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Monday, June 16, 2014

Fandom Classics Part 56: Project: Sunflower

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

If any of you are fans of Bob from Bottles' stories, you might want to go check his FiMFic page--he's re-uploaded most of his writing.  Glad to see that back; I hate to see things disappear from the internet, even if it's only kinda-sorta disappearing, and he's got some gems to boot.

But we're not here to talk about his old stories!  We're here to talk about one of Hoopy McGee's old stories.  Specifically, we're here to talk about Project: Sunflower, the talking-about-which you can find below the break.

Impressions before reading:  A story about a human getting turned into a pony and visiting Ponyville looks pretty darned ominous to me; that is not a premise I associate with quality.  Then again, neither is "Princess Celestia shows up on a brony's doorstep to conduct an interview," yet the same author's Interview With a Princess proved to be, if not genre-defying (that is, I wouldn't recommend it to someone with an aversion to humans in their ponyfic), far more enjoyable than I expected.

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  In the year 2038, Earth is on the verge of total destruction, and a desperate humanity is in search of a world to inhabit.  A top-secret project researching alternate universes manages to locate Equestria, and, unable to find any other volunteers, recruits intern Erin Olson to be ponified and sent as an advance scout to determine if Equestria is suitable for human habitation.

Thoughts after reading:  There were lots of things I enjoyed about this fic.  Mr. McGee does a nice job of writing all the main six ponies; even Pinkie Pie comes across as hyper and goofy, rather than annoying and unpleasant, and that can be difficult to pull off.  The Black Tide, the thing destroying Earth, is appropriately apocalyptic and futuristic.  And I'm all for a story that makes fun of Minnesota social graces.  But on the whole, this fic left me cold.

Part of the reason is that I never really bought into the central conceit: the particular technologies needed to set this story in motion aren't so much "far-fetched" as they are "suspiciously convenient," and when that's paired with the already improbable series of decisions that lead to a single ill-prepared intern being humanity's sole representative on this fact-finding mission, it serves as a constant reminder throughout the story that this is, well, just a story; it's difficult to suspend disbelief when the entire premise feels transparently like an excuse to get Erin into a pony body and over to Equestria.  The tendency of characters to narrate things that everyone in the room already knows for the sake of the reader (at least, in the early going; this drops off pretty fast) only exacerbated that feeling.

(And, as an aside: this story obviously takes place on our Earth in the near future, yet it appears to be some sort of alternate Earth where My Little Pony (not just G4) never existed--but all other pop-culture touchstones remained intact.  I personally found that really odd and occasionally distracting, but I suspect that's more a personal than a general reaction.)

Beyond that, characterization was an issue.  While the main six were good, as were the ponies generally (the villain on the pony side is a bit disappointing in that his motivations during several key points remain opaque, but even he's generally competently conceived), the humans tended to be ridiculous caricatures, generally defined by a single salient characteristic and prone to improbably spastic actions (at one point, the Chair of the Committee of Human Survival--whose job is presumably pretty PR-heavy--answers a reporter's question at a press conference by yelling "What the hell are you talking about?  Are you insane?  Where in the world did you get that idea?"  His behavior, if not his exact wording and hot buttons, is pretty representative of the social abilities of every person, including the ambassadorial staff, in this fic).  When the ponies in one's fic are more realistic than the actual people, that says something.

On a more positive note, the writing here is pretty good.  There is an occasional overabundance of adjectives, and the narration does rarely wander into direct addresses to the reader (where it normally maintains a more neutral style), but neither of these are frequent or deal-breaking issues.  On the whole, the story is well-constructed at a word level, easy to read and with an easy, natural cadence, which is hardly nothing.

But what really bothered me about this story was the lack of sustained conflict.  Of course, there's the Black Tide looming over everything for most of the tale, and an Equestrian villain gets introduced into the mix as well, but few and far between are the conflicts or difficulties which aren't resolved within a few hundred words of being introduced--often, instantly.  The result is a story with very little impetus; once Erin gets to Ponyville, there's relatively little to drive the story forward from scene to scene.  That meant that, at moments of low drama, this story quickly became boring, and that's not a word anyone wants associated with their work.

Star rating:  


While I didn't hate this story--indeed, most of the time I didn't even begrudge it the time it took me to read--I found large parts of it dull, and the rest unimmersive. 

Recommendation:  Erin makes a pretty good everyman (everywoman (everypony)), despite actually having a decent degree of characterization--at least, in contrast to the rest of the humans in this story.  Readers with a specific interest in a story about being ponified and going to Equestria may want to give this a try, but those looking for something which is engaging on its own merits will probably be unimpressed.

Next time:  In Celestia We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, by Georg

18 comments:

  1. Georg? Guess I'll have to read ahead this time.

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    1. Okay. Definitely looking forward to your review now.

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  2. I only heard about this fic because of the controversy it stirred when John Perry reviewed it's sequel in one of his Feature Box blogs. Apparently even boring stuff like this has fanatic fans.

    I must figure out the formula to this mediocre writing style if I'm ever going to take over the world!

    ... though with my luck, the most I can hope for is a MST3K style riffing.

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  3. Wow, dang. I've heard a lot of good stuff about this piece, but I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that that doesn't hold. Still, that didn't sound like a 1-star review, I'm kind of shocked. I'll go forward with this one myself regardless. Someday. :B

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  4. I'm with Present Perfect. I'm kind of shocked at the one star. I haven't read it, but this story does have a pretty good reputation. However, your arguments make sense to me. Sometimes dull is worse than wildly, entertainingly bad.

