Paul's Thursday Reviews LXXXIV · 10:15pm Aug 10th, 2017
No reviews next week, folks. It's that usual time when I get to take a break. Which is kinda funny, considering I'm not reading any pony at all for the current week. But eh, that's just how the schedule falls.
And now for an item of great interest:
That makes two now, with Tyrant being the other. A certain someone had intended to do The Gentle Nights: Audience of One, which would have been Epic, but alas, it never happened.
In other news, I finally, after three weeks, managed to get back ahead of my writing schedule! Aaand it looks like I'm going to lose that lead this weekend, because my parents are coming over starting tomorrow. Normally this wouldn't be so big a deal as to keep me from my writing quota, despite my frequent whining. But this time we've got a busy weekend planned for my birthday, not least of which includes going to see Rod Stewart in concert. I'll probably be the youngest person in the theater by a couple decades, but I don't mind one bit.
But y'know what is most on my mind now that my birthday's just a couple days away?
"Dang, that last year went by fast. ...I need to write more."
Reviews!
Stories for This Week:
The Trial of Faux Pas by Wise Cracker
Tomorrow by Kodeake
Inquiry by Rao the Red Sun
Colony by Max Florschutz
Equestria's Changeling Queen and the Abyssal Empress by vren55
Total Word Count: 609,038
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Worth It: 2
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
The Trial of Faux Pas
7,938 Words
Wise Cracker failed to provide cover art.
This story takes place shortly after A Canterlot Wedding. It focuses on Faux Pas, the changeling ‘war engineer’ who was responsible for planning the attack on Canterlot, who is now on trial before Chrysalis for treachery. Apparently, while he planned the entire assault from the ground up, he never actually supported Chrysalis’s ambition.
This story was… strange. It largely involves Faux Pas explaining a vast amount of headcanon changling culture and society to an apparently unaware (or, to be more accurate, power-blind) Chrysalis. In fact, the whole story seems to serve two primary purposes: to expound upon Wise Cracker’s ideas of changeling society, and to use that headcanon as a springboard to paint Chrysalis as an idiot for ever even considering an attack on Equestria.
Which might have been fine if the entire story didn’t have a distressingly preachy feeling to it. It almost reads as if the author is trying to use the story as an argument for mass consumption, rather than a worldbuilding story. But since every argument is based entirely on headcanon, they only hold water within the bounds of the story itself. It could be that this was not the intention of the author at all and it just comes off that way, but I have no way of knowing.
I can’t help but think this problem is endemic to the story’s overall writing style, which itself has some issues. For one, it goes through the trouble of explaining a lot of things, many of which we don’t need to know. For example, why is it at the end of the trial Chrysalis, via the narrative, takes the time to explain to the reader everything that just happened as if we weren’t even there? And then, when the explanations are giving us something we don’t know, it is handled in the manner of an encyclopedia entry: i.e. extremely boring to anyone who isn’t Twilight Sparkle (or Moon Dancer, I suppose).
And then we get to the action and tone of the story. There are some potentially interesting things happening here, but it’s all told in one volume, one pace, one voice – even with the narrative unwisely changing perspectives every few paragraphs. The actiony bits are just as exciting as the slow bits, which is to say... not. The author could learn to make use of transitioning and atmosphere beyond dialogue.
In addition, it strikes me that the author intended to keep Chrysalis’s identity a secret at first, thereby tricking the reader early on into thinking that the protagonist was being put on trial in Equestria under Celestia. This failed for two reasons. First, the reveal came too quickly for the deception to serve much purpose beyond confusing the readers. Second, it becomes apparent almost instantly that neither Celestia or Luna are the ones putting him on trial, because the character’s attitude is off from the beginning. The very first thing we see of the ‘judge’ is a ‘wicked smile’, which anyone can agree doesn’t belong on the face of a Princess of Equestria looking down upon a defeated foe. No, not even Luna.
