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Unwhole Hole’s “The Murder of Elrod Jameson”

01 Sunday Mar 2020

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Today’s story is some killer noir.

The Murder of Elrod Jameson
[Dark] [Mystery] [Sci-Fi] [Human] • 234,343 words

[Note: This story contains scenes of blood and gore, sexuality, and a depiction of rape.]

Elrod Jameson: a resident of SteelPoint Level Six, Bridgeport, Connecticut. A minor, pointless, and irrelevant man… who witnessed something he was not supposed to.

Narrowly avoiding his own murder, he desperately searches for help. When no living being will help him, he turns to the next best thing: a pony.

FROM THE CURATORS: This week’s feature — and its content warnings — might seem a little unusual for a My Little Pony fanfiction site.  And indeed it is, in Horizon’s words, “a shining example of how to write ponyfic that strays nearly as far from the show as possible while the MLP content remains front and center.”  But for those willing to stray from the light-hearted tone of the show, Elrod offers a unique journey.  “The author has very carefully constructed this bizarre world of sci-fi trappings, mutant humans and world-ruling corporations so that by the end, if ponies don’t make sense for the world, they at least make sense for the story,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “What lies within this twisting labyrinth is lush, depressing scenery; a twisting mystery involving genetics, corporate protection and a worldwide bounty; and plenty of surprises.”

Indeed, the novel quickly inspired comparisons outside of our equine niche.  “In the cadence of its writing it reminds me of some of the best classic sci-fi,” Horizon said, while AugieDog adding: “It reminds me of Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon novels or Jeff Noon’s Vurt series in a lot of ways.”  However, Present Perfect said, it’s got plenty to offer to pony fans: “You could not sand the edges off this and rebrand it as something original.  It deserves to be evaluated as fanfiction.”  That wasn’t a unanimous opinion — with AugieDog noting, “I’ll disagree with Pres and say that this could be turned into a non-Pony novel pretty easily” — but our consensus was, as Horizon put it, “it deserves special mention for the subtle, logical, compelling way that it works in its pony content.”

The strengths of the story were enough to send it to a feature despite curator reservations.  “Not gonna lie, after reading chapter 16’s explicit on-screen rape, I put this one down for a week,” Horizon said.  “But there is more than enough here to justify sitting through that (and the book’s ongoing need for editing). Elrod‘s at its best assembling its vision of a noir, dystopian future world.  This also does an excellent job with the pacing of its mysteries and world reveals … the overall picture fit together extremely satisfyingly.”  And the story won over some doubters.  “If I’d just run across this on my own, I would’ve quit before the end of the first chapter,” AugieDog said.  “But by the last line of that first chapter, I was completely and totally hooked. ‘Cause this is an incredible example of just plain ol’ storytelling. A lot of it comes from the author’s deft use of hard-boiled detective tropes, and there’s a real narrative voice here once things start firing on all cylinders.”

And that wasn’t all.  “The characters are doubtless the strongest part,” Present Perfect said to quick agreement.  “Elrod is an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and figuring him out was really rewarding. Twilight has a great deal of depth to her; important, since she’s actually the main character. There’s the other Twilight — it makes sense in context — who on her introduction is a breath of fresh air, and whose arc provides a lighter counterpoint to the grim and gritty main story.”  Horizon agreed: “Morgana (Twilight) and Elrod are largely overshadowed in their own story by a vibrant supporting cast, and the book wisely realizes this and rolls with it. You could remove the entirety of Book 3 — the other Twilight’s arc — without impacting the A plot in the slightest, but if you did, you’d rip out the beating heart of the story.”

Ultimately, that added up to a package that was more than the sum of its parts.  “This is what I would call a hidden gem,” Present Perfect said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing what else Unwhole Hole has come up with, because the expansiveness of this world is in many ways astounding.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Unwhole Hole discusses mocking bridges, furniture stains, and aquarium power trips.
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Grimm’s “Don’t Open the Door”

14 Friday Feb 2020

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Today’s story lingers like the curling mist in a dark forest.

don't open the doorDon’t Open the Door
[Dark][Horror] • 13,654 words

After an expedition into the Everfree Forest ends in disaster, Applejack and Rainbow Dash take refuge in an abandoned cabin until morning.

