Planeswalkers' Scorn · 3:35pm Apr 20th, 2020
Almost two years ago, I let you all know about a not-so-little story called Songs of the Spheres. Well, as of yesterday, it's come to a close, and...
Yeah, that's an m in the word count, not a k. It was certainly an undertaking to read, but it's also the first time I've seen someone successfully cross over everything. But that's not the main reason I'm bringing it to your attention.
Mind you, I highly recommend the story. It is an incredible experience and well worth the effort... but it's not exactly an afternoon's casual read. However, I've provided a fair bit of material for and in the setting, and one bit in particular may be of more interest to my longtime readers than GMBlackjack's.
Those of you who have been following me for a while know I like taking a particular approach with Best Pony, to the point where there are at least three instances of her who are nearly identical. And where better to see all three interact with one another than a setting that's explicitly a true omnicrossover? If you're interested, you can find the short here. The only bit of local background you really need is that Celestia City is more of a space station (of "That's no moon" magnitude) than a municipality. Well, that and there will be local technobabble.
2,135,498 words. You know, Amber Ashes made me curious about it... But I don't know if I have the courage. We're talking about twice the length of the entire Harry Potter series. Sure, I read a lot, but damn that's a Compromise, capital C there.
It hasn't got romance as a tag, but there's a limit to those. Is there romance in it? That's usually a positive tie breaker to me
5246465
Only trace amounts. It covers about a century from start to finish, so some people falling in love in that time is inevitable. But only one couple gets a significant amount of focus, and their relationship almost never takes center stage. There are two other somewhat romance-oriented chapters that don't involve them, but one's the penultimate chapter of the entire story and has a lot more going on around it. The other is much earlier, but focuses more on when romance goes wrong (or at least badly written.)
5246465
And in under three years, no less. @_@
Once upon a time I'd say that was a challenge.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5246465
Fan's right, I have a general distaste for romance as a genre. So when it did come up in SotS, I made sure to make it something else from what you usually see. It needed to be something else. It's at the point where, looking back, I sometimes wonder if I was TOO harsh and critical of it.
5246474
Heh. Thanks for the signal boost, Fan. Here's to hoping the stories of the multiverse continue to be cycle around.
-GM, master of blinking.
5246600
Aww. Well, everyone has different tastes, after all. Still a shame though, not that isn't the main focus, that's perfectly ok, but that it either doesn't happen or happens just to be smashed latter (at least that's what your + FOME's answers lead me to understand).
You're still a goddamn machine to write all that in less than 36 months though
5246626
Romance is not focused on at all in most cases, or yes you're right it is smashed. The only thing I can say is a definite positive romance doesn't come into play until the end.
I take it you like romance.
-GM, master of mooks.
I'm gonna bookmark that for later, but holy hell that's huge!
5246632
" so I'd yes, I am 
I'd say one of my most frequent kind of comment in stories is "I ship it
Edit (sorry, I couldn't resist!
):
5246643
That's what she said!
Actually, I love stories of epic length* and was looking forward to reading it very much... until someone tipped me off that Twilight gets killed off fairly early. I read pony fic because I like the characters, the Mane 6 in particular. Nothing pisses me off more than killing them or distorting their characters beyond recognition, and I've got too much other pony fic waiting to be read.
----------------------
* I'm looking at you, Silver Glow's Journal.
5246786
That's... not entirely accurate. The details are spoiled below.
See, a Twilight dies... but this is after discovering a universe that flawlessly copies the last one that opened a portal to it. Bit of a "have your cake and eat it too" situation, but it carries plentiful psychological and dramatic consequences. Extra-spoilery spoilers follow:
That said, I can't guarantee that every member of the Mane Six makes it to the end of the story.
5246793
Huh. I suppose, it would depend on how it was done... but two million words is a heck of an investment to make on something that doesn't look promising. Well, I have it on the kindle in case this quarantine goes on for another year or two.
Dang. That's around the same scale/rate as Worm (1.7m over 2 years), a truly impressive amount of work. I'll have to give it a go some time, thanks for the link!
re the linked short:
Hah, nice. :D
Ah, Song of the Spheres. After all this time, it's finally done, which means it's time to fulfill my promise to GM and read it. Although it did end up way bigger than I ever expected. I asked this on the story proper, but is there some kind of reading order for all the side stories and stuff? I feel like I owe it to GM to experience SotS to it's fullest extent.
5246897
The Handmaid is actually a prequel to SotS. The only other side story that has direct bearing on the plot, Carols of Chaos, has been incorporated into Sots itself. The rest you can largely enjoy in their own time, though you'll want to finish the first four arcs or so (up to and including Chapter 52) before you dip into them. You'll be missing some critical context otherwise.
Mind you, The League of Sweetie Belles is its own beast on top of that.
5246905
So this is a case of "main story first, side stuff later?" No instances of missing context if I don't read some side story that came out as a companion or anything? I know that some massive stories do that for one reason or another.
5247007
Well... several of GM's other stories he wrote before SotS do get referenced at points, but SotS establishes the context well enough that it works just fine without being familiar with them (And that's speaking from experience.) Carols of Chaos got reproduced in the main story because it's a side story that presents necessary context. Reading LSB is still recommended, and there's one bit in Chapter 127 that will make less sense if you don't, but the side stories' importance in the main is largely "Oh hey, that's a neat bonus detail," not "I only understand what's going on because I've already read several novels' worth of fanfic."
5247069
Implying that by the time I reach Chapter 127 Iwon'thave read several novels worth of fanficConsidering I've followed GM since before SotS started and have read several of his prior stories (Wonderlost and Realms of Existence are among some of my favorites on the site. Never read Pony Fantasy V though... which seems to be part of SotS. Oh well), that shouldn't be a problem. As for LSB, unless there's an authors not somewhere that says "Hey, this exists, go read it", I think I'll leave it for after I finish the main story.
Thanks for the help. Since I only paid attention to the story in passing since I've been burned one too many times on getting invested into long fics only for them to die/go on hiatus for years (or in some cases, miss a couple of updates/the time between posts is so long I forget large parts of the story and would have to read the whole thing again). Looking back, I probably could have followed it, since GM is one of the most constant authors on the site and seemed to always engage with the readers based on the blog posts I saw in my feed, but I had no way of knowing that at the time. And as the story grew and grew, I got more and more anxious about how massive it was and the extended universe and all that... Wanted to make sure I read it right, got the fullest SotS experience I could. GM remembered my promise, after all. Can't let them down.
5247072
Glad I could help. Hope you enjoy it!
5246905
Technically speaking, everything is a prequel to SotS. That's actually sort of the point.
5247098
Yes, but most stories aren't set on Equis Vitis... as far as I know.