Hey look, I actually wrote another review! Just like my last one, this story also has a military theme to it. I have to say, it was something of an interesting read... What? I'm not telling you if that's a good or bad thing. You should know me better than that by now!
Author: BaroqueNexus
My name is none of your concern. We are not alone. Humans are no longer the only creatures that walk, talk, write, and kill. In 2015, the Pentagon received direct contact from an extraterrestrial with an offer that we soon realized was too good to pass up. In exchange, we had to eliminate one of her kind. We were desperate, and this alien held in her hooves the key to humanity's prolonged survival. One man was assigned for the mission.
I was that man, and that mission was called Operation: Usurped Dawn.
So, how does the author of The Pony in my Pocket do this time? You've got the green-light. Get ready to jump!
Usurped Dawn (Word Count: 21,887)
I'm going to start this off a little differently. A long time ago, in a magical land called "High School," one of my English teachers once gave a generally good piece of advice: write about what you know. Is this a sacred rule to never be broken? Of course not! It does, however, help you to avoid writing things that are just plain wrong, which brings me to this story.
I'm doing this like a Band-Aid, so this is going to sting for a moment.
Don't get me wrong, BaroqueNexus does military themed stories rather well for someone who's not military. I still stand by my very positive review of The Pony in my Pocket, and my only issue with Wings was my disappointment that it wasn't fleshed-out more, but this story just gave me a bit too many gripes over the whole military thing. Who makes Colonel in 14 years? What is a Colonel doing out in the field? Why wasn't the cargo plane the standard C-130? That is NOT how you resist being interrogated! NO ONE MAKES GENERAL IN 10 YEARS, NO ONE!
Don't get me wrong, BaroqueNexus does military themed stories rather well for someone who's not military. I still stand by my very positive review of The Pony in my Pocket, and my only issue with Wings was my disappointment that it wasn't fleshed-out more, but this story just gave me a bit too many gripes over the whole military thing. Who makes Colonel in 14 years? What is a Colonel doing out in the field? Why wasn't the cargo plane the standard C-130? That is NOT how you resist being interrogated! NO ONE MAKES GENERAL IN 10 YEARS, NO ONE!
Relax... deep breaths... I mean, he doesn't get it all wrong. I'm getting ahead of myself, anyway.
If you've read the description, you know this is a story about an elite military assassin that has been tasked to eliminate what we can safely assume is a pony. SPOILER ALERT: it's Celestia. It's called Usurped Dawn! The author practically spells it out! If you didn't see that coming, you might be a Marine want to have your head examined. Even the villain is predictable!... or that could just be hindsight talking. Let me put it to you this way: do you think the villain will be Nightmare Moon, Queen Chrysalis, or some OC villain? Could it maybe be King Sombra? You don't know, do you? NO LOOKING AT THE TAGS, CHEATER!
Hindsight... always fooling us into thinking we're smarter than we are, amiright?
So what's good about the plot? Quite a bit, actually! That is, once you get passed the military mistakes and somewhat hard to believe premise... and the author really never does say how the worlds become linked or how certain ponies have known about Earth for apparently centuries. On the other hand, I can honestly say that I never really found the story predictable, which is a major plus for me. Every time I tried to think ahead to what could happen next, I found that there was really no one obvious option. Case in point: I thought it was just as likely that the assassination would fail as it was that Celestia would be killed. Not only that, it was a rather different approach to the "Human in Equestria" thing, and it managed to stay quite consistent with itself, drawing upon earlier mentioned details later in the story. Very well done.
There are, however, some issues in the writing. You get your unavoidable grammar, formatting, spelling, and typo derps here and there, but nothing story breaking... at first anyway. It doesn't start bad, I promise! But as you battle your way through the epic, nearly 22k word chapter, they start popping up more and more, like walking further into a minefield. Though never unreadable, the writing starts having those bumps in the road that won't let you simply enjoy the story. One part in particular DID make me stop reading as I tried to figure out what just happened. Essentially, there's this big moment of "Wait, you've known about humans?" Apparently, it's so stunning the author gives us a repeat performance, written in a slightly different way mind you, just a moment later. I'm calling it right now: failed rewrite where both version were kept.