I know I’m making it look as though this story is all around bad, but it’s really not. Wise Cracker has some interesting ideas and a worthwhile plot going here. It opens up some new concepts and I’m legit interested in reading the sequel. Yet there’s also a wide range of issues, not all of which have been addressed here, and I think your individual mileage will vary. Some people will be blind to the issues I’m noticing. Others will be climbing the walls in frustration over them. One way or another, the author has opened up a door. I think it’ll be worth my while to investigate.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Well, this was worse than I feared. This story tackles two primary ideas, one directly and the other indirectly. Directly? Immortality is a curse. Yes, we know, it’s been brought up by about a million authors so far (and this one goes so far as to state the theme verbatim). Indirectly? Celestia is evil.
Those who have read this story will look at that second one and go “bwuh?”
Generally speaking, the story is about how Rainbow, Twilight’s wife and the last of the Mane 6, has died and Twilight can’t get over that fact, so she walks around talking to an imaginary variant to cope. The story makes no attempt to hide the ‘twist’, or at least I think it doesn’t seeing as of how the clues are about as obvious as they can get. Point is, I don’t think Kodeake ever meant for us to not get the main point of the story.
In the author’s defense, the writing is actually pretty good. The pacing, the emphasis of Twilight’s emotions by making her situation obvious to everyone but her, the hard talk between her and Celestia at the end. Really, from a delivery standpoint there isn’t much wrong with this story. It’s just that the concept is so old, so tired, so overused that it seems like everything that can be tried has been, and this story does nothing to make the idea more interesting. Thus, the biggest mistake this author made is taking on an uninspired topic.
“But wait, what about Celestia being evil? Where the heck did that come from?”
Simple: Celestia’s solution for helping Twilight get over Rainbow’s death. I don’t care one iota that she had good intentions and meant only the best for Twilight, the method is evil by default. And if she’s willing to do something like this for the ‘greater good,’ there’s really nothing to stop her from doing it again. And again. And again. In fact, she jumped to this solution so incredibly quickly that one can only assume she’s done it before and, despite her claims of remorse, is more than happy to do it to anyone that proves to be a bit of a burden to her *coughLunahack*.
So. Immortality sucks and Celestia is evil. Not a bad story on the whole, it just does things I don’t think it intended to and picked an unfortunate choice of topics.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Inquiry
8,986 Words
By Rao the Red Sun
Recommended by Pascoite
That was… uh… that. Yes, that was that.
When I got my first look at this story, I groaned; “I just finished reviewing an immortality sucks story, and here I am with another!” To my mild and pleasant surprise, I was wrong. The story follows newly coronated Twilight as she goes to ask questions of each of the Princesses of Equestria in an attempt to understand just what her new form and status really mean. It’s not about immortality being a curse (although the topic does very briefly come up), nor is it about Twilicorn being a stupid idea. It is instead a very reasonable view of Twilight just trying to figure things out.
Well, almost. The one big problem with the story is that the main character isn’t Twilight. She’s introspective, spends a lot of time thinking in vague ideas, speaks with great formality under all circumstances, and generally doesn’t behave much like Twilight Sparkle – before or after her coronation. I feel this is more the fault of the author’s chosen writing style, which has the same issues. As far as the narrative goes, this wouldn’t even be an issue if the whole thing wasn’t being told in the first person.
Part of this complaint is subjective; I can’t prove that Twilight doesn’t think in this slow, indirect, overly formal manner. But the pony I see in the show in every episode has always been direct, if not outright confrontational, and I find it hard to believe that her thought processes would be any different. Others might disagree with me, and they are free to do that, but for me the style of voice given to the narrator that is Twilight in this story just doesn’t mesh with the Twilight I am aware of.
The other issue I had is tonality, or rather, a lack of it. The entire story plays out in one voice, one mood, one speed. No matter what the nature of the situation – sad, playful, serious, fearful – everything reads in exactly the same tone. I didn’t laugh at Shining’s expense because the way that scene was written felt exactly like the scene when Twilight is chatting with a young colt, or in a serious discussion of Nightmare Moon with Luna, or asking Celestia for advice on how to move forward.
