Video commercial for Equestria Daily

I am playing absurd amounts of GT Legends at the moment. The discovery that Steam – Steam! – had it free of the hideous Starforce DRM that renders it unplayable on modern machines, and also for £0.00 as I have a boxed retail copy with the requisite code, was too much to ignore. Also, you can change the driver names. Last time out in a Lotus Cortina race at Thruxton, Fluttershy held off Scootaloo for the win. The biggest hooligan out there, incidentally, is Carrot Top: she's fast, but she's also wild; CT has repeatedly punted me off the track.

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This has been trailed on EQD for a while, and here it is. Made by WeimTime, most known to me for their musical stuff, and voiced by Caitbug, it's not at all bad. It's nothing spectacular in terms of content, and I can't help noticing that fanfic is as usual way down the list (joke! Mostly), but I should think it'll do a job in terms of being seen by people who wouldn't normally see it. Mind you, that's bound to include some who just want to be pains, so I suspect we'll have to get used to a little more unwanted attention for a while as well as (hopefully) more actual recruits to our ridiculous, wonderful fandom.

Brony Thank You Fund poster stolen: have you seen it?

Image comes from EQD, so I'm afraid I can't help the flash

As reported on EQD yesterday, the Brony Thank You Fund's multiply signed poster, which was going to be the star of the charity auction at Ponycon (the American one), has been stolen. Given what it is, this would not sell to anyone who didn't know what they were getting. As such, it may have been stolen by the person who wants it, or even specifically to order.

The Brony Thank You Fund have asked that anyone who sees the poster, or who may be able to shed light on its whereabouts, get in touch with them. The phone number they give is 603-513-2383 – obviously this is a US number, so you'll have to add the appropriate prefix if you're calling internationally. Let's hope that, one way or another, this poster can be returned intact.

On a personal note? I'm saddened and disgusted by this despicable act. It really is a low act to stoop to. But please don't let it destroy your faith in our fandom. It doesn't mean the fandom is rotten, just that (like any other large community) it contains a certain number of rotten apples. I hope that the far larger number of good people we have will end up giving this story a happier ending.

Edit: according to Graem in an EQD comment, this is the BronyCon 2012 poster – though obviously most of them aren't signed!

Comic mini-review: Friends Forever #36: Rainbow Dash and Soarin

Obselescence has called it a day – not just from his moderating role, but from Fimfiction as a whole, due to lack of time. A shame, but Real Life is increasingly poking its ugly muzzle into the ponyfic community. I'm glad I got round to reviewing Twilight Eats a Peach before Obs disappeared, though. :P

I rarely go for RI covers, but Low Zi Rong's was unmissable!

Now that we know that the Friends Forever series is coming to an end, I'm hoping for some nice comics for it to go out with. This one, despite its apparently fanservicey pairing, isn't at all a bad start. Rainbow and Soarin work well together (and no, things don't go all shippy) and Soarin in particular gets some good extra depth to his character. Christina Rice provides a solid, interesting story that fits in with canon, and Tony Fleecs' art is colourful and varied. There's some good (albeit not that epic) adventure and Spitfire's background/supporting role is fine. If you wanted to nitpick, you could say that Derpy's cameo was a bit forced, but still – a comic I'm happy I bought. ★★★★

Note: thanks to IDW's continual messing around with schedules, this, and not main-series no. 50, is the first comic to use the new white MLP logo.

Looks like the Smyths monopoly is over!

I don't post much about merch on here, but I would like to record my pleasure at starting to see Guardians of Harmony sets turn up in supermarkets. I was in my local big Tesco yesterday and they had several, including the Cheese Sandwich cannon, Chrysalis/Spike and Twilight/changeling. What I'd really like, of course, would be a Fluttershy GoH set – a regular one, at regular prices, not just that not-exactly-cheap SDCC set with her and Discord. I don't think Rarity has a GoH set at the moment, either. Boo.

At least some of the Fan Series figures would be nice as well, given the usual silly import prices.

Ponyfic Roundup 142: Carrot Top Edition

"More cheese is being eaten in the United States today than twenty-five years ago" – Avram Davidson, "The Sources of the Nile" (1960)

The above has nothing to do with today's post. I just found it an amusing thing to quote out of context. Right; let's get to the real business of the day.

