Review of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

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

Let’s see what this result 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 relation it makes with the other nations, as well as some war with the Changelin.

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

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

• Finding natural reserve of Liquified Natural Gas
• Experts notice increase in baby birth, theorised to be due to worry of the future (which by itself may be questionable)... 11 days after the transplantation!
• TV5Monde and France 24 appears far more popular than they actually are in France. Those two channels are targetted at foreigners. (later on, TF1 is also used)
• Assuming the transplantation will be permanent (with no explanation of why such 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 gets addressed later on)

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

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

I also really appreciated the structure of the book. How it devide everything into a few page worth of a perspective before switching to another one (without necesserally being a new one each time). I remember having read another book with something similar. It was a narrator alternating each chapter. 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 those kind of unrealistic stuff I mentionned previously.

The 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.