The worst part? I don’t know how to fix the problem as I’m seeing it. It’s more complex than adding exclamation marks (which the story appears to be devoid of) or utilizing body language (which the author does). It has to do with the chosen style, but I can’t really pinpoint the issue. For that I suppose I am failing as a reviewer, and offer my apologies.
Now, all of that negativity s behind us. What else is there?
A Twilight who isn’t an emotional wreck, who isn’t hung up on the fact her friends might all die while she lives on. A Cadance who is wise and knows the right things to say even as she doesn’t have all the answers. A Luna who is playful and serious in equal measure, tastefully so. A Celestia who… okay, she’s still just Celestia, but I had nothing to complain about regarding her.
I feel this is the first time I’ve read a story in which Twilight deals with her new status and appearance in a way that isn’t over the top, depressing, or dumb. With the exception of Luna tearing up over someone professing a love for the night, the story doesn’t fall into tired and overused tropes. And best of all, the open ending leaves me with the impression that Twilight is ready to be whatever she needs to be.
For everything that went wrong, quite a few things went right, and if it seems like this review focuses more on the negative than the positive, that’s only because the negative is so easy to pay attention to. This one has a few kinks that need to be ironed out, but otherwise? Not a bad show overall.
Bookshelf: Worth It
This marks the second time Viking ZX has asked me to review one of his original stories, and I was all too happy to oblige. Dead Silver had been a fun tale, and I expected no less from the author’s foray into science fiction (and let us not forget the ever-expanding Dusk Guard series).
Colony is set in the distant future, at a time when megacorporations run everything in a taut web of deceit, greed and – more often than not – blood. Governments aren’t any better, and the United Nations is nothing more than another evil organization trying to control as much of the world as possible. In this dark setting, we meet Anna Neres, Ray ‘Sweets’ Candy, and Jake Tames, who are given an offer far too good to pass up: travel to the distant offworld colony of Pisces in search of a missing programmer in return for a payment the average joe could only dream of.
This story demonstrates a great many of Viking ZX’s strengths in one big, neat package. Let’s just start with the main characters, who each bring a set of unique interests, skills and personalities to the team. We’ve got Anna’s badassery as a supersoldier among supersoldiers – you know you’re seeing something special when she steps into the story’s first engagingly written fight – but with her own brand of weaknesses and fears stemming from a life on the battlefield. Then there’s Jake, the streetwise and imminently practical investigator who knows exactly how to deal with powerful adversaries and sticky situations, even if he finds himself a hydrophobe stuck doing work on a world where the inhabitants have to live underwater every minute of every day. And Sweets rounds out the cast as a constantly curious, but certainly not naive, expert hacker and programmer, though he’s not exactly up and ready for combat situations.
Each character is interesting to watch in their own way, and Viking ZX takes the time to let us really get to know them. Rounding them out, addressing their interests and concerns, the story lets us grow attached to them, making it hard for anyone not to relate to at least one. Supported by a large cast of side characters from hyper intelligent AIs to dangerous rebellion leaders, we’re left with no shortage of solid characters.
Then we have the imaginative new setting, Rapture gone overdrive. Viking ZX puts us on an underwater planet complete with dome cities, massive submarine navies, an ongoing power struggle and even a few *cough* aliens for good measure. Never getting too technical, the narrative paints a clear picture that is easy to follow even as it explores a wide range of consequences for an underwater civilization. It’s not the kind of science fiction I expected by any means, and that works strongly in the story’s favor.
Then we move to the action, which is regular and at times riveting. You’ve got urban warfare, street thuggery, alien combat, and tense underwater scenes. By far the best of it is the naval war that Viking ZX paints in wonderful detail, putting us in the driver’s seat of one of the submersibles and watching the micro-torpedoes fly. While reading these scenes I couldn’t help but be pulled back to the massive aerial battles of The Dusk Guard: Beyond the Borderlands, only this is given much more presence and attention than that was. I dare say this author is getting better at these types of scenes.
