Fallout: Equestria

Fallout: Equestria #1

by kkat

Fallout. With ponies! Set in an alternate future, one pony must learn to survive in a blasted, poisoned land... and possibly, with the aid of friends made along the way, bring new light into the darkness of post-apocalyptic Equestria.

Genres: Fan Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Dragons, Dystopia, Audiobook

1600 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Jonathan Scotese · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes me wish copyright laws did not exist, because I would pay good money for a more edited and professional version. This book is a mash up between "My Little Pony" and the "Fallout" videogame series.

Kkat creates a Fallout version of Equestria. The story takes place roughly 300 years after the events in the TV show, but the show is cannon in this universe. Kkat filled in blank spaces from MLP and advanced the timeline by several decades, until the events seamlessly lead to an apocalypse and the creation of the Equestrian Wasteland. The story is set a couple of centuries after that. Half of the bizarre charm this book has is in slowly piecing together what lead to the apocalypse and what happened to the main characters of the TV show,

This series is as violent and graphic as the Fallout series, which is rated M for mature. The violence seems even more shocking than the Fallout universe because of the juxtaposition of the two series. It is definitely not for children.

The setting and backstory are amazing, the ways that things from both universes are brought together and shown in thematically hybrid forms is clever to the point of genius. The weakest part are the characters. I wish I could articulate it better but the characters feel like fanfiction characters. They tell more than they show and the character development seems like it would make sense in an outline but is not implemented in a way that feels organic to me. It is fanfiction, so expecting characters like A Game of Thrones is a bit much, but this still is the weakest point in my mind.

There are a few romantic subplots, something about non-humans having romantic feelings makes my skin crawl a bit. I had the same problem with a lot of Piers Anthony's work. I guess I'm just prejudiced.

All in all, this book is very clever. I enjoyed reading it and heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys the two sources that it draws on.

[Hunterz263 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I get into the actual review of the book, let me explain a little bit about the books target audience. This is not a published book or an unofficial, non-published book. This is a fan fiction. Specifically, a brony fan fiction. Now, a fan fiction "is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator." The final part of this before the review is the term "brony". A brony is, at it's core, an older male fan of the television show "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". Now, don't just turn around and say this story is written in a childish tone because it's not.

I think I'll start this review out with the plot line. The story follows the perspective of Littlepip and her adventures through the Equestrian Wasteland. Along the way she will meet various characters that accompany her throughout the whole story. Now plot wise, it was actually really well done. Every chapter draws from the last and the attention to detail is suburb in every way. It is also interesting considering the fact this story is told through the limited-first person view narrative most of the time. You never see anything beyond the eyes and ears of Littlepip most of the way. This style actually adds to the shock value once the story gets further along it's path.

Next up we have the characters. Characters in books are always important as they can never be too powerful or all the emotional and sense of danger is lost to the reader. Fallout: Equestria's characters are not that thankfully. They all have flaws whether emotionally or physically, some even mentally. I would do an in-depth character analysis but I really don't want to spoil their personalities at all.

Progression wise, it's mainly on a positive track, but it sometimes falls short in a few areas. The main reason why it can slow down is because the author took so much time to describe every last detail in a single room. And there is a lot of rooms in chapters. Detail is good, but making to much can just bore the reader a lot because they have to drag on through it. It doesn't help either that the author puts an important item in the middle of a paragraph either. Progression is good, but it's slowed down mainly due to the amount of detail as I stressed already.

Probably one of my favorite parts in this book is how fleshed out she makes the world. As stated above, the detail the author puts in this story can slow it down quite a bit. But on the flip side, it makes the world come alive. The images created in the readers head are just so vivid and real. The author also created a whole different world than what was established on the TV show this draws inspiration off of. This is one of the book's highest strengths by far.

The last part before the overall rating of this book. The writing and grammar. The author of this book has done a fantastic job on the grammar area, I saw no spelling mistakes in the whole entire book. The author wasn't afraid to pull out the big words either to describe something either. Every word was perfectly and strategically placed to produce a masterpiece in grammar.

Overall the book is a fantastic read to anyone. It may have ponies in it, but these ponies are some of the most adults characters I have ever seen in literature. Don't let it's roots deceive you, the book is not meant for younger audiences at all in anyway. Go ahead and pull this one up because it is fantastic.

Ten out of ten stars.

