Ponyfic Roundup 261

A slight departure for me today, in that one of the stories I've reviewed is one I read in print. That's because I recently bought my first physical ponyfic book: Cold in Gardez's Completely Safe Stories anthology. (Don't worry, the fic in question is also on Fimfiction!) It can be a pain buying print books from the UK thanks to sometimes very off-putting shipping costs, which is one reason why this is the first I've bought. Anyway...

Read it Later story count: 244 (+1)

I have four stories to review this time, and as you'll see from the star rating summary down below, it's been a pretty good week. It's always nice when there are zeroes in the low columns! I'm starting with a piece that's not at all easy to review, so my apologies in advance for that.

The Last Dreams of Pony Island by horizon
Cant by Rambling Writer
The Book of Might Have Beens by Cold in Gardez
You Betcha! by The Cloptimist

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 1

The Last Dreams of Pony Island by horizon
OC, Other and Sonata Dusk
Dark/Mystery/Tragedy; 5k words; Sep 2015; Teen (Sex, Violence, Death)

The colony of Myinnkyun is tearing itself apart after the suspicious death of an old merchant. Piece together its final days from the dreams of its inhabitants.

You know how sometimes I call a story "tea-break reading"? This is the opposite. It's short, but it's really dense. At its heart, it's a murder mystery – but it's more than just a character who is destroyed. The presentation of Pony Island is unusual: a collection of very short chapters narrated by various characters, presented as poetry. I don't understand poetry well enough to properly grasp the significance of most of the forms chosen, but even if read as prose it's clear that every word is freighted with meaning. There's more: most of the characters in Pony Island are OCs, and there are few links between them and show Equestria, yet with superb economy horizon builds them into characters I truly cared about; some of them haunt my thoughts even as I'm writing this. The world is alive, too: although a very different type of outside-Equestria fic, in that sense this reminded me of GroaningGreyAgony's Riverdream at Sunset (PR 70). You do have to put effort into this fic, though: it's a puzzle, and puzzles don't solve themselves. The epilogue was written by Skywriter, after he won a contest – though only read it if you want things spelled out. Not everyone will. Besides, it's not the only answer: there's a link in an A/N if you want to read other entries. I don't really know how to review Pony Island and I haven't done it justice – but if you're in the market for something truly original and are willing to work for your reward, drop everything and read this. ★★★★★

Cant by Rambling Writer
Twilight
Horror; 2k words; Jun 2016; Everyone

Twilight becomes obsessed with copying an old book.

In this RCL-inducted tale, not a lot happens. No, really. Twilight copies a book, realises she's made a mistake, has another go to fix her screw-up, and so on. Indeed, if you just read through this fic quickly, you might not think there's much to it at all, beyond a few fun jokes about Twilight's obsessiveness and the book itself. But there is. Read it again, carefully and thoughtfully, and think about the implications of everything as you go. The word that comes to mind is "insidious", and if and when it hits you, you'll realise why the [Horror] tag is there. I do think it may be too subtle in places, though, and I'm missing a few things due to unfamiliarity with this type of quiet horror. For example, several other reviewers have drawn attention to the name of the book in the first line, but I only understand half of it. Oh well. Still a high three for me thanks to that clever, creeping realisation. ★★★

The Book of Might Have Beens by Cold in Gardez
Twilight, Starlight Glimmer, Sunburst and Double Diamond
Slice of Life; 8k words; Jun 2018; Teen

The book was Twilight Sparkle's greatest creation – ask it any question about how your life might have been and see the answer. It is a work of genius. It is a tempting, insightful, wonderful marvel of magic. It is a terrible mistake.

Here's the fic I read in print, and as it happens it's another one featuring Twilight and a magical book. The story opens with Twilight asking whether she should burn it – a shocking question from that pony. Starlight, though, wants to try it for herself, yearning to know what her life might have been like had major events gone another way. The message of the story is straightforward: don't spend so much time pondering what might have been that you've no time left to live what is – but it's the vignettes along the way that really grabbed me. They're fascinating looks at Starlight from various angles. One in particular devastated me to the extent I had to stop reading for a moment even though I could see it coming, which impressed me. ★★★★

You Betcha! by The Cloptimist
Torque Wrench and Kerfuffle
Slice of Life; 2k words; Jul 2019; Everyone

Torque Wrench does a favor for Kerfuffle in her hour of need. Not that it means they're friends or anything. Just a little engineering project, don'tcha know.

The first Rainbow Roadtrip story I've read! Well, not quite: this is a tale of Hope Hollow before the Mane Six got there. This is a very nice look at the town in the "grey days" (my term, not used here), and one which sets up something from the special in a satisfying way. The characterisation is convincing, the dialogue pleasant and the pacing solid. The Cloptimist has really caught the feel of Hope Hollow, too. As with Rainbow Roadtrip itself, it's a story that ambles rather than hurries, but it does so very smoothly. I don't have a lot more to say about this except that if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like. ★★★★

---

Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: stories reviewed should include Bob from Bottles' An Imaginative Performance. Edit: but didn't, as BfB's account has been nuked, so the story has also disappeared.