If I had to pin down the only thing that may be a turnoff for people, it would be the length. Let’s face it, Colony is a big story. As good as it is, some people might be intimidated by its size. Still, the author pulled this off while maintaining a good, steady pace that never gets boring, so I don’t think it’s that big a deal.
As a side note, I couldn’t help but notice how the author regularly avoided a number of tropes. Take, for example, romance. There are hints throughout the story that Neres could potentially end up in one. Most authors would have taken that and run away with it, and the properly inclined readers would have ate it up. Imagine my surprise, then, when subtle hints are as far as it goes. Even at the end, when I half expected some final clue to be thrown in there to give the romanticists a bone, it never came, leaving the entire concept as nothing more than a vague possibility. Little things like that are great highlights for how this author likes to step outside the box at times, and I wholeheartedly approve.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Out of all the stories I’ve been reading over the past few weeks, this is the only one that I was excited to get back to every day and regretted putting down at the end of my scheduled wordcount for the day. It’s exciting, it’s unusual, it’s interesting, it’s fun. Had I not been forcing myself to focus on other necessities such as my own writing and other stories, I probably would have plowed through it all in a few short days.
And really, do I need to say anything more than that?
Bookshelf: Why Haven’t You read These Yet?
PS: Come on, Viking. Do you really expect us to believe that Colony's week-long sale starting today is just a coincidence? 
Equestria's Changeling Queen and the Abyssal Empress
253,609 Words
By vren55
Sequel to Priness Celestia: The Changeling Queen
UPDATE: It has been called to my attention that my interpretation of the Empress Tethys and her OP'ed nature are heavily influenced by my headcanon of the strengths of Equestria's princesses, which not everyone will agree with me on. In light of this, I'm making a note that my views in regards to Tethys and her overall abilities should be considered subjective. This is not a pulling back of my opinion on the story or the quality of OP characters in general, only an acknowledgement that my interpretation was biased by my very specific, personal views regarding Celestia and Luna.
Empire in decline, indeed. Note that I do spoil some things here, because I felt the spoiled elements were important in regards to my overall view of this story.
In the direct sequel to Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen, we find out that the sea pony empire of Aquestria has spent the last 1,000 years in a genocidal war against the Kelpies, and this war has occupied both sides so thoroughly that they have disappeared from the world stage. But now, at long last, Aquestria’s empress Samudra is dead, and the kelpie empress Tethys now rules a united eastern sea. Faced with the new responsibilities of leading an entire ocean that has suffered from the ignorance of the land dwellers – especially Equestria – Tethys makes the rapid decision to go to war yet again. It soon proves to be a battle the Equestrians are not at all prepared for.
There’s a lot of interesting elements to this story. Take Empress Tethys herself, who is not evil but is untrusting, aggressive, single-minded and ferocious. Her character as a ruler is well played out and makes her a very interesting individual to watch. At the same time, she’s also ridiculously OP, to the point that she’s able to defeat Celestia and Alternia back-to-back along with the majority of their major fleet all by herself. Part of me is annoyed by the seemingly undefeatable nature of Tethys, portraying her as a flawless creature of war incapable of losing. At the same time, I recognize Tethys is being used as a tool for the rest of the story, and the fact that she isn’t fundamentally evil helps the situation a lot. I find myself forced into an overall neutral position, albeit leaning just slightly towards disapproval.
What the story mostly ends up as is a relating of how Equestria, for all intents and purposes, is no longer top dog in the world. Rather than seeing epic battles where the nation loses to the sea ponies and kelpies by a thread and have a hope of at least maintaining their superpower status, we instead get a war in which every battle is lost disastrously. Ultimately, Alternia, Celestia, Luna and Cadance are forced to acknowledge that they don’t stand a chance and begin conceding to Tethy’s demands, reasonable or not, and having to declare themselves at fault for the entire mess when they aren’t. For readers with a certain Equestria-centric favoritism, it’ll be a hard pill to swallow.
But therein lies the interesting thing about the story. The fact that Equestria not only loses catastrophically, but even ends up having to help their enemy become invincible, provides a riveting tale. One can only watch and wonder how the four princesses of Equestria will deal with the ongoing disaster and their new place in the world. Even if you hate the message (and I do believe there is a message here), it makes for some solid reading.
