Mini-Reviews Round 175

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...Mini-reviews, below the break.





Your Money or Your Life, by Gulheru

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  Princess Cadence gets mugged by an extremely professional pony.

A few thoughts:  There's a funny premise here, and the punchline of an ending comes together nicely.  I never quite got a handle on the mugger's character.  There's plenty of hints that he's an idiot (using incorrect, rather than merely irregular, phrases; an inability to recognize that his catchphrase is no longer appropriate to his job (which further suggests (gasp!) unprofessionalism!), etc.), but the general gist of the story relies on his hyper-competence.  If the story had committed more to one direction or another, I think that would have improved it.

Recommendation:  If the inherent humor of an excessively polite highway robbery, coupled with a pretty good humorous reveal at the end, sounds good to you, then you're likely to find that this fic delivers those beats with above-average aplomb.  It's definitely not a fic you want to think about too hard, though; consider this only for the "turn your brain off and enjoy it" crowd.



The Tempest, by Carabas

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  When Discord is freed from stone, the leaders of Equestria's various other races need to work together to help stop him.  Or at least, it'd be nice if they refrained from actually murdering each other...

A few thoughts:  This is the sequel to Moonlight Palaver, which I helped RCL a while back.  It can't really be read independent of that story--the events are basically independent, but knowing the characters from Palaver is pretty necessary to fully enjoy this fic.  But with that caveat, this is a wonderful read.  Hilarious while still retaining enough sense of the dramatic to discuss more serious matters, The Tempest manages to be engaging in both its comedy and its political maneuvering.

Recommendation:  If you haven't read the story this is a sequel to, this isn't an ideal starting point.  But if you enjoyed Moonlight Palaver, continuing on to this fic is a no-brainer.



Sunset Shimmer Vs The DMV, by Sidral Mundet

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  Sunset has to get a motorcycle license.

A few thoughts:  To be honest, the only reason I read this was because the cover art suggested that there might be an Akira homage in all this (there isn't).  The story itself hits the expected joke time and again, and does so in a rather dull, list-of-(non)events manner.  The intro is mildly amusing, in contrast, but the DMV section itself is an unexciting presentation of Exactly What You Expect It To Be.

Recommendation:  Unless you've just come back from a particularly bad trip to the DMV yourself and are feeling particularly sympathetic to Sunset's plight, there's not much here to specifically recommend.