Read it Later story count: 158 (-1)
A couple of days later than originally planned, but at long last here's this week's PR! Three stories under review, as has usually been the case in recent months. Let's have a look at what they are:
Philomeanie by Skywriter
How We Burn by Cold in Gardez
Taxing and Waning by Daffodil
★: 1 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
Philomena, Luna and Nightmare Moon
Comedy/Slice of Life; 11k words; Mar 2014; Everyone
Luna and Philomena: a hate affair for the ages.
You don't see many Philomena stories, so noticing this one from an author like Skywriter caught my eye. It's set during S1, a bit before "A Bird in the Hoof", and the humour and interest come from the way Luna's struggles with Celestia's pet now both contrast and have similarities to a wounded Nightmare Moon's struggle against that same bird all those centuries ago. The narrative flashes back and forth, cleverly intertwined, and Skywriter is a good enough writer to pull that off. It's possibly a tiny bit too long, and there's a little too much toilet humour for my taste in places. A high three even so. ★★★
How We Burn by Cold in Gardez
Starlight, Twilight, Celestia, Luna and Cadance
Slice of Life/Thriller; 2k words; Aug 2019; Everyone
CiG wrote this in one hour, for a contest. Ponder that as you read it. Anyway, the reason Twilight wants to get rid of the book is that it has to do with necromancy. Starlight is helping her, and indeed it's Glimmy who proves to be instrumental to the resolution (such as it is...) of this suspenseful little fic. Despite its brevity, the story also has room for a little line from Luna to Celestia that may make you cheer, wince or both. Admittedly this does read a tiny bit like the start of a longer story, but given the constraints of the contest that's unavoidable. It's still vivid in my memory as I write, though. ★★★★Twilight Sparkle has never tried to destroy a book before. But she's never met a book like this.
Taxing and Waning by Daffodil
Luna, Celestia and OCs
Comedy; 2k words; Jun 2012; Everyone
She hasn't paid a bit for a thousand years, you see. Just the fact that you were banished in the Moon all that time doesn't get you away from the taxpone. This might have been the setup for a truly hilarious fic, but it doesn't reach those heights. It has the odd moment, in particular a short scene involving an untagged canon character. But the ending is rather disappointing, Luna is uncharacteristically cruel to a foal, and the very first line has her saying "why art thou goingest" apparently without that being a joke. There's not a lot to detain the reader here when stories like Kwakerjak's Flash Fog (PR 62) have made so much more hay out of the vagaries of Equestrian tax law. One of those "high in the one-star bracket" fics, unfortunately. ★While Princess Celestia is away, Princess Luna is arrested for tax evasion.
Next time on Ponyfic Roundup, stories reviewed should include Lily's Letter by Miller Minus.
"Taxing and Waning" is a *brilliant* title for a Luna story about tax law. What a pity the story doesn't live up to it!
ReplyDeleteThat CiG story was fascinating, and the twist was a superb, unexpected idea. Luna's snidey aside to Celestia was the definite highlight for me, but there was lots of good stuff in there - I'm very glad I read it, thank you for the recommendation!
You are, as ever, more than welcome. As you can understand, writing the review of that one without giving too much away wasn't the easiest job in the world!
DeleteOof, you dig up Daffodil only to poop on his corpse. D: C'est la vie, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the toilet humor is why I put Philomeanie on my favorites list. ;D
Was that Daff's only story? I seemd to remember that he didn't write much if at all.
DeleteNo, there's one other complete fic (Confession in a Canterlot Statuary) and one incomplete story (Roommates). I haven't read either.
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