I won't lie, there were parts where I just wanted to slam my head on my desk when reading this story. I can use one word to sum this up better than anything: Ponytanium....
Seriously? I feel like the author wanted me to facepalm... and maybe he did.
It also just comes across as pretentious at certain points. The worst offender is the Colonel: he's always trying to downplay himself, but all his apparent humility just seems faked. It's like he's saying "I'm totally not a big deal," while he's describing to us every single amazing accomplishment he's ever done. He doesn't even tell us his name, which I have to agree with the author isn't that important... or it wouldn't have been, but it becomes a big deal later when the author makes a big scene where he DOES give his name, but in a way where we still don't know what it is. The name thing just feels like a cliché gimmick.
Hindsight... always fooling us into thinking we're smarter than we are, amiright?
So what's good about the plot? Quite a bit, actually! That is, once you get passed the military mistakes and somewhat hard to believe premise... and the author really never does say how the worlds become linked or how certain ponies have known about Earth for apparently centuries. On the other hand, I can honestly say that I never really found the story predictable, which is a major plus for me. Every time I tried to think ahead to what could happen next, I found that there was really no one obvious option. Case in point: I thought it was just as likely that the assassination would fail as it was that Celestia would be killed. Not only that, it was a rather different approach to the "Human in Equestria" thing, and it managed to stay quite consistent with itself, drawing upon earlier mentioned details later in the story. Very well done.
There are, however, some issues in the writing. You get your unavoidable grammar, formatting, spelling, and typo derps here and there, but nothing story breaking... at first anyway. It doesn't start bad, I promise! But as you battle your way through the epic, nearly 22k word chapter, they start popping up more and more, like walking further into a minefield. Though never unreadable, the writing starts having those bumps in the road that won't let you simply enjoy the story. One part in particular DID make me stop reading as I tried to figure out what just happened. Essentially, there's this big moment of "Wait, you've known about humans?" Apparently, it's so stunning the author gives us a repeat performance, written in a slightly different way mind you, just a moment later. I'm calling it right now: failed rewrite where both version were kept.
I won't lie, there were parts where I just wanted to slam my head on my desk when reading this story. I can use one word to sum this up better than anything: Ponytanium....
Seriously? I feel like the author wanted me to facepalm... and maybe he did.
It also just comes across as pretentious at certain points. The worst offender is the Colonel: he's always trying to downplay himself, but all his apparent humility just seems faked. It's like he's saying "I'm totally not a big deal," while he's describing to us every single amazing accomplishment he's ever done. He doesn't even tell us his name, which I have to agree with the author isn't that important... or it wouldn't have been, but it becomes a big deal later when the author makes a big scene where he DOES give his name, but in a way where we still don't know what it is. The name thing just feels like a cliché gimmick.
This story also suffers from Wall-o-Text syndrome. With most stories in the fan base being fired in short one-shots or burst into reasonably-sized chapters, this story is like a minigun, with all of it's over 21k words being shoved into ONE chapter. There are even points in the story that would clearly make for good stopping points to end a chapter and start the next, but the author doesn't take advantage of this... and he doesn't care. Trust me, he says so in the comments. I'd call it lazy, but... I'm not here to pass judgment. Wait, yes I am! LAZY!
Overall, the writing could have been done better, especially with the whole aspect of Show VS Tell. I mean, "horrible-tasting MRE" was the best he could come up with? Some of the dialogue could have been better executed as well, not to mention I felt like the author was dumbing things down WAY too much for the reader. It could just be my military exposure, but I thought he was just to obvious with some of his explanations of how the Colonel could do what he did. Example: "For anyone else, it would be arduous to run with so much gear on, but I’d grown used to it after countless training exercises and missions. I could run a mile in six minutes. This was nothing." Of course he's fit! He's SOF (Special Operations Forces)! Even I, an Air Force guy, have had my fair share of training rucking-it through the woods with 80 pounds of gear on. His explanations just lack subtlety and that poetic delivery.
