Tag Archives: sci-fi

MSPiper’s “Autumnfall Change”

10 Saturday Oct 2020

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You might want to keep a whiteboard handy for today’s story.

autumnfall changeAutumnfall Change
[Sci-Fi][Slice of Life][Human] • 8,419 words

Magic and technology may have pierced the void and blazed a path between the realms, but that was the simple part. Adjusting to the changes that follow can be far more daunting.

Yet despite the complexities involved even in basic communication, Serendipity has found friends to talk to among humankind who can cheer her up when she’s down. And occasionally inspire her to bursts of ingenuity unhindered by such trifles as foresight.

FROM THE CURATORS: As Present Perfect said in his nomination, “we don’t get a lot of well-written, original science fiction that is under novel length,” and despite the magical subject matter, this work still manages to be fairly “hard” sci-fi.

“It presents a truly fascinating world,” FanOfMostEverything said, “and considers a question asked by few others who deal with human-pony relations: Equestria is a whole other universe. What does that entail?” This fascinating world enraptured RBDash47 as well. “I’m a sucker for harder sci-fi that drops you straight into the universe and doesn’t hold your hand when it comes to figuring out the lingo, cultural norms, historical events, and so on. It was a delight trying to piece together what came before the events of the story and figure out what things like ‘the Quench’ are.”

There was a lot of appreciation for the thoughtfulness paid to every aspect of the story’s world. Soge praised “the way that the author plays with the concept of different senses between both species, and how it impacts the way they see each other’s world”; Present Perfect was likewise impressed by the “strong focus on perception, the ways things like a color monitor would be useless to a species with different eye biology from ours.” RBDash47 noticed that thoughtfulness extended to the story’s formatting as well: “The choice to emphasize by underlining instead of italicizing struck me as a little odd, but then I realized it’s not odd at all: all of the ‘dialogue’ here is written, not spoken, and when writing things out we do indeed underline for emphasis…”

For all its charms, this piece might not be for everyone. AugieDog pointed out “this reads to me more as a headcanon dump than a story”; Soge suggested “it feels like the CliffsNotes to something much more interesting.” RBDash47 agreed — “this feels like an excerpt from a novel, not a standalone 8k shortfic” — and loved it anyway — “but what’s there makes me feel like I’m peering through the porthole of a spacecraft, drinking in what view I have and desperate for more.”

Read on for our author interview, in which MSPiper discusses memorable moments, transcendence, and sensorial realism.

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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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AdmiralTigerclaw’s “Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger”

11 Friday May 2018

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Today’s story arrives from the past to look at the future.

Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger
[Adventure] [Sci-Fi] [Human] • 66,605 words

The star system Omega Centauri was just another oddity on a map to scientists in the not too distant future. However when they found the star was orbiting an earth-sized, earth-like planet instead of a black hole as its motion had suggested, a mission was scrambled to investigate this most unusual of celestial behaviors.

Hamstrung by politics, and nearly crippled before it began, the ‘Lone Ranger’ mission was reduced to just one crew member and left to his own devices.

These are the logs of Arrow 18 and its lone commander. This information is classified TOP SECRET by the Global Space Agency.

Do NOT tell the princess.

FROM THE CURATORS: “What we have here,” Horizon said when nominating this story, “is an early-fandom classic HiE (first chapter publication date: 2012), but with a twist: the HiE arrives not via handwavey magic but on a spaceship from 23rd-century Earth. What follows is a curious blend of standard HiE tropes, science-fiction first contact, unique Equestrian science worldbuilding, and a very pony story of friendship across a language and culture barrier.”

This reflection of ponyness and humanity was a common theme in our discussion. “The thing that really wowed me,” Present Perfect said, “is that this is a story about humans meeting ponies for the first time, where we, the reader, learn about ourselves through the eyes of ponies, through the eyes of the human protagonist. This weird feedback loop of discovery was really what kept my spirits high through the whole story, regardless of what was going on.” “The ponies’ reactions to a benign alien all ring true,” FanOfMostEverything added while Soge said, “I was just left with this pure, wholesome feeling inside at the end, just glad to see the characters’ relationships progress to that point.”

Soge went on: “Most of all, this is HiE without all those typical HiE pitfalls: The protagonist is witty but never annoying; he sees the ponies as equals; and most importantly, it does all that without a speck of the misanthropy that seems to plague even the best examples of the genre.” And that, FanOfMostEverything concluded, makes it “a very pony story in terms of its central message.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AdmiralTigerclaw discusses conceptual thunderstorms, strange nostalgia, and the curse of cursive.
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alarajrogers’ “Sleep While I Drive”

20 Friday Apr 2018

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Today’s story drives its characters to extremes.

