Fanfic 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.
Fanfic Ambitious, But Highly Flawed
So, I just sat down and, with no prior exposure to the Fallout: Equestria multiverse, binge-read my way through Project: Horizons. I can definitely see why this is a fic that you either love or hate, with most being inclined to "hate". Firstly, let's get this out of the way: this fic is HUGE, being the textual equivalent of playing a complete, all-DLC-installed run of Fallout: New Vegas, and that either adds to its epic feel or makes it more of a slog to get through.
Let's start with the flaws. Perhaps the second greatest weakness of this story is that it wants to simultaneously be a companion piece to the original Fallout: Equestria and tell its own tale, which leads to internal contradictions and contributes to the "bloated" feeling of the fic - it would have been far better off sticking to one angle or the other.
The greatest weakness is the repetitiveness of the narrative; so much of the fic is just a cycle of "Blackjack does a thing, it becomes a Pyrrhic Victory, Blackjack has a breakdown, somebody builds her back up" that it becomes repetitive. I don't know if the author was trying to emphasize Blackjack's "Luck Stat 1" nature, promoting the fic's Darker and Edgier nature, or was just really bad at thinking of new stuff to do. As ridiculous as the final third of the fic can get, at least it largely has Blackjack actually getting to do some pretty awesome things... even if it does lead right to a Bittersweet Ending.
The excessive grimdarkness is also a major flaw, because a lot of the time it detracts from the story — why did Blackjack need to have personally wronged P-21 in the manners that she did, given the end result was to make them become so strongly connected to each other? It just strains suspension of disbelief.
Speaking personally, I also felt it was a strike against the fic when it started become more sexualised. I'm not one of those prudes who objects to erotica, but Blackjack's sexual appetites become so much more emphasized after chapter 50 that she feels like a completely different mare. The fact it takes until chapter 50 to spell out Stable 99's approach to sexuality also detracts, as it makes it feel less organically set up and more just rammed in.
Characterization is... well, it's a matter of taste. I personally never found the characters too unlikable, even I can definitely understand the frustration with Blackjack's "I'm not an executioner!" ideology.
And then there's the Goldenblood character. This character was a bad idea. As fun as the idea of exploring how and why Luna and the Ministries devolved to what they did was, creating a secret mastermind behind everything just felt cheap and lazy.
As for what this fic does right? Personally, I really enjoy the worldbuilding. I love the variety of crazy experiments, because it makes sense and it homages the multitude of evil experiments from the Fallout games very well. The emphasis on the magic keeps the fic feeling grounded in its FiM roots. The decision to focus on the more cosmic horror elements also gives the fic a very unique feel, even if it does ruin the "companion piece" angle the author was going for because it completely contradicts some rather important lore in FO:E.
All in all... I can't say I'd recommend this story unless you have a high tolerance for grimdark, struggling heroes and bittersweet endings, or you're a massive Fallout: Equestria fan.