This is probably a poor decision, but it’s only one night, after all. How bad could it be?

FROM THE CURATORS: “I don’t care much for horror stories,” AugieDog mused. “But this one does so much right, I found myself really impressed.” Present Perfect thought it was “simply one of the best horror stories I’ve ever read,” and Soge agreed “one-hundred percent” that “this is pitch-perfect horror from beginning to end.”

In his nomination, Present Perfect praised the author’s ability to set a scene and draw the reader in. “The atmosphere is lush and offputting, right from the start. The Lost Cities-style description of the abandoned cabin was a great way to set the tone, and throughout the story, new details emerge that keep things creepy.” AugieDog was similarly impressed by how well POV was handled: “the narrowing from omniscient at the start to alternating close 3rd-person between Dash and AJ for the bulk of the piece was absolutely the right approach to take.”

Everyone was surprised by how well this dark horror fit in with Friendship Is Magic. Soge pointed out that excellent character work played a role there, with the author “putting very well-characterized canon characters into a situation which, with some modifications, I could see appearing in the show proper — and given that the show is dead, that would be extra spooky.” Present Perfect lamented that “so many pony horror stories are basically, well, horror stories inflicted upon ponies,” so he was thrilled to find “this story, beyond the profanity and the image of words carved into a table with a knife, fits very well into canon. This is just another strange beast of the Everfree, more terrifying than the show might have explored, but nevertheless not impossible as a creature that exists in the world.”

“A lot of horror stories fall down for me,” AugieDog said, “when it comes to the monster. But here, the author shows us a monster who is big and horrible and devious but maybe not very smart: a monster who is in every way a character in the story. And the description when we actually get to see the monster didn’t disappoint in the slightest.” Though in true horror story fashion, the reader doesn’t get a perfect image; Present Perfect appreciated that “the monster itself is never fully revealed, its identity never given, beyond just enough details to make it terrifying.”

That careful management of information resonated with the other curators as well (“I love the way that the story plays with what is real and what is not,” Soge said, “in a way that you can never feel confident about anything that is going on”) and allowed for a satisfying conclusion (“a perfect cliffhanger,” in Present Perfect’s words) that still let the readers’ mind run wild. “My favorite part,” AugieDog admitted, “is the ambiguous ending. I really appreciate that the author gives a wimp like me enough evidence about the monster’s nature to legitimately conclude that everything turned out all right. I’m sure that, if I wanted to go back and read more closely, I would discover even more evidence that everything did not in fact turn out all right, but when the author gives me an out, I will happily take it.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Grimm discusses caring about what you write, open endings, and darkness in a cartoon for children.

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DannyJ’s “Just Dodge!”

03 Friday Jan 2020

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The quality of today’s story is hard to escape.

Just Dodge!
[Dark] [Comedy] • 9,961 words

Lyra thinks Discord is an idiot for not thinking to dodge when the Elements of Harmony were about to strike him. Discord thinks this is the perfect opportunity for a game.

FROM THE CURATORS: As a new year starts, the same old curators return with a new every-other-Friday schedule and a six-year-old story that’s proven its staying power. “It went from 21k views to 22k while I was reading it,” Present Perfect noted.

We all praised the character writing. “Discord is a touch toned down from his appearances in the show,” RBDash47 said in his nomination post, “(which I don’t mind; translating his visual wackiness to prose can be more annoying than funny), but I can hear every line in de Lancie’s voice.” And AugieDog added, “the version of Lyra here reminded me of the character we meet in the ‘Slice of Life’ episode: essentially good-natured but a little cranky when faced with the unexpected.”