Aside from the heavy undertones that seem based heavily on today’s social and political climate, there’s plenty else going on to be worth watching. The fight scenes are dramatic and/or epic, the stakes are always high, the characters interesting. The great worldbuilding of the previous story continues unabated, as well as the attempts to show the full political and cultural ramifications of these events.
Of course, issues do exist. One of the bigger problems is that vren55’s writing hadn’t really grown much since the last story. The abundance of mistakes and the simple style gave me a constant sense of ‘new writer,’ which isn’t true at all considering the author’s been doing this since 2013 at least. The good news is that things steadily improved as the story went on, but the early chapters gave me a number of false starts and mixed feelings.
vren55 also still suffers from a determined eagerness to explain too much. It’s nowhere near the extrapolating, explainy speeches that littered the last story, so there’s been a lot of improvement in this area. So much so, in fact, that I’m less inclined to be bothered by it, at least in the overall writing style. But there are still a number of instances where we get to learn far more than is actually necessary to the story, so I figure it needs pointing out.
There’s also at least one instance of plot shenanigans. Specifically, the fight in which Luna loses receives a dire injury – an event which had no reason to occur. The story tries to paint it as ‘the offending tentacle was too close to remove,’ which is dumb considering Luna was being held by a whole bunch of the things and they were all getting cut away without any problem whatsoever. This was a shoehorned event created so that Alternia could be put in a bad spot, but there were far better options to achieve this. Still, it’s the only major problem I noticed in the entire story, so I guess it can be considered minor. It just makes me wonder what I missed in the rest of the story...
On a subjective note, there’s also the Lovecraftian McGuffin. While it made for an epic climax, the whole thing felt like a massive dues ex event created just so that the author could force Tethys not to continue the war. And really, Lovecraftian Elder Gods are being used so much nowadays it’s starting to become trite.
But in the end, I can safely say I enjoyed Equestria’s Changeling Queen and the Abyssal Empress. It’s an epic story of war, diplomacy and defeat that forces readers to face a reality of ‘we can’t win, so we’ll have to settle.’ The message is unpleasant, but the dramatic tale it produces is worth the investment. From great characters to great worldbuilding, the story carries itself well from beginning to end.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
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Paul's, uh, Friday Reviews?
It 100% is, I swear! You can even check the planned schedule posts on my site and why it got derailed! The Rolling Sale was Monday-Friday each week, but Colony's shot fell squarely in the middle of its KDP enrollment date, and Amazon won't let you run sales over those dates. So I couldn't start the sale Monday as planned because it would end Tuesday. Wednesday was the first day of the new enrollment period, but you have to start a sale with at least a day of advance time, so it couldn't start Wednesday. So Thursday really was the first day the sale could start!
It IS a coincidence, though a very nice one from the aspect of your review falling upon it. But had things all gone to plan, it would have been on sale this Monday and through Friday, rather than today through next Thursday. My hand was forced! On my honor as a writer!
That said, thanks again for the review! It was a great external look at my work, as always! Thank you!
Why haven't I read it yet? It's not on Fimfiction, that's why! >:V
Wow, I'll definitely pick up a copy of Viking's book. I've been peeking at it for a while now, most recently just earlier this week, but now that it's on sale I'm thoroughly sold.
Thanks for the review, though I don't see where the 'pro overconsumption' thing would come from. It was one of those early stories, and possibly one written within a time limit, if memory serves.
But yeah, it has issues. Some people dislike it for its flaws, some people seem to like it for the same reasons. Heck, my highest-rated story was pretty much the same thing.
Go figure.
Though, for the record: I do not, as a rule, preach through my characters. My religion kind of forbids that sort of thing. That's not to mention the complications it brings when people mistake a character's views for the creator's.
While you have some good points about ECQ AE, there are some points that are pretty far off.
