Read it Later story count: 95 (nc)
Words read this week: 69,579
Apologies to those who saw the unfinished version of this go up early by mistake! The big news this week, though, for us reviewers at least, is Ghost Mike's decision – not taken lightly – to step back from regular weekly reviewing. Happily he's not abandoning reviews altogether, but it's been fine to see them for two years and it'll be a wrench when they're not always there any more. I'll let Mike himself explain in detail. As for me, here's what today's post is supposed to look like!
Equestria from Dust by Soundslikeponies
Celestia and Luna
G4 AU; Adventure; 70k words; Oct 2012–Jul 2013; Teen
On a desolate plane on a barren world, Celestia awakes for the first time.
This story won RCL recognition,¹ so I was hoping for great things. On the other hoof, it's an old fic and so I was mildly wary. In the end, I think the good considerably outweighs the bad, but not overwhelmingly so. The highlight is very much the world-building, something taken literally here: the story opens with Celestia and nothing else. Equestria is created bit by bit, as are Luna and others. Tia gradually starts seeing strange apparitions in her dreams – who or what they are is a slow-burn mystery that runs through the story. Late on there's a significant appearance from a major canon character, one that's handled quite well. After a very slow – frankly, borderline tedious – opening, this story gets into gear and eventually becomes an exciting, intriguing mystery adventure. That brings it a top-end three, though I can't help feeling it could have been a four with pacing more to my liking. ★★★
¹ Not linked as the RCL site seems to be down.
This is a Spotlight edition, and so, there be spoilers past this warning, mateys!
The world-building is something to behold, as I say. The AU setting allows Soundslikeponies to create pretty much everything from scratch, starting with a basically entirely barren universe, but to do so in a way that the eventual appearance of the Elements of Harmony doesn't seem out of place. There's clearly a very powerful imagination at work here, and I am impressed by the way that everything does fit together, from Luna's dreamwalking to the princesses's filly students to Discord's reveal as the antagonist.
I was undecided early on about the story being written entirely in present tense. I got used to it after a while, but it never quite stops feeling like a decision that was made for "look, different!" reasons rather than for any particularly compelling narrative reason. I'm not sure this would have been any less gripping a fic had it been written in the more common past tense. I am glad it wasn't first-person, though. The slight sense of detachment that comes with third is fitting.
One thing that isn't really explored deeply, but which I wish we'd found out more about, was that the city where much of the story is based (once it's been created!) is Everfree. Given the existence of the castle, I assume this is the one we see in the S1 premiere. We don't really find out why or how it was that Everfree City became the Everfree Forest, although it's a pound to a penny that Discord had something to do with it. (This story came out before we knew about plunder seeds, but...)
Actually, Discord is really rather compelling here. His characterisation is much better than in many earlyish fics, even if not quite entirely aligning with what we now know from canon. The most interesting thing is that this is very much unrepentant pre-reformation, pre-even-S2 Discord. He is playful and silly and unpredictable, but he's also very dangerous. He has no compunction in imprisoning fillies and even threatening to kill them. There's also a clear suggestion that he planted the seed of what later became Luna's rebellion.
The filly characters, Storm Gale and Rose Flame, are amusing enough but perhaps a little on the underdeveloped side for the adventure sections later. It's probably unfair of me to expect royal magical apprentices to be as interestingly drawn as early-series Twilight, but they seem pleasant but a little bit on the flat side, really. There are also some oddities: Celestia saying there isn't time to write a letter home when they're not leaving until that night? How slowly do these fillies write?
Equestria from Dust isn't without its problems. As I touched on
in the spoiler-free review, one of them is that it is sloooow going at
first. For the whole of chapter one, Celestia is the only pony around
and there is no dialogue. I found my attention wandering more than once
here, and I was also really irritated by the way she just "decided" to
name things – mountains, for example – without there being the tiniest
insight into why she chose those names. Still, the eventual reveal of what the apparitions Celestia sees are is pretty satisfying.
All in all, I was generally quite impressed with this story, if perhaps not quite as much as the RCL curators were. I think its glacial early pace is likely to be a big barrier – sure, there's foreshadowing, but that won't be quite so apparent the first time through and for some there won't be a second. I think I'll just have to ask readers to trust me when I say that if you wait it out long enough, the story does open out and become both grander and more intimate, a combo it's difficult to manage. Worth it? On balance, yes.
Next time, it'll be back to short stories, but they'll all share a common theme: a certain little dragon!
An Old Coot by Bachiavellian
Super Amazing Rocket Sled of Awesome by The Descendant
Sparkles and Scales by Winter Quill
Words on a Page by Tranquil Serenity
oh great, why is the RCL down? D: I can't figure out why, that's for sure!
ReplyDeleteI may give this another go someday, based on this review. I started it a long time ago but it was a DNF for me, and that's got to be because of the pacing, though I don't really remember much else about it.
ReplyDelete