Still, it’s the challenge Discord presents to a skeptical Lyra that makes this story sing. “What’s most impressive,” Horizon said, “is that it’s written well enough and thoughtfully enough to provoke the sort of discussion it received.” “Hundreds have commented,” Present Perfect pointed out, “trying to come up with ways that Discord actually could have avoided the Elements.” “This leads,” RBDash47 said, “to a fun exploration of the limits, or lack thereof, of the Elements’ power.”

Present Perfect neatly summed it up: “On the whole, the quality of the writing, the approach to the what-if scenario and the inspiration of hundreds of imaginations is what sets this apart.”

So read on for our author interview, in which DannyJ discusses dark edges, skewed perceptions, and self-defeats.
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JumpingShinyFrogs’ “School Tour”

21 Friday Jun 2019

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(RCL NOTE: We’re attempting the hopeless task of choosing the fandom’s Single Best Story™ at a special panel at Bronycon.  Help us pick the competitors!  Details here.  Voting is open until July 13.)

Today’s story comes out of the dark into the spotlight.

School Tour
[Dark] [Human] • 6,481 words

I was looking forward to the school tour for a really long time! We were going to the beach, and I love the beach. I love the bus trip as well, singing and talking with my friends. But then we drove into a tunnel. I’ve never really liked tunnels, but it’s always been fine because my friends were there. We always try to hold our breath the whole way through the tunnel, which is a lot of fun.

Today, we couldn’t hold our breath the whole way through, because the bus never came out of the tunnel.

FROM THE CURATORS: Fanfiction, by definition, is authors getting inspired by the settings and characters of others’ works.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that sometimes quality fanfiction spawns fanfiction of its own.  “Since we’ve featured The Last Pony on Earth, I’ve been going through some of the side stories it spawned, and I feel confident in nominating them on their own merits,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “This is many things. A story about survival and holding out hope against certain death. An excellent example of journalfic written in a nine-year-old’s voice. And a really good application of the setting and timeframe of the Ponies After People universe.”  Soge quickly added that this tale of a bus full of children turning into ponies worked as a standalone: “I only noticed it was related to Last Pony on Earth when it was explicitly mentioned near the end.  That didn’t actually impact my enjoyment of the story.”

One of the factors driving that enjoyment was the story’s tight and careful focus.  “It’s a very claustrophobic story, with essentially one location until the end,” Present Perfect said, “but the strength of the writer’s voice and the sheer desperation of their situation, on top of the fact that these are mostly kids, is what really sells this.” FanOfMostEverything agreed: “The story does a brilliant job of using the limited space and information given to the protagonist to drive home the claustrophobic atmosphere. The pacing is one of the best parts, gradually ramping up the dread as all the easy solutions fail and the situation worsens.”  And Soge appreciated the nuance that provided: “The limited perspective and understanding of Clara is used very well here, the child narrator being the best possible PoV to sell the bleakness of the situation, without actually falling into melodrama.”

But we also praised factors such as the efficient prose.  “There are tons of neat details peppered around, and in a very short amount of time it sells the reader very well on the characters, the world, and their predicament,” Soge said.  That was even more impressive considering the way the story was framed.  “The sheer innocence of the narrative voice is almost painful at times, when the reader sees the severity of Clara’s predicament so much more clearly than she does,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “Overall, this was some excellent suspense.”

Read on for our author interview, in which JumpingShinyFrogs discusses sneaky principals, acceptable birds, and story graveyards.
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AstralMouse’s “Twenty-eight Boulders”

16 Saturday Mar 2019

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There are any number of reasons to read today’s story.

Twenty-eight Boulders
[Dark] [Drama] [Sad] • 2,038 words

Queen Chrysalis has spent years in hiding. She has been very careful to avoid being caught, but her time spent alone and in constant fear has worn away her sanity.