Sleep While I Drive
[Dark] [Adventure] [Sad] [Sci-Fi] • 12,791 words

Celestia and Discord, as teens, flee their destroyed homeworld to a new world promised by a letter from Luna. But Discord can’t escape his nature, nor Celestia her memories. Being a chaos mage on a starliner is a death sentence, and yet, Discord has to keep using his mind-control powers to take Celestia’s emotions away, at her request, because otherwise she wants to die. And Gray Celestia, the discorded Celestia with no emotions but the drive to protect herself and Discord, will do anything that needs to be done to save them both.

FROM THE CURATORS: When a story tackles ambitious ideas, our commentary sometimes gets as wide-ranging as the fic itself.  “This has got tragedy, mental illness, friendship and horrible things done in the name of survival, all in spades,” Present Perfect said in his nomination, and on its way to a rare unanimous approval, compliments like FanOfMostEverything’s stacked up: “Alara excels at building a universe and finding a place for everyone in it, especially Discord,” he said.  “That skill is on full display here, blending ponies, sci-fi, and the interplay of harmony and chaos into a seamless whole.  The actual story that takes place in this universe is a breathtaking one, tackling the themes of love, loss, survivor’s guilt, prejudice, duty, and more in an interstellar narrative arc that hurts to read in the best way.”

With so much worldbuilding for the story to do, it walked a fine line between competing extremes, both in tone and character.  “The technobabble felt purposeful, and in its relatively short length it manages to build a whole universe, much darker than anything in MLP proper, but still remarkably faithful to the show — remarkable, considering Celestia’s actions throughout the story,” Soge said.  AugieDog, meanwhile, remarked on the power of its theme: “The two characters are pretty much destroying themselves in order to save the other, not becoming whole together but becoming echoing, hollow shells,” he said.  “It’s a story that could easily wear the ‘Tragedy’ tag if we didn’t know where things ultimately are heading, and maybe even then.”

Along the way, the story also offered some unique accomplishments.  “I’m unable to think of the last time I read a story that successfully pulled off both an in medias res opening and a ‘fade to black’ ending,” AugieDog said.  “Granted, it helps that we know who these characters are and what will eventually become of them, but to take a piece that doesn’t really begin and doesn’t really end and still make it into a story, that’s some writing right there.”  It was a package that added up, as Soge said, to an impressive whole: “This is a fantastic fic, full of character, amazing worldbuilding, and a dramatic flair that gives the whole thing heft and purpose.  I don’t think I’d heard of alarajrogers before, and what an introduction this was.”

Read on for our author interview, in which alarajrogers discusses deity elections, well-meaning extremists, and dining-room takeovers.
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MrNumbers’ “The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon”

31 Friday Mar 2017

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When it comes to romance, today’s story aims high.

The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon
[Alternate Universe] [Romance] [Sci-Fi] [Slice of Life] • 150,923 words

In a world of brass and steam, Twilight Sparkle had thought she had made a life-changing discovery with the invention of the telescope. For better or worse, she was correct.

Now her discovery has not only changed her life, but the lives of those she seeks out in her desperate attempt to contact the only other creature as lonely as Twilight herself.

It all would have been much simpler, but it had to be the one Twilight could only call The Mare on the Moon.

Decidedly not within walking distance, then.

FROM THE CURATORS: Part of the problem in featuring longfics is that we have to wait for them to be completed — but in cases like this, the payoff is worth the wait.  “I’ve been salivating over the prospect of being able to nominate this for months,” Horizon said.  “It’s almost outrageously fun.”  As it sailed through our voting process, it accumulated further superlatives — AugieDog’s among them: “In a few places the plot machinery creaks a bit too loudly, so I can only call the story really, really, really good instead of mind-bogglingly excellent.”

In a way, there was almost too much to like about this fic.  “It is, in fact, two stories, in tone and style; the first is a steampunk slice-of-life about Twilight meeting the girls and falling in love with an idea, while the second is a rollicking intrigue/adventure tale of plots, counterplots, lust, and occasionally massive explosions,” Chris said.  “But although there’s a fair bit of awkwardness to the way those two things are put together, the piece as a whole remains a rewarding reading experience.”  Horizon appreciated it all: “Even though its central romance had me cheering, the real highlight here is the inventors’ tense struggle against both physics and government attention.”  And AugieDog praised the sharp writing throughout both halves: “The narrative voice has just the right mix of snark, seriousness, and ‘sense of wonder’ to carry the piece through the emotional — and literal — roller-coaster of the storyline.”