(Link to the book. Just select the chapter and it will take you to the document so you can read it. http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04...

A .pdf document can be found here. Just be warned it may freeze your Internet browser due to it's size http://hunterz263.deviantart.com/favo... )

[Kikeleh · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very odd fusion of a children's cartoon and a violent videogame, with lots of added rape for good measure. Hard to describe.

[/Fitbrah/ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no regrets

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I loved the book. Even though it had some gruesome scenes, I was never able to stop reading (Unless I was pulled away) after I would start, or continue. I've never really read a book with a better beginning and I say so because of how I felt that it was incredibly even. I usually don't read mature rated books, but this one was definitely worth crossing the boundaries. But now, it's time to write a review! The reason this story is rated mature is because of foul language, gory scenes and awesome planning and precision on the authors part. What really blows me away is that this author was not paid to write this, and wrote it completely out of wanting to entertain the brony fandom.)

This book truly blew me away and is - Other than what I believe is the best book I have ever read- worthy of respect from any adult reader that takes interest in books like these. The main character was incredibly attractive ( as in a wanting to read about her kind of way) and so was every single main character! Kkat gave ever single person ( even the side characters!) there own unique personality. They all wanted what they thought was best but found clever ways to make them work together, or fall apart without destroying the group. This author is fully capable of making you love the characters, that even if they dies 3 chapters after meeting them your will cry.

The story follows the main character which of whom is name Littlepip. She is around the age of 19 or 20 and lives in a place called a stable. Through out this land that they live, there are about 100 stables, all created to be safe havens in the case of a nuclear disaster. The story takes place 200 years after such a disaster happens so as you can probably figure, the land is still irradiated my the radiation. The main character leaves this stable after another person who managed to escape. Her name is Velvet Remedy. After leaving the stable, she is captured the next day by a group of slavers. Which of whom trade slaves. After escaping, she again sets off wearing the armor of those who she was forced to kill and moved to a town ( That of which I don't remember the name of) where she fights her first group of raiders. After killing all these people (Plus a few bullet wounds) she frees several other people of whom were being tortured by the raiders. One of these people ins't really a person but turns out to be a ghoul who cannot speak because her tongue was cut out.

After freeing these people, she eventually moves on with her task of finding Velvet and runs into a town called appleossa. While outside this town, she is nearly gunned down by a guy named calamity who thinks she is a raider because of her armor. After he first comes down to where she was shot, he finds that she isn't suck a person. They soon become close friends and with a lot of explanation, leaves his home town to help Littlepip find Velvet.

They soon find that Velvet has taken a job with the raiders by entertaining them since she is a artist and sings her own songs. After a lot of killing of raiders, she decides to come along with them. At this point, she meets this little bot named the watcher. He makes occasional appearances to guide Littlepip on her journey. Since the stable wont allow Littlepip back in, she finds herself wondering the wasteland with her small group of friends completing quests that she is sent on. In the end ( After over 40 amazing chapters) she is tasked with the greatest challenge of all which is to give herself up to save the rest of the wasteland.

The pros of this book are definitely numerous. Even though I have written about some of the bigger points of the story, there is so much more to it. The pros are the characters. None of the characters are described badly and none of them of the same personality. They all are incredibly unique and all face there own challenges. There are also other main characters to this book that I haven't written about just because you need to read about them to understand them in any way. Another pro is the story line. I have never read a book so long that was able to maintain a constant story line without a bunch of crappy filler. This book however maintains a story line over 1600 pages of unique thinking and challenges.

The cons of this story is the ending. The ending is amazing just like The Mist but it gives you such an urge to keep on going. This is one story that you will never want to stop reading about. Everything about it draws you in. There just isn't length and interest that can match Fallout Equestria. ( This story couldn't be 20% cooler!)

In conclusion, this may be the best book I have ever read. There is no more that I can say about it as words can't be used to describe how great this story was.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it in 3 weeks, more or less on a whim (I wanted to know what all the hubbub was about). I went through it with a critical mindset, trying to distance myself from the echo chamber of what is apparently universal praise for this "masterpiece of fiction". Don't get me wrong; I wanted to rate this 5 stars. I was fully anticipating a groundbreaking, life-changing story. But in realistic perspective, the 10% portion of good, thought-provoking, humanistic drama was muddled in the 90% portion describing the protagonist shooting faces, gawking at butts, and falling into increasingly horrific pits and traps. And that's without even acknowledging the existence of all the stupid X-rated "bonus" material that seems to get tacked onto this story, alongside the rest of the fanmade material that's built up around it.

