of a chore than it should have been.

Total score: 21/40 or 5.25/10, This was not a bad story, but the subpar pacing and the poor writing I found hampered my enjoyment of the work. It did understand how to do a mystery right and how to write some good lore for the world, but these things didn't shine like they should have due to the problems mentioned.

6942045 I personally like this story a lot. The style is a bit different but it makes it stand out. I also like the thought the author puts into the way magic works and world-building.

6942128
I'm not trying to say no one can find this enjoyable, it's just not my cup of tea. I do editing for people and have had to learn a great deal of proper English, especially some of the more subtle rules. As I wrote, I really only have one issue with the story and that is its writing. If I didn't know as many rules for writing the score would have definitely been higher. Think of it like a programmer from Bend Studio reviewing a program compared to someone from an indie studio. Due to the difference in experience and knowledge, the evaluation will be different.

6942170 Fair enough. I personally like it. To each their own.