Review of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

So... What if I start doing reviews on my site?

Let’s see what this results into!

I recently finished this Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité fanfic.

It tells the story of the nation of France, being transported into a version of Equestria, and the relations it forms with the other nations, as well as some wars with the Changelings.

Clearly, this work does not shine for its prose. It quickly gets confusing, to the point it might be hard to know if the statements are from the narrator or the characters.

While it is apparent the author made a laudable attempt at realism, this work does not really shine from it, given the non negligeable amount of implausible or plain wrong things stated. Here are some examples I found funny :

• Finding natural reserves of liquefied natural gas
• Experts notice an increase in baby births, theorised to be due to worry of the future (which by itself may be questionable)... 11 days after the transplantation!
• TV5Monde and France 24 appear far more popular than they actually are in France. Those two channels are targeted at foreigners. (later on, TF1 is also used)
• Assuming the transplantation will be permanent (with no explanation of why such a perspective is warranted)
• It appears that the top priority of Hollande is to start building a new aircraft carrier. The kind of things that take years, when there is certainly a lot of other priorities (that eventually get addressed later on)

There are others, but those are the ones I remember without having to open the (e)book again.

Now, for a more positive side, I really like the premise. I was looking for a work that was about human‑pony cohabitation, especially where ponies would evolve alongside humans. This story is not really what I was looking for, but it is nevertheless about inter‑species relations, and that’s cool (though here, more from the prism of international relations). Arguably, it is also about how cool France is. That story definitively narrates a quite uncritical perspective of France (and of the other nations, for that matter. Except the Changelings).

I also really appreciated the structure of the book. How it divides everything into a few pages worth of a perspective before switching to another one (without necessarily being a new one each time). I remember having read another book with something similar. It was a narrator alternating each chapters. Which is not the case here.

Oh! Also, that’s a story. The story itself is good and interesting. It would be better without all that kind of unrealistic stuff I mentioned previously.

There is also a follow‑up, The Southern Expedition. I have yet to read it.

That’s it. First time doing a review. Maybe you’ll want to read it. Maybe not. I would recommend it only if you are interested in the premise of some nation being transplanted into the world of Equestria.