When I think about it, the extended length of this story is really its divisive feature; it's the double-edged sword that both strengthens and wounds it. On one edge, it allows time for very detailed worldbuilding and realistic character interaction, showing how many different relationships grow and change even when stretched to their limits. These drawn-out influences usually trigger wonderful character moments throughout the story. But on the other edge, the time between those brief glimpses is filled with rather repetitive scenes of Pip getting shot at/poisoned/crushed/maimed/mutated, in a variety of settings, while defeating the newest deadly threat that is even deadlier than all the earlier deadly threats. The claim that "the story gets better in the 2nd half" (while true) kind of loses its appeal when you remember that the story is 1600 pages long.

The build-up to the end of the story and the final denouement were...fairly satisfying, part of which I attribute to the author's writing skills visibly improving as the novel progresses. Littlepip is to me a strange combination of Harry Dresden, Luke Skywalker, and JC Denton. The culmination of all her actions and the choices she made had a profound weight to them, and her role as protagonist really did make me reconsider the "tragic hero" archetype. Can you be a hero even as you're killing those who disagree with you? How can you strive for "the greater good" even as you realize that you can't satisfy everyone, nor can you save them all? The narrative does a good job carrying this struggle on throughout most of its story, and even into the "meta-story". By that I mean, I found myself thinking "Man, this book is a lot more grotesque than what I normally read. Is this even worth it to learn whatever moral it's trying to teach?", and realized that this was essentially the same question that Pip was asking herself, when she resigned to the fact that "someone must play the villain of the piece". Even now, I'm honestly not sure how to feel about it.

Some things I liked:
- The charismatic villain, and the resulting moral quandary that he presented to Pip, actually surprised me and made me question the relativistic meaning of "the greater good". To me it echoed a recurring theme in the Austraeoh series: "No one is truly good or evil, but are simply products of their circumstances"
- The portrayal of the psychology of drug addiction (and the influence of the Black Book) was the most hauntingly accurate that I've read before
- Pip's musings about the universal nature of regret, and her concerns about dehumanization (deponification?) struck me as particularly well-written

So that's my review. Some well-written gems, regrettably buried under a lot of detritus, both within and without. That statement may come across as hypocritical, considering how much I've praised the equally convoluted story "Background Pony", but Fallout Equestria just....isn't as satisfying. It never made me cry. I think That's it. The connection I made with the characters was purely rational; it was lacking that extra emotional ooompfh that would make me care about what happened to them, and in so doing, the whole thing kind of fell flat.

[Zaps13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I get into any kind of a review about this, let me set a few things straight. This is a fan-fiction, which is when someone takes events from something like a show or game and adds their own twist to it. In this case, it’s a fan-fiction mash-up of My Little Pony, and Fallout, and before you write it off as "childish" think twice. This story gets just as gruesome as the Fallout series, I’d go as far to say even more gruesome at times. Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to the review.

I loved this fan-fiction, I’d have to say it was one of the best things I've ever read, and it met all of my personal criteria for a great story: it was funny, full of action, had some but not tons of drama, a great plot, and a main character trying to hit on everyone they saw. The story starts out in something called a stable (vault), stable 2 to be exact, and leads us to the mind of a pony named Little Pip. Little Pip is an interesting character, she (for the longest time I thought she was a he) is not the typical instant hero character that most are portrayed; she is quite the contrary, being a Pip-Buck repair pony, basically, she can fix high tech watches. As the story progresses, we continue following Little Pip throughout her adventures in the Equestrian Wasteland. The plot is great; each chapter isn't a new thought, they always continue where the last one left off. Something else that’s quite interesting is the fact that through the entire story, the reader hears pretty much nothing from anyone else’s perspective; it’s all through Little Pip.

Along her journey, Little Pip meets many ponies and non-ponies alike, befriending most of them, and murdering the others that were probably raiders or other bad things. Little Pip’s “crew” doesn't exactly meet the perfect hero status, and I personally like that a lot, because it allows the reader to become that much closer to the characters; each one has a flaw and a virtue, most of the story is centered on the characters finding their virtues, which again keeps the character really close to the readers. I would love to do a full character analysis, but that spoils nearly half of the story, which is spent learning the characters.

