Mini-Reviews Round 94

Just a couple today, and not even a clever lead-in up above.  Click below for mini-reviews!





Kilroy Was Here, by NorthCrusader

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  Pinkie sees the iconic graffiti while on her way to lunch, and is determined to find out what it means.

A few thoughts:  Although I admittedly didn't have high hopes for this story, I gave it a read because I've always found the uncertain origin of Kilroy fascinating.  There's just something intriguing to me about such a banal little piece of English-speaking culture being untraceable, despite being relatively recent, and I was hoping against hope that the story would do something with that.  It didn't, and in fact never really answered any of the obvious questions about why Kilroy popped up in Equestria (yup, that tag doesn't lie; this is an HiE story, and absolutely nothing is done to explain it), going instead for a day-in-Pinkie's-random-life vibe.  Since I couldn't reconcile that with the premise, this simply didn't work for me.

Recommendation:  If you're willing to take humans living in Ponyville being totally unremarkable to all involved as a given, and aren't expecting anything to come of that premise, nor any sort of historical tie-in... if you're all of those things, this might be worth a look for fans of pure SoL.



Peristeronic, by Hawattie

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  The pigeons have been at war with ponykind for ages--a fact the ponies haven't noticed yet, because pigeons tend to be pretty ineffective soldiers (also, super dumb).  But today that changes, as a stealth operation is conducted against the pony whom pigeon intelligence has identified as their unquestioned leader: Prince Blueblood.

A few thoughts:  I went into this one expecting some dumb humor, and that's exactly what I got.  The joke here is that pigeons are really stupid and, despite acting like an army, are still a bunch of pigeons.  That juxtaposition is pretty much the entire fic, right there.  Seeing what Blueblood is up to during his day being targeted by the pigeons adds a welcome second angle to this story, but even so the joke feels played out well before the 3k words have come and gone.  Inconsistent punctuation is an occasional distraction as well, though the result is hardly unreadable.

Recommendation:  This is a one (with Blueblood, maybe one-and-a-half) note joke, with no hidden depths or clever additions.  If you're okay with that, and if you think "pigeons are dumb" is funny (for what it's worth, I do), then this could be a good choice for casual reading.