FROM THE CURATORS: One of the strengths of pony fanfic is the opportunity to read about characters far removed from ordinary life — so stories focusing on unusual viewpoints can be a treat to find.  And this tight, focused look at the far side of sanity hit all the right notes.  “I’m a sucker for a nicely done unreliable narrator, and this one pulled me right in with its harrowing, intense voice,” AugieDog said in his nomination.  “We’re locked with Chrysalis inside her head, and it’s a place even she doesn’t much want to be.”

And indeed, that was our most common compliment about the story.  “The voicing is very, very good — I am completely sold on Chrysalis slowly going crazy in her self-imposed isolation,” RBDash47 said.  “The author mentions that they went through a lot of editing and rewriting to get the tone, and I think they nailed it.”  Horizon, too, found that compelling: “I think the big thing right here is the portrayal of her descent into insanity. Schizophrenic people work by an internal logic which, while disconnected from reality, makes a strangely elegant almost-sense on its own terms.” And FanOfMostEverything added, “I have to agree on how well the story conveys that. It all makes sense to her; otherwise she wouldn’t do any of it.”

We also found meat on the bones of the exemplary presentation.  “The real joy of an unreliable narrator is piecing together the reality they’re denying,” Present Perfect noted, while Horizon spent some time puzzling it over: “The question of whether she’s going back to the same lair over and over again or moving around is a fascinating one, with plenty of evidence to sift through.”  Meanwhile, AugieDog praised the economical storytelling: “It’s just the right length for this sort of character study, too.”  All those factors came together to heighten the core tragedy of the piece.  “The paranoid, vengeful, negative-sum strategy that barely kept her hive fed culminates in her being unable to so much as comprehend mercy on the part of her former subjects,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “It’s an excellent capstone for the tragedy of Chrysalis, and an excellent study of karmic justice in action.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AstralMouse discusses weapon padding, imagined chitin, and black as the new black.
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ChudoJogurt’s “Sunset Shimmer and the Last Trial of Daring Do”

08 Friday Mar 2019

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Today’s story makes some daring choices.

Sunset Shimmer and the Last Trial of Daring Do
[Dark] [Adventure] [Alternate Universe] • 49,536 words

[Note: This story contains sexual themes.]

Trapped in the memories of her past adventures, bringing nightmares and dreams she does not want, she can’t stay home.

There is only one creature in all of Equestria who can help her. Make her good and nice again, but how far will Sunset have to go to find her?

FROM THE CURATORS: There’s something about great villains which keeps us coming back to their stories — especially when you set them on a collision course with one of Equestria’s greatest heroes.  “This is Sunset’s fall from good intentions, and it hurts to read her picking up a number of formative experiences and wrongly learned lessons that will shape her into the terror of Canterlot High,” FanOfMostEverything said in his nomination.  “The age-old conflict she stumbles into is fascinating to watch, especially as we learn the finer details. And this is easily the best Ahuizotl I’ve ever read.” On that point, we were unanimous: “I’ve never seen anything like the Ahuizotl-as-deity that frames this story,” Horizon said.  “That by itself would have been featureworthy, but then the author also threw in one of the most dynamic, compelling OC villains I’ve encountered, and made Sunset a breathtaking character in her own right.”

Indeed, it was the character work which kept our eyes glued to the page.  “if this story has a big thing right — and I’d say it has a few — it’s the depiction of Sunset’s PTSD,” Present Perfect said.  “It’s her motivation for falling down this path in the first place, for placing herself into grave, mortal danger of the kind that leaves her vulnerable to a predator like Green Glow. Watching that relationship spiral into abuse, then something that molds Sunset into the pony who stole Twilight’s crown, was exquisitely painful.”  And it certainly didn’t hurt that that exemplary writing was set amid a thrilling, well-realized adventure.  “As a Daring Do story from the perspective of her opponents, it fires on all cylinders,” Horizon said.  “Then they reach the penultimate fight, and it cranks the story up to 11, and then they reach the final fight and the dial breaks as it impossibly goes even further. It’s never anything less than epic and mythical.”