The author, Kkat, put a lot, a LOT, of imagery into this story, everywhere Little Pip takes you, it’s as if you were right there next to her seeing what she sees, hearing what she hears and so on. While sometimes this interrupts the flow of the story by adding "dreary" details that the reader has to "trudge" through, it makes the world around Little Pip actually seem alive, again, letting the reader become close to the characters and their world, as if they could just put themselves right into the story alongside Little Pip and her friends. The author took what most of us knew about My Little Pony, and tossed it aside saying “forget that, this is what you need to know…” and then tosses us his perspective mashed with the Fallout stuff, and it was Just. Pure. Awesomeness.

Another thing that pleased me about this fanfic was the grammar and writing. It was not at all what you would expect from a Fan-Fiction, most of the time you’ll see tons of grammar errors and writing mistakes, which takes away from the overall score of the fic. The author was not afraid to take big words from nowhere and use them to describe something, I’m pretty sure Kkat had editors go through his work way before he put it up, which is the smart way to go about things like this.

Again, this Fan-Fiction was by far, one of the best things I've ever read, surpassing even some of the greatest stories I've read, mainly because of its contents, My Little Pony, one of my favorite TV shows, and Fallout, one of my favorite games. This is a great story and I urge anyone to read this, even people that are not fans of the show, I feel that it’s so far away from the show that non-fans could enjoy it too. I give this story 10/10, 100/100, best story I've ever read. Sorry for the gigantic block of text, there's just so much to say about this book...

[Vendea · Rating 5 out of 5]

S Falloutem jsem strávila tři neuvěřitelné měsíce. Moje nejdelší přečtené dílo, něco přes 2 000 stran. A ani za mák nelituji času, kdy jsem se do knihy pustila. I když je to z prostředí poníků, samotný příběh nese daleko hlubší poselství. Je to příběh naděje v padlém světě, který pomalu ale jistě ztrácí poslední jiskru naděje na záchranu. Příběh o hrdince, která opustí bezpečí jen pro to, aby zachránila sví milované. A hlavně - příběh o moci přátelství. Co vyzdvihnout? FoE je kruté, násilné, plné krve. Příběh je vystavěn brilantně - struktura je složitá, s mnoha odbočkami, flashbacky a dalšími věcmi. Jsou tu zbraně. Je tu láska. Je tam prostě všechno. Brečela jsem kvůli FoE na veřejnosti. Kam se hrabou YA knihy. Kkkat je bohyně.

1000/5*


Well, what about to say about Fallout. I have never played Fallout game and I haven't watched MLP: FiM before started FoE. It really doesn't matter. FoE is beautifully written story with strong heroine. It's story about power of friendship and love in poisoined Wasteland. And finally, it's story about hope and light in darkness.

[Thesnarkknightrises · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Princess Celestia,

When I first found out about this novel, I assumed this was just going to be a dumb FanFic like Cupcakes or Rainbow Factory, to a lesser extent. Boy was I wrong. What I read was something that ranks among some of the greatest post-apocalyptic/dystopian stories ever written, such as Metro 2033, the Hunger Games, BioShock and Atlas Shrugged.

The novel takes place 200 years after the fantasy equivalent of a nuclear war ravaged what was once Equestria, where small settlements must survive the Raiders, mutated creatures, radiation and many other dangers in the Wasteland. We follow the adventures of Littlepip, a young unicorn living in Stable 2, one of the many fallout shelters built during the war. After leaving her Stable in search of her (temporary) love interest, Velvet Remedy, who is also the Stable's resident singer, as she and her group of fire forged friends explore the Wasteland and discover the secrets of war-time Equestria and take part in a series of events that will shape the Equstrian Wasteland for centuries to come.

The characters are almost all amazing, with maybe one or two who don't leave as much of an impact but are fortunately minor characters. If you want strong female characters, this is the book for you as Littlepip is one of the strongest, most develloped female protagonist in literature.

The story combines and adapts several characters and plot elements from the Fallout videogame series, particularly the Master and the Super Mutants from the original Fallout, several things from Fallout 2, the Enclave, Andale and the Pitt from Fallout 3, and the New California Republic from New Vegas, and does it well.