Read it Later story count: 484 (nc)

The Amethyst Star edition of PR a while back was quite fun to do, so let's look at another of Ponyville's background heroes this week. Carrot Top (Golden Harvest in the merch world) has been rather hard done by in the show, having been robbed of the power of speech since Season Two. There aren't that many stories about her, especially as I'm not into the Lunaverse, but thanks in part to some recommendations from Chris (much appreciated!) I've put together what I hope is a decent selection to look at.

Talking of Chris, clearly one of his own Carrot Top stories had to be featured here, but two of the most obvious choices were out. I've already reviewed the very good Going Up (PR 36), while The Purloined Pony's highly unusual format makes it somewhat awkward to deal with in a conventional review. Fortunately, Even in Dreams fitted the bill, so that's what I chose. Observation: for the canon universe at least, established writers seem considerably more likely to write Carrot Top fics than less experienced authors.

Happy Ending by plumander
All in the Presentation by Pineta
Practical Nightmares Only by Impossible Numbers
Even in Dreams by Chris
Bitter Harvest by Esle Ynopemos

Adventures in Cake Making by TwilightFlopple
The Weed by PaulAsaran
Shoots and Roots by Bachiavellian
Monarchy of Carrots by Seventh Heaven
A Generous Hearts and Hooves Day by GrassAndClouds2

★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 4 | ★★★★: 3 2 | ★★★★★: 0 1

Pony Music Library 38: "Swing! Tavi Swing!"

Another old-school classic gets inducted into the PML today!

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What? "Swing! Tavi Swing!"

Who? Joaftheloaf

Which? Original song

When? August 2012

Why? You really don't hear a lot of swing music in this fandom, and I'm a sucker for piano, so I was interested as soon as I heard the intro to this piece. Although the lyrics maybe aren't quite perfectly fitted to the rhythm, they're pretty close, and the song does have that vital quality of getting stuck in your head. Well, my head anyway. I also really like the instrumental version – perhaps even more, actually.

Non-ponyfic book reviews

I don't intend to make this into a general-purpose blog, but I thought some people might find it interesting occasionally to know what I've been reading away from Pony. While for ponyfic I read one story at a time, generally I have several books on the go at once and bounce between them. That's the case now. So, here are a few of my recent reads, complete with Amazon links and – just for the hay of it – star ratings too:

The Little Wonder: The Remarkable History of Wisden by Robert Winder
As a cricket fan, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is an essential read, especially now the quality of its writing is higher than it was 20 years ago. Winder is an amiable enough guide, and there are plenty of good anecdotes, but he does have a tendency to ramble; I do feel that the book would have benefited from some slightly sharper editing and about a 10% reduction in  length. ★★★

The Giver by Lois Lowry
This isn't nearly as famous in the UK as it is in America, and I hadn't read it at all until a friend gave me a copy a while back. Reading it again, I'd class it as "pretty good and haunting in places, but also slightly unsatisfying". I don't want to spoil things, though probably everyone reading this knows the twist, but let's say that certain aspects of the world depicted stretch my suspension of disbelief a bit. ★★★

Made in America: An Informal History of American English by Bill Bryson
Not a new book to me by any means, but it's still an enjoyable one to dip in and out of. It's not one to treat as a textbook, as I'm not sure everything in it is accurate, but for informal entertainment it's well worth a look. One thing it isn't, despite the quote on the back of my edition, is funny. Mildly amusing occasionally, but not even close to Bryson's best travel books in that respect. ★★★

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
If you ask me, you can't beat mid-period Pratchett. The early books are a bit hit-and-miss, the later ones are a tad too serious-minded for my liking, and Raising Steam is simply rather sad. Men at Arms, however, is fantastic: the Watch characters are now established, the wordplay is brilliant, Ankh-Morpork is still at its pre-moveable type best and the plot is solid. This is my latest "pure relaxation" read. ★★★★★

Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles
This has generally excellent reviews, but in spite of my long-term interest in all things Roman I just couldn't get into it. It's frustrating, since seeing the Romans from outside is always interesting, but I found this much denser than I'd hoped. It's not quite at textbook levels, but it's close, with a huge references section. (Endnotes, as usual. Footnotes are so much easier to refer to!) Possibly it just caught me at a bad time, but I'm disappointed. ★★