We all agreed that among the highlights was the story’s treatment of its dynamic and memorable cast.  “The characters are all unmistakably themselves, but they’ve been bent in a number of interesting ways by the world the author has conjured up,” AugieDog said. “That world is the star of the show, especially since — for all the setting’s enormous differences — it all hinges, as a proper AU should, around one simple change to the canon chronology.”  Chris agreed:  “Seeing how the setting has changed the characters is a source of continuous interest.  This story builds them up, bit by bit, slowly revealing layers to each of their personalities, in an organic manner which mirrors Twilight’s own learning about them.”  And, as Horizon noted, it does that without losing sight of its essential poniness: “The story walks the tightrope over the chasm of grim Tyrantlestia without ever straying from a world where friendship is an active, driving and redemptive force.”

Read on for our author interview, in which MrNumbers (and several guest footnoters!) discuss ugly oil-lamp beauty, copyright-compliant weapons, and grand theft bat.
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Lise Eclaire’s “Arête – Princess Alicorn of Hackers”

03 Friday Feb 2017

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What a tangled Web today’s story weaves!

areteArête – Princess Alicorn of Hackers
[Adventure] [Alternate Universe] [Sci-Fi] • 35,168 words

Dinky leads a double life. In the real world she is an average pony in her final year of school, slightly timid, bored with everything around her. In the Dream-Web she is a hacker who wants to make a name for herself.

One evening she stumbles on something that has both her lives merge in one, as she seeks to find whether the Web really is run by deities, or is this just a trick by the Starswirl Conglomerate.

FROM THE CURATORS: While we had a spirited debate over the relative merits of this story, there was one thing on which we all agreed.  “The cyberpunk aesthetic and page-turning, pulse-pounding action are the big things right,” as Present Perfect put it, and it was our collective enjoyment which solidified the story’s feature.  “It has been a while since I read a story that was this much of a romp,” Chris said, and Horizon agreed: “It was a page-turner.  I read this over most of a week, and every time I returned to it I was looking forward to seeing what happened next.”

That gripping pace was part-and-parcel of the faithful way the story executed on its genre.  “It’s got all the big hallmarks of ’80s-style hacker/cyberpunk,’ for better and for worse,” Chris said.  “On the downside, it sometimes flattens its characters, and its dramas are awfully convenient. But that’s part of the charm of this piece: piling on the technobabble and twists without ever bogging down or being difficult to follow.”  AugieDog agreed that that accessibility was another of the story’s core strengths.  “The only computer class I’ve ever taken in my life was back in 1982, learning to write BASIC programs on Radio Shack TRS-80 computers,” he said. “And yet I really enjoyed this.”

Much of our debate focused on the story’s other genre choices.  “The narrative style turns every little thing into a major crisis, which effectively keeps the tension up … but sacrifices the sense of emotional proportion,” Horizon said.  “It’s very Young-Adult novel, which is a genre I usually appreciate from a distance.”  That was also a tough sell for Soge.  “I found the whole teenager drama aspect to be uninteresting,” he said.  “But the idea of a dream web is interesting and imaginative; the hacker-pulp angle gives the story a nice, upbeat rhythm without being straight-up ridiculous; and Diamond Tiara is fantastic throughout.”  And AugieDog found that same writing style a strength.  “The ‘teen angst’ stuff is what made it for me,” he said.  “As YA pony cyberpulp, this stands up and dances.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Lise Eclaire discusses cat factories, glacial ridges, and the million-word threshold.

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Doppler Effect’s “A Brief History Of Time”

06 Friday May 2016

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… Therefore, by Farnsworth’s logic, we were always meant to feature today’s story.

brief-history-timeA Brief History Of Time
[Drama] [Sci-Fi] • 5,861 words

“Anything that happens, happens.

Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.

It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.”

– Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Twilight and Minuette discuss Starlight Glimmer’s timeline disruptions.

Twilight just wishes the conversation had happened in chronological order.

FROM THE CURATORS: There are two types of fanfics — those which leap from canon into the unknown and unexplored, and those which dig into the details of the show to bring new context to the moments we love — and this is an easy exemplar of the second type.  “At its heart, this is a short and simple exploration of how to reconcile the S5 finale with It’s About Time‘s premise of stable time loops,” Chris said in his nomination.  Horizon praised the nuance with which it handled that topic: “The way this squares two episodes with seemingly incompatible time-travel theories is sharp, and it’s got a good eye for the multiple-timeline consequences the episode leaves unexplored.  It’s nice to find writing both this smart and this clear.”  AugieDog especially appreciated that clarity: “Time travel stories in general make me itchy, so anything that serves to lessen that itchiness is always welcome.”