All in all, this is nothing short of a masterpiece. I highly recomend this book to any Brony and Non-Brony.

[Dione Basseri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This si my second time listening to dramatic readings of this epic-length fic, and it's SO GOOD EVERY TIME. I am rabid to get my own print copy, but I didn't get into the 'verse until long after the second official printing. Oh, for there to be a third...for this fic is entirely worth keeping a physical copy, just in case the apocalypse comes.

Now, this is very much not for kids. I'd even advise that younger teens wait on reading it, and not because of the cursing, death, rape, drug addiction, and so on. But because it is emotionally hard. Little Pip, our protagonist, goes through a transformation after she leaves the innocence and security of her Stable. It is not long at all before she has to kill, and not long after that before killing becomes easy. Little Pip's moral dilemmas are less about ending another pony's life, and more about whether she is really helping anyone, and if her method of help causes more harm.

And the rest of the cast...Calamity, an exiled pegasus who has the policy to kill any Raider he sees. Velvet Remedy, a devout follower of Fluttershy who finds her kindness constantly tested by the Wasteland. SteelHooves, a ghoul pony with memories of the Equestria before the war. And Xenith, an enslaved zebra searching for word of her missing daughter. And that's just the party characters. There's plenty others, and you will have no trouble keeping them straight. Kkat did a masterful job of creating believable backstories, emotions, and story arcs. Each as fascinating as the last.

If you have any chance at a copy from any print run, BUY IT. It is so...so worth the money. I've been rabidly waiting for the 3rd run. Please...please let it come....

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

War… War never changes.

But maybe—just maybe—ponies can?

Some context: I’ve only played Fallout: New Vegas but have passing knowledge of 1, 2, 3, and 4. I also have passing knowledge/cultural osmosis of My Little Pony. I’m 24 and was probably in the age bracket the show was aimed for but never watched it. I’m not really sure why, but after I became more active on the internet (maybe around 12-13), I avoided MLP stuff because of brony culture. However, now as an adult, I’ve come back around to the show. I’m not really interested in watching it, but I realize I like enjoying it from the sidelines.

That’s why I picked up Fallout: Equestria.

I’m going to get some negatives/nitpicks out of the way first:

1. The first chapter. It felt like it was trying to really rush Littlepip and Velvet Remedy out of the Stable. I was expecting at least 2-3 chapters to establish their lives in the Stable first before the both of them left. This also goes double for seeing more of Littlepip’s mother and her relationship with her that wasn’t just told to us. And who her father was. I was almost expecting to find out Steelhooves was her ancestor but after Velvet Remedy checked the family trees of Stable Two, that wasn’t the case.
2. The chapters had significantly variable lengths. It wasn’t that bad because of the frequent paragraph breaks but chapter 37 was 112 pages with the ebook I was reading! Others were closer to 30-40 with some being even 60-70 pages. I get why it was all one chapter but from one fanfic author to another, it just didn’t jive with me. That was at least 3 chapters in a trench coat. An addendum is Littlepip’s level up. I was expecting her to reach max level right at the end. She spent a significant amount of time at max level way before the end of the fic. This is petty, I was just surprised.
3. The written out accents, ESPECIALLY Calamity’s. I did not enjoy it much. It got easier with time getting used to it but it was still a bit of a nightmare to read. Applejack’s, too.
4. I did read the smut chapter between Littlepip and Homage. I do not really read smut, so I can’t comment on that much, but I just found it a bit jarring they were ponies. Yes, the entire fic is about ponies, it was just extra jarring during that part. I do appreciate there being a link in the ebook to skip it if you’re not into it.

And here are some positives/general thoughts:

1. Love the art with each chapter. It did lag my e-reader trying to load them but it was very good when it eventually loaded.
2. FE was very long but it didn’t feel like it dragged for me. Especially because it really emulated how you play games like Fallout: you get distracted and end up going out of your way to do side quests you didn’t intend to do before you got back on track. Especially Littlepip’s curiosity and lock picking—it feels exactly like how you’d play Courier Six or the Vault Dweller.
3. I always adore it when characters the main protagonist has helped over the course of a book or video game help them in the final battle. What comes to mind is the ending of Horizon: Zero Dawn—if you do a bunch of side quests, a bunch of NPCs show up to help you. Even the DLC characters show up which I was shocked about? Regardless, seeing everyone show up in Spike’s cave before the finale was excellent. Peace and love on planet earth.
4. The fact Celestia was kind of alive and uploaded into the Single Pegasus Project mainframe was So Much and I loved it. “You deserve to be happy” just about had me also on the floor. Jesus. Also also the fact Celestia heard ‘Oh hot sex with Celestia’ also killed me. Congrats, Littlepip.
5. Love the fact it had a happy ending. For once, unlike the Fallout games, Littlepip actually did something to help the Wasteland and purging Taint/radiation. It’s more because they have magic the Fallout universe doesn’t have, but it still applies. It felt good.
6. The fic was also just earnest while being somewhat self aware of itself. As a fic writer to another, I appreciated that.

