We’re following up our first unusual review with a second unusual review! Since this work appears to be an anthology of one-shots rather than a complete piece of work, I’ll be throwing out my usual formatting and instead take it piecemeal, offering a brief bit of thoughts for each chapter. 

Let’s hit it. 

[center[A day at the beach!]

The first story in this collection is A day at the beach, which is interesting to me for a few reasons. First, there aren’t any characters or even a plotline at play here and this feels more like a scenic exercise than anything else. The author does do a nice job painting a fairly vivid picture of a beachside here, but beyond that there isn’t anything else. There are  few characters, but their interactions are limited and we aren’t privy to their thoughts. There isn’t a plotline to follow. So it’s a nice scene, but nothing’s really done with it. 

The grammar is off in a few spaces but since this is an anthology I won’t spend too long on this point. Overall, this story was a decent scene but lacks the support to really be anything more than a scenic exercise, but again, it doesn’t need to be that much more.

The Reformation War appears to be a fragmented piece of something that should be a larger work. As it stands, most of this tale is an information dump, detailing a lot of history in a classical Changeling War AU. The characters we follow aren’t fleshed out at all and since this story is so short it’s hard to invest in them.

Besides that, this story’s pacing feels extremely breakneck. We move from scene to scene very quickly and only get a hasty introduction before we leap into an action scene with characters that aren’t established at all. Maybe I’m being critical here but again there’s so little to work with in these nuggets that there really isn’t much else I can say. I will say that I don’t know if this piece could fit into a longer work smoothly: it’d likely need adjustments to the pacing and development to really shine as a part of anything.

This story has the most fleshed out character so far given they actually speak. With that being said, Wild Mustang is a short little banter piece about two bros enjoying a night out. Beyond that, nothing really happens. We don’t really have any information as to who these two characters are beside names and even then, we don’t know why they’re celebrating. 

All in all this was a nice one, but I don’t really have much to say about it.

Now we have a story with canon characters to work with! As the title implies, this short story is about Twilight developing a robot that appears to resemble Fluttershy. It’s a fairly anecdotal tale with some nice bits of humor in it, but I found some of the opening parts repetitive. Particularly when the setting describes a stick in the path, then has some dialogue about this same stick in the path. I’d advise the author to watch their repetition, if not in this case than in general, and to avoid repeating details in a narrative.

Oh, and there was a random switch to present tense at the end.

This story features one of MLP’s classically hated characters, Blueblood himself. It’s a funny anecdote in Celestia flying off the deep end and losing her patience with him, however out of character it may be. I think the beginning paragraphs especially here are a bit overbearing in their descriptions. I’d advise the author to consider cutting back on some of the descriptors here just to move the story along. 

So this was a tricky bit to review given it’s a collection of short stories that aren’t exactly cohesive. Still, I think that if this reflects the author’s styles I can give a bit of advice onto their style as a whole, including to watch repetition, check tenses, and avoid over descriptions.

Beyond that I don’t quite know what else I can say. The stories range from intriguing to enjoyable, but they mostly leave me wanting more. Yet the fact that they are in an anthology usually means that the author doesn’t plan to do much with them. But it is what it is.

This is a speedwrite bookshelf, so don’t expect complete, flawless, and well-rounded stories. But, if you’re looking for inspiration from some discarded ideas, then you might want to give this a glance and see if you can garner anything. 

Again, don’t have much to offer here. There was very little to criticize here given the incomplete nature of these stories. I’m going to settle with a ‘not recommended’ here for a few reasons: first that I’m not sure many people out there are interested in something like this, and second because it just by nature is fairly incomplete. But obviously this doesn’t reflect your skill as a writer. Looking forward to reading some more complete works to give you more cohesive feedback!