Here we go again with another quartet of stories of our favourite multicoloured equines. A fairly decent week this time, as you'll already have noted if you've let your eyes drift down to the star summary. Actually, from memory I think only one of these authors (Softy8088) is someone I've read a fic by before, so those scores are quite encouraging for my hopes of finding more new people to read! Today's foursome are:
My Sweet Baby by Harmony Charmer
Speed Demon by Boltstrike58
The Noodle Incident by Icenrose
Peak Performance by Softy8088
★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 4 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.
Sombra and OC
Sad/Slice of Life/Human; 12k words; Jan 2015; Everyone
For the More Most Dangerous Game Contest. I never thought I'd have a family of my own, let alone the one I have now. Of course, it all started with one faithful afternoon...
Given the contest background, the fact that this is an obvious reimagining of My Little Dashie (PR 7) is a good thing, as that was the point. Here, it's Veronica, a woman recovering from a tragic recent past, who discovers a pony in a cardboard box – baby Sombra. She eventually confides in an Indian (as in person from India) vet about the unicorn. But how can she come to terms with Sombra's evil past in MLP? Veronica is a sufficiently interesting character to carry the story along, and it's nice to see both her and Sombra's lives changing as the years pass. The writing is workmanlike rather than stunning, and there's the occasional awkward moment (eg Veronica telling a pony to "Seriously, stay away from the internet") but they're not deal-breakers. Probably a YMMV thing, but I was also mildly irritated by the inclusion of not just the odd word but several full sentences in untranslated Spanish; maybe an author can assume a US audience will have at least very basic Spanish, but that doesn't work for us Brits. Neverthless, it's a solid expansion of the underlying idea, and more interestingly executed than its inspiration. ★★★
Speed Demon by Boltstrike58
Twilight and Rainbow Dash
Comedy/Slice of Life/Crossover; 5k words; Jan–Feb 2022; Everyone
Rainbow Dash struggles with the fact that a newly discovered creature may actually be faster than her.
Written for Estee's Who Crossed Over My Little Pony? contest, which requires fics to cross over with a classic cartoon character, this is a really quite amusing example. Twilight's scientific studies have discovered an incredibly fast animal in the desert. Its call sounds like "Meep meep". You're ahead of me: it's Road Runner. The snag is, Rainbow cannot accept anyone being faster than her, and she's determined to get the better of the newcomer. Dash effectively takes the Wile E. Coyote role here, setting up ever more convoluted schemes that usually end in disaster – for her. I found this a little bit pedestrian at first, but it gets into its stride after a while and once the stunts get silly enough to actually be from the classic cartoons I had a good deal of fun with it. The ending is not quite strong enough to really stick the landing, but if you have any affection at all for ye olde Saturday morning cartoons, I suspect you'll enjoy this. As such, quite a strong three. ★★★
The Noodle Incident by Icenrose
CMCs, Rarity, Discord and Twilight
Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 4k words; May 2016; Everyone
The Cutie Mark Crusaders take their first steps towards adulthood, with calamitous results.
Now they have their cutie marks, the Crusaders feel they need to behave like it – and adulting includes doing your own cooking. Can they make a meal for themselves and Rarity without adult supervision? Well... maybe. This is a real comedy of errors, with CMC logic seeming perfectly reasonable for each step... until it's put into practice. After all, who wouldn't want their dinner nice and clean, and so put the oven into Cleaning mode? Halfway through the process, Discord turns up and helps the fillies. For some value of "helps", anyway. He's not as harsh or out-there as sometimes, but I think that's fine here. Also props for writing a story where "noodly appendage" actually works. This feels quite show-tone a lot of the time, and that suits the story. It's not knock-out brilliant, but it's certainly enough fun to be a great tea-break read. ★★★
Peak Performance by Softy8088
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo
Random/Slice of Life; 1k words; Feb 2015; Teen
Rainbow Dash lures an impressionable Scootaloo into the hidden world of performance-enhancing substances.
(Aside: Softy8088 wrote On the Importance of Spelling, which I reviewed in the very first PR.) Scootaloo, of course, is desperate to be the best. So when Dash suggests that she should try taking a remarkable substance from the Griffon lands, she is tempted. All the more so when Rainbow assures her that it's not actually illegal and in any case a bit of careful planning can get around what rules do exist. You can probably see where this one is going almost from the start, and the underlying setup wasn't new even in 2015. Nevertheless, it does its job pretty competently and with enough of a light touch to make it an amusing read. I will also give it props for the fact that I didn't guess the last line before I reached it! For all that, despite its lack of anything truly special it does nudge into the threes. ★★★
Next time, I hope that stories reviewed will include N00813's RCL-inducted dark adventure Schemering Sintel.
I read "The Noodle Incident" long ago, and I agree, it was nicely amusing. Definitely at least three stars, maybe bordering on four.
ReplyDeleteI also recently read "Speed Demon," and I'm always wary about discussing a contest story before the deadline (still a couple weeks off for this one) since it could be seen as helping the author with their entry. So I'll just say it was amusing, like you say, to see old-style cartoon mayhem, though it mostly just repeats that stuff without bringing anything new, it can't decide what perspective it's in, and I agree with FoME's comment on it. Not bad, probably a mid to high two stars for me.
Point taken on the contest thing. I'm not planning on entering that, so there's no conflict of interest in that regard, but usually I do wait until after the closing date so maybe a slight slip on my part there. Oh well, I doubt it will make any real difference. Having read FOME's comment, I see his (and your) points, but I nevertheless enjoyed it a bit more than that. Maybe it's because I'm only a casual fan of those old cartoons, so I haven't seen every single one of Dash's tricks used 10,000 times already, hence it feels a little fresher.
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