Alien Postcards

[Unpublished stories cannot be embedded]

{Thanks to Seriff Pilcrow for helping with text correction.}

And I have finally returned from the dead to give out reviews. This time will be rather special, today I will be reviewing something because the author did a cool guy thing for this review group.

This is a crossover story (yay, I can finally use that critique scoring topic) about the UNSC paying little old equestrian a visit. What most all of you might not know about me is that I am almost exclusively a PlayStation guy, so I had to call up a friend and watch play-throughs of the games to figure out how good of a crossover this was, so you might want to take some of my thoughts regarding that with a grain of salt.

So, the reports of good old Sergeant Major Avery Junior Johnson’s death after being lasered by the floating lightbulb on the Arch seem to have been greatly exaggerated. He actually was sent to Equestria to smoke Sweet Celestia Cigars and harass one Daring Do. The story so far is only 6k words, so there isn’t much happening as of yet so this intro’s going to be a little short.

In terms of what I liked about this story, the biggest thing has to be the premise/route that things look to be taking. Yes, I know this is weak, and not at all something you usually see from me, but I have to say this is its strongest aspect at time of review. Seeing as the story only just started, the entire thing thus far has been set up. The biggest strength in this set up is the introduction of some mystery. This can be a bit of a double edged sword, seeing as the chapters are being delivered in 1-2k chunks, the author does cause some frustration with the waiting to see things progress, but they are published fast enough that the intrigue built off of the new developments is quickly sated… to a degree.

Past that there isn’t much to talk about in terms of positives, not because it’s bad, but because this is meant to be something that goes on for a while, and this is only the beginning. It’s like trying to review Die Hard after only watching up to John McClane getting out of the limo at Nakatomi Plaza.

And that leads us to the negatives.

So to start out with, one of the things I found to be on the irksome side was the writing. It isn’t wrong in a grammatical sense, but on more of a tonal and storytelling sense.

Daring crossed several more branches during their short dialogue, coming closer to the parting in the canopy. She was taking a gambit by moving when they were talking. Should they stop conversation or should she make a noise, her cover would be lost; they would know she was here. But she had been making calculations like this for years. The majority of her success in the treasure hunting/exploration industry was based on the fruition of these calculations and her intuition never failed her.

Now compare that to this.

While to two zebras below her conversed, Daring expertly moved from branch to branch as she made her way to an opening in the canopy, careful not to disturb the leaves or branches in a way that would cause them to make noise. Spending years delving into ancient ruins and avoiding more unsavory treasure hunters had honed these skills, teaching her to move through an area while affecting as little as possible. These experiences had also taught her to calculate and intuit risks, and currently, she was taking a significant gable with what she was doing.

And even then, this revision is in need of a revision, as all I was trying to do was to keep the core of the paragraph intact while increasing the general engagement a reader might feel. According to an author that actually writes about Daring and uses these kinds of scenes, don't tell the audience that Daring is a calculating, stealthy adventurer, demonstrate it with her actions and thought process.

While to two zebras below her conversed, Daring examined the branches around her and the foliage covering them. Her path through the canopy thus far had been comparably easy, with thick branches and a great deal of space between leaf filled branchlets. Unfortunately, she had reached an area where a majority of the main branches barely looked like they could support her weight, and even then, the more solid looking ones had coverings of leaves so dense that she would make less noise by trotting on the ground bellow than to push through one.

Daring eventually caught sight of a branch that looked as if it wouldn’t break if she used it, but the coverage of leaves was still thick enough to pose an issue. She bit her inner lip and debated on if she should backtrack and try another route. However, she knew how much time she would lose by doing that, and right now, that was not something she could afford. Daring inhaled deeply before slowly easing her way onto the branch.

The branch bent slight as she placed a hoof onto it and began to shift her weight. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the limb creak slightly. Fortunately, the zebras were still in the middle of talking, so the noise went unnoticed. After Daring felt comfortable that she hadn’t misjudged the gamble she was taking, she crept her way fully onto the branch.