That was another compliment that came up repeatedly in our discussion.  “If there’s another thing this story does well, it’s gravitas,” Present Perfect said.  “Hardly a chapter goes by without some big, flashy or otherwise memorable scene: Ahuizotl defeating the hydra, Green Glow torturing the informant, Sunset fighting Daring Do, you name it, they’re all exciting. But more than that, everything that happens in this story has weight to it. The importance of details like hospitality are the stuff of epic fantasy quests. I love how just invoking the words of an ancient oath can literally shake a city to its foundations.”  And that, we decided, made the story worthwhile whether you’ve read its prequel or not.  “Aside from a few flashbacks, the previous story — in which Sunset Shimmer goes to Narnia, befriends Prince Caspian, and almost ruins everything — doesn’t really factor into this one,” FanOfMostEverything noted.  “This is by no means a happy story, but it’s a very compelling one.”

Read on for our author interview, in which ChudoJogurt discusses teenage miracles, book attributes, and immortal princes.
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Phoenix_Dragon’s “Without a Hive”

15 Friday Feb 2019

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Today’s story will sneak into your favorites.

Without a Hive
[Romance] [Dark] [Adventure] [Sad] • 180,748 words

Young Nictis had one dream: to serve his hive by becoming an Infiltrator, the most vital and vaunted role a changeling could aspire to. To hide in plain sight among the other species, blending in, while gathering the vital emotional energies that fueled his people. Few were deemed worthy of the dangerous job. He was one of the few nymphs selected for training, in the hopes that one of them would develop the skills needed to be entrusted with such a treacherous task.

But when a training expedition ends in tragedy, Nictis finds himself thrust into the role not to serve his hive and people, but to preserve his own life. Separated from the hive, alone, he must put what little training he has to the test. He must blend in with the hive’s greatest source of food, and its most dangerous enemy: the ponies of Equestria.

FROM THE CURATORS: Let’s face it — our fandom loves changelings, and authors have done so much with them that changeling stories have to clear a high bar to stand out from the pack.  So when Present Perfect said in his nomination that “Without a Hive is one of the best season-two fics I have ever read, and might just be the best changeling story on top of that,” we had to see for ourselves what the fuss was about.  “I wish I’d read this years ago,” FanOfMostEverything quickly said.  “This may be the gold standard for old-school ‘changeling in Equestria’ fics, made all the more notable by forgoing the usual ‘crashed somewhere after the invasion’ plot device.”  And Horizon was equally effusive.  “Perhaps I am — for Glitterbug-like reasons of academic interest, and CLEARLY none other — predisposed to a good changeling story, but this was consistently gripping,” he said.  “It covers all of the tropes we expect a changeling redemption fic to have, but with exemplary nuance. The tension of being trained as a sociopathic predator who feeds on positive emotions, while also feeling those positive emotions, drips from every word here.”

That was only one of several compliments on which we all quickly agreed.  “Central to this piece is its fantastic characters,” Present Perfect said, with Horizon adding: “This works as well as it does because every individual we ever meet is vibrant and sympathetic.”  FanOfMostEverything praised the development of the protagonist: “Watching Nictis grow in spite of himself is wonderful — the changes coming subtly enough that he doesn’t notice until it hits him all at once in the worst possible way — to say nothing of all the other emotional arcs he goes through.” And all of us had a hard time picking favorites from the colorful supporting cast.  “The ponies Nictis befriends have lives of their own,” Present Perfect said.  “Nowhere is that more apparent than in a late chapter, when our hero meets two ponies named Violet and Grace. They exist on the page for a few scenes only, yet after a short introduction, one gets a deep and abiding sense of who they are.”

It was in the collision between those ponies and the central changeling that the story shined brightest.  “What made me smile above all else were the several times during the first half or so of the story — usually in scenes where Nictis was interacting with Big Shot — when the author took a step back to remind the reader that the cute and clever character we’d been rooting for was in fact quite literally a monster,” AugieDog said.  “It made for a great contrast with Nictis’ wanderings in the last few chapters when the character’s monsterhood is unmistakably slipping away.”  And that left a lasting impression, several of us such said — such as Horizon: “I was legitimately upset when the story ended.  I had an almost physical need to see how things shook out with Spark. Fortunately, there’s a sequel!”

