As I've gotten older, I have come to genuinely enjoy reading fan fiction. I like seeing how fans can change and improve upon ideas that were in the base story, and sometimes do things better than the original. But there are some stories that, when I read them, make me think "So this is why there are people who think all fan fiction is terrible." Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons is one of those stories. It is, without a doubt in my mind, one of the most painfully bad stories I have ever read in my life.
Now, I want to preface this by saying that I did read the original Fallout Equestria. It wasn't amazing, but it was better than I thought it would be going in. And I do think Somber is significantly better than Kkat at worldbuilding. But that, sadly, is the only positive thing I have to say about this.
Project Horizons has a lot of flaws, but there are 2 main things here that made it almost unbearable for me to read: the main character and the pacing. Blackjack is one of the most unlikeable characters I think I've ever seen in anything. She is an obnoxious, whiny, self centered Mary Sue who is always right because the writer says so. The best example of this was when she met the highlander group in chapter 42 and every single one of them liked and agreed with her immediately except one guy. Guess whose the only one to die at the end of the section? And he only dies after he "tragically" admits he was wrong and she is actually the super amazing hero of the wasteland. I get that Somber was trying to make her a "likable idiot hero," but he failed miserably at likable part.
I probably wouldn't have ended up hating her as much as I did if her dialogue (and really, everyone's dialogue) wasn't so poorly written. She and everyone around her seem to have 2 modes of personality: either acting out a really bad comedy skit or wangsting so hard that Shinji Ikari himself would tell them to tone it down. This is only made worse by the stories godawful pacing. The whole thing is 77 chapters long and you could cut out roughly 40 of them and end up with the exact same ending. It feels like Somber knew that the premise for the story was relatively simple (it's essentially a MacGuffin hunt), so he decided to pad it out as much as humanly possible. There are some subplots that were done well like the Marauders, Goldenblood's backstory and everything with Thunderhead, but for every one that I liked there were about 30 that felt like a complete waste of time.
It's a shame this turned out the way it did. I liked the start a lot more than I liked the start of the original. But the story quickly loses all sense of momentum and just sort of goes in circles for about 14 chapters before the plot starts then stops again. There are glimpses of a really good story here. But I wish they weren't buried under a mountain of padding, annoying characters and bad dialogue. Even if you liked the original story, there is no reason to read this.
Shockingly Bad
As I've gotten older, I have come to genuinely enjoy reading fan fiction. I like seeing how fans can change and improve upon ideas that were in the base story, and sometimes do things better than the original. But there are some stories that, when I read them, make me think "So this is why there are people who think all fan fiction is terrible." Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons is one of those stories. It is, without a doubt in my mind, one of the most painfully bad stories I have ever read in my life.
Now, I want to preface this by saying that I did read the original Fallout Equestria. It wasn't amazing, but it was better than I thought it would be going in. And I do think Somber is significantly better than Kkat at worldbuilding. But that, sadly, is the only positive thing I have to say about this.
Project Horizons has a lot of flaws, but there are 2 main things here that made it almost unbearable for me to read: the main character and the pacing. Blackjack is one of the most unlikeable characters I think I've ever seen in anything. She is an obnoxious, whiny, self centered Mary Sue who is always right because the writer says so. The best example of this was when she met the highlander group in chapter 42 and every single one of them liked and agreed with her immediately except one guy. Guess whose the only one to die at the end of the section? And he only dies after he "tragically" admits he was wrong and she is actually the super amazing hero of the wasteland. I get that Somber was trying to make her a "likable idiot hero," but he failed miserably at likable part.
I probably wouldn't have ended up hating her as much as I did if her dialogue (and really, everyone's dialogue) wasn't so poorly written. She and everyone around her seem to have 2 modes of personality: either acting out a really bad comedy skit or wangsting so hard that Shinji Ikari himself would tell them to tone it down. This is only made worse by the stories godawful pacing. The whole thing is 77 chapters long and you could cut out roughly 40 of them and end up with the exact same ending. It feels like Somber knew that the premise for the story was relatively simple (it's essentially a MacGuffin hunt), so he decided to pad it out as much as humanly possible. There are some subplots that were done well like the Marauders, Goldenblood's backstory and everything with Thunderhead, but for every one that I liked there were about 30 that felt like a complete waste of time.
It's a shame this turned out the way it did. I liked the start a lot more than I liked the start of the original. But the story quickly loses all sense of momentum and just sort of goes in circles for about 14 chapters before the plot starts then stops again. There are glimpses of a really good story here. But I wish they weren't buried under a mountain of padding, annoying characters and bad dialogue. Even if you liked the original story, there is no reason to read this.