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    1. I think it's worth remembering the gulf between what an average FimFic user thinks is good and what a more critical reader like Chris or Present thinks is good. I haven't read the fic in question myself, but I know its type. There are plenty of fics I like that I've found don't hold up to close scrutiny.

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    2. I'm generally baffled by both groups, to tell you the truth. The readership at large seems very tolerant of almost all fics, and critics seem uneven. What they like or dislike often seems random to me, and I suppose it is, in a way. We all have different tastes, after all. It's just weird when I read a story and agree one hundred percent that it was a good read. Then I read the next one and I hate it. It feels odd, but that's art for you.

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    3. Coming up with ratings for these long stories is hard; summarizing something 2k, or even 20k words long isn't too tough most of the time, but 200k? Few and far between are the stories that long that don't have some serious flaws--and some great moments. I actually debated between 1 and 2 stars, and that never happens-- 2-3 and 4-5 are where the stories that I waffle about always seem to fall.

      In the end, this story does some nice things, but I can't think of a single stretch where I was consistently engaged in the action--where I was invested in the characters, and interested to find out how something would resolve. It strikes me as the kind of story that's easy to put down and walk away from, and--given the subject matter, and the transparently convenient setup (slash first 20,000 words)--one that would be even easier to drop without giving it a chance. That's how I ended up at one-star.

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  5. Ouch.

    And, at the same time, thank you. No sarcasm, I really mean it. Project: Sunflower was the first story I ever attempted on this scope, and I'm immensely proud of it, but I'm also very aware that it has many flaws.

    Still, I wouldn't change it. Primarily because I learned so much from it. For example, I learned that what I thought was a sufficient amount of planning really wasn't nearly enough. That's one of the main reasons for the pacing problems throughout, with long slow passages interspersed with rushed scenes.

    At least with the sequel, I've got a lot more things planned out. I also have a great team of editors/pre-readers, and my regular readers aren't shy at all about pointing out plot-holes or grammar/spelling/punctuation issues.

    Thank you for taking the time to read, and to review, Project Sunflower. Because this kind of feedback is important to my learning process, too.

    ~Hoopy

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    1. If it makes you feel any better, I felt a little bad dumping on this fic, because in every interview and written conversation I've seen with you, you seem like such a pleasant, cheerful person. Then again, I almost always feel a little bad about giving negative reviews; I don't know how "angry reviewers" as a group manage it.

      I'm glad I didn't ruin your day, at least not enough that you couldn't say "thank you" at the end of it (spoken like a true Minnesotan!)

      I hope your experience with this story helps you with the sequel, and I hope my review proves useful to you, too. Thanks for taking the time to comment; I appreciate it!

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    2. Well, it helps that the review didn't feel particularly mean-spirited to me. You didn't like the fic, you laid out the reasons why, but you didn't make it personal.

      Also, I'm very serious when I say that honest opinions like this are very much appreciated. I can't fix what's wrong if I don't know what's wrong. You took the time to read the entire fic. Then you wrote up the problems you saw with it, which is even more time. You sunk hours and hours of your life into this review. When most of my negative feedback comes from voiceless thumbs-downs, I really do value this kind of thing.

      Have a great night, and I hope, if you ever read or review another of my fics, that I manage to provide you with more entertainment than you found in this one!

      ~Hoopy

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  6. Man, first John and now Chris. Is my taste in stories really that different from people looking from a more critical perspective?

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    1. You could always start writing reviews yourself! Seriously, the only qualifications are a willingness to read ponyfiction, and the time and energy to put into sentences what you did and didn't like, and why.

      And if it makes you feel any better, John and I have only been in consensus a bit over half the time on RCL features (admittedly, of a small sample size, since he's still pretty new to the team), so our "critical perspective" does have a bit of variance to it.

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    2. Oh, I don't have enough time or writing ability to write reviews, I'm too busy reading and fighting back against my ever increasing unread chapters count.

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    3. That is a battle I conceded long, long ago. :B

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  7. Like RT, I too only found out about this story because my criticism of its sequel was... less than well-received. It wasn't even that it was terrible, but nothing about the concept or the characters struck me as particularly inspired. Still, there was that small part of me that feared that my criticism was misplaced, having not read the original fic. Glad to hear that doesn't seem to be the case.

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  8. I have to disagree with you on this one, since it's been on my "Must Read" list ever since I first read it. True, the pacing of the direct conflict is a bit off compared to short stories, but that's because Sunflower is a side-mission, with Erin not being "The sole person who can save the world" but instead a somewhat less than motivated but still willing volunteer who can see all the sides of the issues. Do we just dump a billion people on Equestria without asking? Will there be another portal to a more suitable world discovered before the Pseudo-Smooze takes over the world? Can this steam-age society somehow actually help our nano-tech society defeat a threat we are so helpless against? Can a human actually become friends with an alien race?

    They're all weighty issues that are not forceably crammed down the reader's brain all at once due to a short deadline to ultimate disaster. But the upcoming death of Earth is still there. Ticking away.

    I like the gradual introduction of concepts as the story progresses, and it seemed to be a much more accurate way of depicting how a Stargate-like technology would be used to explore an alien planet. In MICE terms, this is a Character story, showing her evolution (pardon the pun) as events occur. In short, a very nice comfortable read, which I enjoyed a great deal, and continue to enjoy when I pull it back up and re-read sections.

    Still, it's an honest review. What one pony likes for certain reasons can be disliked by others for the same. I can hardly wait for your next review of... hm... That one looks familiar for some reason...

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