Read on for our author interview, in which Phoenix_Dragon discusses esquire numbers, book commitments, and corporate weddings.
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Undome Tinwe’s “And the Serpent Said Unto the Princess”

14 Friday Dec 2018

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Today’s story was too tempting for us to pass up.

And the Serpent Said Unto the Princess
[Dark] [Romance] • 2,785 words

In the beginning, there was Harmony. Then Discord stole Fire from the Alicorns.

FROM THE CURATORS: “Who doesn’t like a good creation myth?” RBDash47 said in his nomination — and judging by our unaminous approval, this fic blew past “good” with room to spare.  Along the way, it picked up both top scores and praise like Soge’s: “Oh boy, is this fic special in a way few fics are.  The multi-layered narrative, the allusions to all kinds of human myths, and most importantly, the twist at the end that brings everything into sharp focus. Everything works in synchrony to deliver the author’s grand vision.”

That was quite a feat given how many big ideas the story brought to the table.  “I can’t remember the last time I saw something with so many layers,” Present Perfect said.  “There’s the creation myth, which is perfectly excellent storytelling on its own. Then there’s Discord as both Lucifer and Prometheus, poisoning ponies with his fire. And then there’s the Hero, and the revelation that what we know as ponies is not what always lived under Celestia’s rule. Of course, the omission of Luna from the tale reinforces that this is almost assuredly not historical truth, which is great. What starts out as seemingly anti-Discord religious tract becomes full-fledged insanity by the end, and I loved watching the tale unravel.”  FanOfMostEverything commented on that as well: “If anything, the friction between the scripture and reality only emphasizes the devotion of the congregation.”

We found the story’s vision reinforced by excellent voicing and pacing.  “It’s got the language and rhythm of a revival-tent cult meeting down so well, the temptation to read lines aloud in my best ‘fire and brimstone’ voice was nearly overwhelming,” AugieDog said.  “And the slow unwrapping of the Hero’s identity is one of the finest reveals I’ve read in quite some time.”  On top of that, as Soge noted, the story’s big ideas squarely kept the show front and center: “Through all its depths, it still remains fundamentally pony, the kind of thing that can hardly be achieved outside fanfiction.”  That came together, as Horizon said, to a simply enjoyable read: “Smooth execution of a novel idea?  Sign me up.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Undome Tinwe discusses exploding pythons, wedding crashers, and $250,000 savings.
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Flutterpriest’s “Feathers”

24 Friday Aug 2018

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Fall into today’s story for some gripping drama.

Feathers
[Dark] [Drama] • 2,466 words

When the pegasi lose their feathers, they also lose the ability to walk on clouds. The answer to ‘why’ is lost to time. The real question is … what happens to Cloudsdale?

FROM THE CURATORS: Some stories are compelling because they’re driven by a premise which grabs you right from the start.  And when that happens, it’s doubly exciting to find execution which is just as exemplary.  “The central idea of Feathers is immediately powerful and uniquely pony (if you spot it the existence of TV),” Horizon said in his nomination, “and it keeps a tight focus, driving a claustrophobic mood which is jarred quite effectively by the few outside encounters we see.”  Feathers cruised to a feature amid a chorus of similar praise.  “I compared this story to The Twilight Zone, with its ability to build tension through a sense of dread, which all pays off in one of the best final lines in this fandom,” Present Perfect said, while FanOfMostEverything agreed: “I have to say that this is an incredibly impactful story that gets a lot of mileage out of its oppressive atmosphere.  This is far from my usual taste, but I’m happy to push this one over the edge … and given the subject matter, I apologize for the incidental puns.”