But this fic isn’t content to merely bat around time-travel ideas.  “There are tons of cool little details, like the idea that Equestria would have a journal for both fiction and true accounts, or the rotation of the magical bubble,” Soge said.  “It takes a premise which could easily fit a blog post, and turns it into a full fledged story thanks to some great characterization work.”

It was that “terrific character writing,” as AugieDog put it, that sealed the deal on the feature.  “I love it when Minuette gets serious and Twilight realizes that this isn’t just a theoretical discussion they’re having — and the way the story comes up with a Pony-logical solution for the problem it’s addressing,” AugieDog added.  Soge enjoyed the characters as well: “Minuette is adorable, Twilight is perfectly in character, and it has amazing comedic timing,” he said.  And, as Chris noted, Minuette’s personality served the story very well: “Her cheeky carefree-ity is used to keep what could easily have become an overly-technical bit of headcanon from being too narrow in scope or dry in tone.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Doppler Effect discusses Novikov consistency, Terminator predestination, and Asimov’s ambiguously real goose.
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ponichaeism’s “The Mare In The High Castle”

20 Friday Mar 2015

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Broadcasting on all frequencies, today’s story comes to you from an Equestria that’s turned dark in more ways than one.

mare-in-high-castleThe Mare In The High Castle
[Alternate Universe] [Dark] [Drama] [Mystery] [Sci-Fi] [Thriller] • 161,695 words

“Hello, hello, hello, this is Thorny Bends coming at you live on Radio Free Canterlot, and from where I’m sitting, folks, the Land of the Eternal Moon is looking lovely. Well, except for that nasty smog cloud rolling toward us from the coast, but hey, that’s the price of progress. Still, if you’re heading outside you might want to think about an Easy Breezy-brand respirator, guaranteed to make the air taste like new. Buy yours from all major retailers today!

“As I’m sure you all know, it’s been almost a thousand years since the founding of our great civilization. And as the big day approaches, I sure hope the High Castle set their clocks right. I’d hate to find out it was really last Thursday. Ha! But seriously, folks. I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking about our fair Canterlot, and I’ve realized it isn’t just somewhere we all live. It’s what we build together into something greater as we all reach for the moon. A symbol for a way of life and a state of mind. So, in honor of the thousand years, I’m taking an eye in the sky peek into the lives of the ponies on the streets, and a few in the penthouses too. I don’t often do real news on this show, but these are some genuine equine interest stories, folks. In their own small, unique way, these ponies are as vital to the city as the princess of the night herself. So settle down, get comfortable, and don’t touch that dial.

“You won’t want to miss this, I guarantee.”

FROM THE CURATORS: This story’s path to its feature started with a suggestion on our recommendation thread, and despite its 160,000-word length, it caught our attention right away with its vivid portrayal of an eternal-night Equestria.  “This story is far from being merely a pony re-write of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle,” JohnPerry said.  “The level of thought that went into developing this nightmarish — yet eerily familiar — alternate world and its cruel philosophies is astounding, and it manages to combine an epic scope with surprisingly intimate portrayals of its characters.”  Chris agreed: “This is a wonderful use of the AU tag. It takes a single conceit — that something went differently a thousand years ago — and projects how that one change would reverberate to the present, butterfly-in-China-style.”

We all agreed that the characterization which followed from that shift was exemplary, and Horizon cited one of High Castle’s central examples. “Twilight Sparkle spends the vast majority of the story as a reprehensible alcoholic racist haunted by nightmares,” he said, “and yet the entire setting and theme of the story are crafted so as to make it clear that she is that way because their world is fundamentally broken, and the Twilight we see is just a reflection of that.”  JohnPerry agreed, adding, “it’s incredible how ponichaeism managed to make the characters recognizable in spite of all the horrors of the world they are subjected to.”

The story doesn’t flinch from presenting those horrors as necessary to explore the dark corners of its premise, which earned high praise from Chris. “Can we take a moment to talk about Granny Smith?” he said.  “Because she’s where the author most impressed me on the pacing front. … She’s slotted in right where she needs to be to have maximum impact with minimum premise-questioning by the readers, and (up until the end) that’s how I felt about most of the big revelations.”

But The Mare In The High Castle isn’t just a parade of bleakness.  “It has a lot to say about the earth counterparts of the things it ponifies, but it has a lot to say about the ponies at the same time, and this is fundamentally and unquestionably MLP at heart,” Horizon said.  “For instance, this is the finest Flash Sentry story this fandom will ever produce.  He’s just as broken as the rest of this world, but he owns it, and he stands up and shows us that there can be beauty regardless.  I want to feature it for that alone.”

Read on for our author interview, in which ponichaeism discusses Gnostic sects, uncarved blocks, and the curious collision of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski and Philip K. Dick.
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