Coming up next on Problematic Reviews

Coming up next on Problematic Reviews

Saturday, March 2, 2013

FiM Fiction Review - Lethe



Rainbow Dash losing her memories with a TwiDash twist? I could get into this. Perservation’s really did a good job here. Lethe has an enthralling plot and revolves around some deep concepts when you put some thought into it. Not to mention that Preservation really knows how to use a thesaurus and it shows. I really enjoyed this story and was truly impressed by it. Lets take a look at this beauty, shall we? 
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Lethe by Preservation
Complete (last updated Oct. 12, 2012)
Following an unknown incident on the border of the Everfree Forest, Twilight and Rainbow set out to discover the cause of the pegasus' amnesia and restore her memory. Yet the vehicle of her amnesia is linked not only to their past, but to an ancient magic, lost to the world a thousand years ago. Read it here.
Tags: RomanceDarkCrossoverAdventureAlternate Universe
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Since my reviews focus on the mechanical elements of a piece of literature, not so much appeal and creativity, I can't help but to start off by mentioning how phenomenal the vocabulary used in this story is. It’s easy to notice just how much effort went into making a well-worded, thought-provoking story within the first few paragraphs. Not to mention that the heavy use of such words put down an excellent amount of foreshadowing and mood. Although it is not the vocabulary that impressed me, but how it is presented. It’s not how beautiful the words were that made the piece shine, but how Preservation used them. Take this sentence for example: Observing the countryside, the stream made its way to the town of Ponyville, gently caressing the outer bounds of the bordering farmland before, finally, it trickled guilty into the Everfree Forest. It’s absolutely mind-blowing how much of the scenery is stuffed into one sentence! Not only that but, how notice how the adjectives give the “stream” a personality. This is an excellent example of experienced writing. It doesn't really show that this is Preservation’s first fanfic does it?
As we all know, great words don't mean great stories. I have to admit, the first chapter was hinting at a bad review. The early events of Lethe were really spoiled by bad pacing. The events went from-scene-to-scene-to-scene and in the end, lacked weight. Although the pacing was certainly not a problem later in the story, I quickly forgot the first chapter. Lethe could have definitely been flawless aside from this pacing issue. With that, it was really impressive when awesome wording, excellent pacing, and mood-setting scene description came together in the later chapters.
Aside from the pacing issue in the first chapter and the excellent vocabulary, I don’t have much to say about Lethe. Characterization of Twilight and Rainbow Dash was mediocre, but given the situation, their actions and thoughts were very realistic. The dialogue was mediocre as well. Not to mention how the story jumps around a lot in the second chapter. It’s not too noticeable; and is probably due to my short attention span; but the second chapter became very confusing when the scenes start and end very abruptly. A lot of of Lethe was mediocre, but it excelled in many aspects and I definitely recommend it to those of you who are looking for a sort-of-short story to read.
Lethe gets a rating of: 8 out of 10
Read it here.

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