One element of the powerful mood was the story’s excellent framing, keeping the audience focused for maximum emotional punch.  “It very much feels like a small slice of a much larger crisis, and the small stakes of the protagonists just underline their terror and lack of agency,” Horizon said.  Soge noted that it did a remarkable job of drawing horror from the mundane: “The fic creates some wonderful atmosphere with a uniquely Equestrian plague, which turns a familiar environment into a hostile one, and the concept behind it is extremely interesting — being trapped in your own home, on your own furniture, no chance of escape.”  Or, as Present Perfect put it, “Who cares about lava when the floor is clouds?”

But the character work also made a strong contribution.  “Rainbow Dash’s parents feel distinctly true to their canon characters while having the over-the-top exuberance dialed back just a tad,” Present Perfect said. “They’re definitely about the last ponies you’d expect to star in a horror fic, but they work as the stars here.”  FanOfMostEverything commented on that as well: “I think the moment that stands out the most for me is when Bow argues against helping the mare all but begging for assistance,” he said.  “This is what this plague has done. This is how far this stallion has fallen. … I swear I’m not trying to make these puns. They just keep happening.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Flutterpriest discusses nice blankets, seen tomatoes, and Sparkledeath Metallidash.
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anonpencil’s “Broken Bindings”

10 Friday Aug 2018

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Today’s story is a real page-turner.

Broken Bindings
[Dark] [Horror] [Mystery] • 23,036 words

Twilight has given you a new book to read. Well, she didn’t exactly give it to you, you actually just found it in the back of the library. Behind a shelf. On the ground. It looks very old, downright ancient, and it smells like moss and rot. The binding is a little cracked, and there’s no title on it. You can’t help but wonder what might be inside, and the only way to find out is to keep reading.

Just turn the page.

You can do that much, can’t you?

Please?

FROM THE CURATORS: Notable fanfiction can bring to life ideas that are too big for the show — but even among exemplary stories, it’s not every day you see ideas that are also too big for traditional prose.  “anonpencil’s most recent work — I hesitate to call it just a ‘fic’ — is impressive,” RBDash47 said in his nomination.  “Beyond the pure fic/storytelling aspect, pencil spent months building a multimedia experience that takes full advantage of the publishing format: this is not a story that could ever exist in book form, or even really as an ebook.”  And while that novelty caught our collective eye, what earned this a feature was its solid quality.  “There are plenty of other fics which toy with formatting,” Soge said. “What sets Broken Bindings apart is that it does these things well.”

He wasn’t the only one impressed.  “There’s substance in all of this stylish packaging, and it is some beautifully haunting work,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “anonpencil used literary devices as thoroughly and as well as she did hyperlinks and multimedia integration.”  RBDash47 praised the craft in the character work: “From a pure fic standpoint, it tells a compelling story about a mare imprisoned within a book, and is creepy while simultaneously earning the reader’s sympathies for a villain (maybe even a ‘monster’). The turn/reveal/prestige at the end also makes it an interesting commentary on ‘death of the author’ for me.”  And Present Perfect was most impressed by the consistent eye for detail: “I had so much fun finding the little inconsistencies, the seeming mistakes, and the really, really hidden stuff.  It was every bit as much fun watching the story unravel, too.  Muse’s unstable emotional state comes through in chilling ways.”

Even curators turned off by the story’s structure found themselves admiring it.  “I’m here to read a story, not play a game … the concept behind Broken Bindings, though, struck me as a really nice answer to a lot of my objections,” AugieDog said.  “If I’d just stumbled across this story on my own, I would’ve stopped about page 6, but since I was reading it for the RCL, I kept going — and found myself immensely impressed with the character’s voice, the little animations and nutty typography stuff, and the rising tension.”  And in the end, our biggest regrets were not getting to the tale sooner.  “I meant to nominate this one myself. This is what I get for procrastinating,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “In any case, this is a glorious exercise in using the medium to its absolute fullest.”

Read on for our author interview, in which anonpencil discusses brie bathing, editor cheating, and dream infiltration.
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