Now for the fun part; making her way through the tangle of branches and leaves.

Daring crept along towards the trunk of the tree, careful not to rustle any leaves or snap any branchlets along her way. She went from ducking under large collections of leaves by laying on her stomach and pulling herself forward to slowly opening curtains of leaves, only to move them back just as carefully. This entire experience reminded her of when she was exploring the half collapsed manor of Marquis Asservo with how careful she had to be.

When Daring finally reached the trunk and began examining the surroundings for possible routes, she saw that there was really only one, and it lead towards an opening in the canopy.

The main issue I have is that the quote from the story was telling me more than it was showing, while also holding my hand. Take a look at the first sentence from each of these and you will notice a difference in just the tone of what is going on. I am less invested with the original as opposed to the revisions as I just feel that the author is simply describing things and not anything more. It comes across as rather dull. As for the hand holding, if Daring is sneaking through trees, and is implied to be doing so in an attempt to avoid the zebras, why was “Should they stop conversation or should she make a noise, her cover would be lost; they would know she was here.” included? What’s worse is that this information is fairly obvious to readers, so outright saying this feels almost condescending. This entire sentence was utterly unnecessary and simply serves to bog down the reading experience.

This issue seems to be at its worst in the first chapter and improves immediately after that, but this issue still persists to some degree throughout.

The next issue I would say I had is that the pacing is… off. There is simply too much happening too fast. So, in about 6 thousand words, we have Sgt. Johnson and Daring meeting each other after a rushed scene-setting chapter where the guy kills someone, is promptly healed and becomes pseudo friends with her, introduced to Twilight receiving a sketchy letter and finding an ancient downed pelican, and are presented with a conspiracy/secret order/’there is more to this world than you could ever know’ type intrigue plot. I’m sorry but that is just way too much way too fast. My suggestion would be to lay off from jumping between plot threads a bit in upcoming chapters, or to really add some more substance to scenes so that the development of certain characters and plot threads aren’t so spastic in their delivery. Just sit down and tell me what is happening in each of these scenes, and don’t cut away until after we’ve seen something happen that drives things forward.

Final scores;

Writing: 7/10, This is serviceable, and for the most part assures that things are mostly clear, but there is definitely some work that needs to be done. The style, tone, overall clarity, and level of description being used needs to be improved. Take the corrections done here as an example of how future stories should be formatted to make the reading experience better and the story more engaging. Past that, there were minor grammatical errors sprinkled in every now and again.

Pacing: 6/10, Continuing from the writing, as you might have also noticed, the optimized version of the section in question is undoubtedly longer, and this has a purpose. One of the best ways to interest one’s readers is to draw them into what is going on. A problem here is that there isn’t much set up or action to what happens, it sort of just shows up and is resolved in the span of a paragraph or two. In the future, I would like to see issues fester, to not be solved instantly, to lead to a cascade of problems that cause entire plotlines to open up... SOMETHING, ANYTHING to have me on the edge of my seat demanding the next chapter.

Characters: 7/10, This is less from the characters being bad, and more from there not being much to go by. The characters are fine for what they are, they just aren’t exceptional from what we have now. From my perspective, there just needs to be more time spent with relevant characters to flesh them out and demonstrate that they have a pulse and are using neurons and are not just running code. This seems to be happening in the last chapter, but we still only have surface-level characterization for everyone that's been introduced.

Crossover Accuracy: 8/10, This is Sgt. Johnson… or a good approximation with what we have. As with the Character section, more time needs to be spent with the elements that ARE from Halo to give an idea of how respectful this is to the source material. But, what is there feels like it’s on the right track.

Worldbuilding: 7/10, There is definitely something here. With the last three chapters, the world looks to be opening up. Only time will tell how this will all pan out.

Total Score: 35/50 or 7/10, This is a start. I can’t say to drop everything to go read this, nor can I say that this should be thrown into the icy wastes of Helheim. What is here seems to be the bones of an interesting story, but only the author can decide if these bones are of the great Sgt., or of a filthy grunt.