Now, now. Don't get all upset. I did like this story. It has quite the amusing mix of humor and seriousness that seems to work ever so well for military themed stories. Lines like “I wish you luck, Colonel. You are brave," followed by, “No, I’m stupid. But where I come from, there’s hardly a difference between the two,” will give you a good chuckle while the interesting internal conflict and dark tone will always bring you back to the reality he's on a mission to eliminate Princess Celestia. Actually, the internal conflict and philosophical issues that go on inside the Colonel's coconut as he's waiting to assassinate our favorite Sun Goddess is perhaps what I liked most!
You know what? I'm glad he doesn't take the stereotypical "cold, calculating, desensitized military assassin" approach. Soldiers are human, though we can't always act like it. The author could have easily made him a remorseless killer, but he made him have feelings and doubts about being just a weapon, with a constant battle raging between his suspicions and his obligation to follow orders. Good on him. It always comes down to the fact that the person on the other end of that scope is still a human being--or a pony in this case--no matter how bad they are. The only way I've justified my career choice to myself is with the thought that I'm in the military to protect the lives of others, and that unfortunately means you sometimes have to kill the "bad guys."
Overall, the writing could have been done better, especially with the whole aspect of Show VS Tell. I mean, "horrible-tasting MRE" was the best he could come up with? Some of the dialogue could have been better executed as well, not to mention I felt like the author was dumbing things down WAY too much for the reader. It could just be my military exposure, but I thought he was just to obvious with some of his explanations of how the Colonel could do what he did. Example: "For anyone else, it would be arduous to run with so much gear on, but I’d grown used to it after countless training exercises and missions. I could run a mile in six minutes. This was nothing." Of course he's fit! He's SOF (Special Operations Forces)! Even I, an Air Force guy, have had my fair share of training rucking-it through the woods with 80 pounds of gear on. His explanations just lack subtlety and that poetic delivery.
Now, now. Don't get all upset. I did like this story. It has quite the amusing mix of humor and seriousness that seems to work ever so well for military themed stories. Lines like “I wish you luck, Colonel. You are brave," followed by, “No, I’m stupid. But where I come from, there’s hardly a difference between the two,” will give you a good chuckle while the interesting internal conflict and dark tone will always bring you back to the reality he's on a mission to eliminate Princess Celestia. Actually, the internal conflict and philosophical issues that go on inside the Colonel's coconut as he's waiting to assassinate our favorite Sun Goddess is perhaps what I liked most!
You know what? I'm glad he doesn't take the stereotypical "cold, calculating, desensitized military assassin" approach. Soldiers are human, though we can't always act like it. The author could have easily made him a remorseless killer, but he made him have feelings and doubts about being just a weapon, with a constant battle raging between his suspicions and his obligation to follow orders. Good on him. It always comes down to the fact that the person on the other end of that scope is still a human being--or a pony in this case--no matter how bad they are. The only way I've justified my career choice to myself is with the thought that I'm in the military to protect the lives of others, and that unfortunately means you sometimes have to kill the "bad guys."
Rating thingies below:
| Originality: | 4.5 out of 5 rounds. |
| Composition: | 3 out of 5 rounds. |
| Characters: | 3.5 out of 5 rounds. |
| Imagery: | 3 out of 5 rounds. |
| Plot: | 4 out of 5 rounds. |
| Relatability: | 4 out of 5 rounds. |
| Overall: | 3.67 out of 5 rounds. |
My overall opinion? The concept is intriguing and the story is rather good, you just have to get passed all of it's flaws. I would consider this story a diamond in the rough, but still a diamond nonetheless.
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