Stop. Don't just leave it at that, you need to quantify what you mean. This is like when people use mary sue as a take all label for something they don't like, this doesn't tell anyone whats going on with the character.
Both of which, while powerful in their own rights, have not seen an actual decent fight in hundreds of years are suddenly facing a powerful foe. The Princesses are basically heavy weight pencil pushers. They make decisions, they leave the fighting to their armies.
You're flat out wrong here. Most of the damage was done by that ARMY SHE BROUGHT WITH HER. You know, the military forces guarding their capital? The sea monsters they brought with them?
Let's not forget the main characters spent the last several chapters trying to protect her from the antagonists powers.
This is why I find would be reviewers throwing stuff like "she's OP" out and leaving it there so frustrating. No effort spent on actually explaining why.
Planned from the beginning so can't help you there.
Spend hours reading tales from the Lovecraft Mythos. Using knowledge to create entities to fit into the mythos of the world and how they tie into it, as well as creating names that fit in the naming conventions of such entities. Get efforts called "trite".
4639927
She's anime-levels OP. Meaning she's invincible in all but a few moments. By the end of the story she's OP man litterally.
Plus she gains power from what she devours. I doubt even the elements of Harmony or Discord compare to her by then.
That's not an excuse. A fighter even in retirement doesn't just stop exercising. Alternia had to fight wars and she should be on alert every day.
She mentions it in the story ((that she hasn't had a fight)) and yet you think that after the Equestria First she'd start making up for it... yet she doesn't. Not that it would make much difference but then again it wouldn't just be unpreparedness.
Same thing with the Equestrian military. Yet they seem to be performing a lot better relatively after the Canterlot Wedding despite similar case of unpreparedness.
You'd THINK that after such a war she'd be... tired? Or perhaps not looking for trouble so fast?
Btw you never explained why Tethys decided not to serve the Old Gods anymore. I get the picture it was that their promises brought "only death and madness" but is that it?
The timing was off. It would have been better if it happened during one of their battles. To see this be 1 on 1 on 1 3-way battle and to have them suddenly cooperate mid-way. Just a thought.
I've heard worse comments. Don't be like that.
4734768
Except she isn't invincible considering Celestia uses a weakness to force the end of the battle. And that was one battle. One. And the battle against Samudra wasn't seen. If you read Samudra's Journal, you''ll see soon enough that Tethys is anything but invicible. And against Shi-Nihalar, she literally needed the princesses to protect her throughout the battle, and even then it doesn't completely work when Shi ate her wing.
Except Alternia rules a very peaceful nation that literally goes well close to centuries between conflicts.
Why would she start getting ready for a fight when EF has been dismantled? As I mentioned above, they stood a pretty good chance of not having another conflict for a hundred years or so. Even more so with her sisters around to help protect Equestria. Plus what she did fight were regular ponies, not something that at her level magically, and physically stronger than her by quite bit
War literally feeds her kelpies, providing them with a constant source of food. The war also pulled in powerful entities such as the alicorns and changeling queens who's power would have been added to Tethys's own after she devoured them. War literally united them and made her stronger.
Answer is a bit long, will be answered in Sam's Journal, but just remember, Alternia felt something guided Tethys's actions when she was remaking her.
It would have been better if they decided to fight the Old God, something that literally took weeks to prepare to fight suddenly just turns into a last minute alliance....no that actually would have been worse and would have down played Shi's threat as something that can simply be beaten by running into battle dick first.
Maybe, but it's still pretty insulting for any reviewer to boil down someone's effort into one little trite word. Especially when the reviewer in question is also a writer.
4736197
One word:complacency
I know that... but you think they'd take a break...
Nononono the cultists/madness proceeded the Old God. I was thinking that they encounter some of them during their battle as they try to sabotage em. And why not also have them be responsible for killing the messengers/taking the missives.
Anyway that's just an idea. Plus I'm pretty sure that you guys cramped the escalating madness of the Old God's return into one chapter.
4736235
Ah. Honestly, just not an alternative we didn't think of.
It was over several actually, just the main fuck up cascade across Equestria came in one.