6-Star Reviews Part 84: Moonspire Run

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

TitanRising's fic,
Moonspire Run, gets a review
Below the page break.

(Yes, I did a haiku joke.  Sorry, I couldn't think of anything interesting to say)

Impressions before reading:  The additional tags promise "action, adventure, fun."  "Action" can get pretty dull and repetitive if it isn't well-handled, but there's certainly ways to write it so that it's both exciting and edifying to read.  "Fun," on the other hand, is something everyone likes!  Who doesn't like fun things?

Also, the description had me a bit worried; it's the first thing a reader sees, after all, so it's not the place you want a typo ("Rainbow Dash gets a lesson on more than just flying from he hero, Spitfire").  Apparently though, that was the blog owner's fault, not the author's.

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  After a stressful day of practicing, Rainbow Dash discovers that she's been being watched by Spitfire, who challenges her to a race through one of the most challenging courses imaginable: the fabled Moonspire Run.

Thoughts after reading:  Let's start with the "fun:" Moonspire Run is a fairly serious story, but the author does an excellent job of weaving in enough comedy to keep the proceedings appropriately lighthearted.  Little things, like Dash kicking a pillow into the air in frustration only to have it land on her head a moment later, help deflate the heavier moments in the fic.  Often, we talk about deflating or negating dramatic scenes as a bad thing, but this is true only when done poorly or unintentionally.  When that weakening is undertaken for a purpose, as it was here, that's a different matter.  And the purpose is clear: the author intended to keep the story's tone light (well, not so much light as "not heavy"), while allowing the characters themselves to stay serious.  In this, I think he succeeded.

The structure, however, could have used a little work.  While the technical proficiency demonstrated in this piece is excellent, word choice throughout tends to be excessively descriptive.  This proves a poor match for the many racing scenes, where the speed and drama are undermined by languid, overly effusive sentences.  As a result, those scenes quickly become dull to read.  Were I not planning to write a review of it, I'd have ended up skimming many of those scenes, which isn't the mark of a riveting story.

Also, TitanRising frequently uses "sky pony" as a synonym for pegasus.  While I wouldn't say it was wrong, it felt very clunky, and using a self-made phrase for a species which already has a name in the show seems like an odd decision in any event.

The author shows a tendency towards grandiosity, which brings mixed results.  On the one hand, making the entire Moonspire Run such an over-the-top, overkill-ish (but perfectly beatable--think the Death Star) place gives that section of the story a kind of "if this is only the second obstacle, I wonder what comes next," excitement.  On the other, sometimes this determination to make everything bigger, badder, and more awe-inspiring distracts from the story.  The spire from which the race takes its name is described as being 10,000 feet high.  Now, in a world filled with magic and which apparently lacks any sort of building codes, I'll concede that such a thing isn't exactly impossible, but really; a two mile high spire?  The idea took me out of the story, busy as I was imagining how long it takes non-pegasi to get to the upper floors, what the base must be made of, whether the upper floors have to be pressurized, and so on.

Unfortunately, what I really want to talk about with this story is the message it imparts, which necessitates some pretty significant spoilers.  The short version is that the message was very muddled, but obviously I have more to say than that.  So as usual, I'm putting my thoughts behind the spoiler tag, where you can read or not read as you see fit.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Just what is Spitfire getting at towards the end?  Really, I have no idea.  She tells Dash that she won, gives her the whole "You must be so disillusioned, I'm not as good as you thought" routine, and when Dash contradicts her, Spitfire points out that Rarity and Twilight probably felt the same way about beating Dash as Dash feels about beating her: they were proud of themselves, not disappointed in Rainbow.

So far, so good.  But then Spitfire not-so-subtly shows that she could easily have won the race if she wanted to--she was holding back the entire time.  It seems to me that that undermines her entire point; Rainbow wasn't trying to get beaten by her friends, after all; they were able to defeat her fair and square at the little training game they set up.  If I was Dash, I'd be feeling much worse after that exchange--not only couldn't she beat her friends, but she was so incompetent that Spitfire didn't even feel the need to try when racing her.  And Dash still almost lost!  Given Dash's character, I can't see her taking that as anything but a dramatic indictment of her own skill, and Spitfire's "winning isn't everything" message begins to sound a lot like "you'd better learn not to feel like winning is everything, since you'll never be a winner."

The way that Dash interacts with Scootaloo seems a lot more positive to me.  She offers to race Scoot, and makes it clear to her that although she (Scoot) will lose, she can learn something by competing against someone better than her.  This is far more in line with how actual education through competition works: whether it's playing chess, studying martial arts, or whatever, you don't learn much from competing against someone who plays/fights/etc. down to your skill level.  By contrast, Spitfire's stratagem seems more like a passive-aggressive way to make Dash feel bad about herself than an actual attempt to teach her something.

Oh, and although the race scenes were draggy, I was impressed by the author's familiarity with the mechanics of flight.  So, that was nice.

Star rating:  ★★☆☆☆ (what does this mean?)

Although the tone the story sets is very good, and some of the worldbuilding is quite interesting (or at the very least, grandiose), the actual racing is less impressive.  And since the actual racing is the majority of the story, that's a significant problem.

Recommendation:  Although the muddled message and poor story/writing synergy mean that this isn't a story for everyone, I think that readers seeking a high-intensity story with plenty of exciting setpieces will be perfectly happy with it. For those who are looking for something they don't want to think about too hard, this is one worth looking at.

Next time:  My Little Dashie, by ROBCakeran53