And now, onto the main six.

LITTLEPIP

Littlepip, Pipsqueak, the Lightbringer, the Hellmare, where do I even begin with you? You went from the Stable-Tec Pipbuck Technician to the Bringer of Light in two months(!!) and is probably the funniest loser horndog of a woman before the term ‘girlfailure’ was even a concept. Ignoring the fact I don’t really like using the term but that’s a rant for another time. Gawd? Reggie? Xenith? Velvet Remedy? Homage? The fucking Goddesses Luna and Celestia? Whatever floats your boat, Littlepip. At least Homage (and just about everyone else) thinks it’s funny.

I do like Littlepip, especially how she changed over the story, but for a POV character, she unfortunately just isn’t overly unique. It’s the same snarky first person perspective that’s done a lot—A Practical Guide to Evil sounds very similar, minus the pony talk. HOWEVER, the Fallout series does have that same kind of snarky humour so it does make sense to also have Littlepip like this. The only thing of hers I really did not enjoy was her jealousy of Velvet Remedy and Calamity (which was thankfully nipped in the bud).

Thanks for taking one for the team, Littlepip.

VELVET REMEDY

While (initially) a bit disappointed she and Littlepip weren’t a thing, I like them more being friends, especially as the fic evolved. I was a bit ambivalent that she and Calamity got together but was honestly more relieved that it wasn’t Littlepip and Calamity. Anyway, this is about Velvet Remedy. She was the one half of Arcade Gannon that I absolutely adore: a healer that doesn’t give two shits whose side you’re on with humour drier than the Mojave desert. Actually, she reminds me a bit more of Julie from FNV, but the comparison to Arcade still stands.

I love how she helped indiscriminately and it came back to help her later! Like with the Hellhound and his cybernetic leg and the alicorns shortly after wanting her help. I feel like we never see this side in fiction as often where helping others, well, helps.

All I can think of is a healer helping someone, and then that someone immediately fucking off and doing Crimes (hi Xenoblade 2, I haven’t forgotten nor will I ever forget because it pissed me off so badly) so it was just so refreshing to see it done differently. I also just adore how she became the leader of their version of the Followers of the Apocalypse. The Followers are my favourite faction in FNV and this just deepens my love and respect for them.

CALAMITY

Calamity is the second half of Arcade Gannon—mainly, his backstory with the Enclave that expands the faction from 2 into New Vegas. He also reminds me a bit of Veronica with her tinkering. I enjoyed this part of his character and his fierce, virtuous loyalty to Littlepip and the rest of the crew. As stated before, I’m still ambivalent to his and Velvet Remedy’s relationship, and his accent bugged me, but I enjoyed his role. He had great chemistry with Littlepip and bounced off her quite well.

I wish we saw a bit more of his family, especially his dad—an equivalent to Mark Gannon—and maybe a version of the Remnants from FNV. Neighvarro just about did me in, though. That’s so fucking funny.

STEELHOOVES

Oh Steelhooves, where do I even begin with you besides one certainty: I understand now why you’re a fan favourite.

As I’ve never really watched MLP, I can’t really comment much on Applejack and him together from a show perspective, but I did enjoy them together when we saw the memory orbs. Having him be close to the Ministry Mares was a great way to flip back and forth from the past and the future, especially concerning how the Steel Rangers changed over time.

Him defecting from the Steel Rangers—the equivalent to the Brotherhood of Steel—just made sense. I wished in FNV that you could change the Brotherhood’s mind (maybe getting them to join the Followers?) but you couldn’t really do that. So, this was the closest I really had to smacking some sense into Fallout’s Brotherhood.

Then, Steelhooves died, just like that.

When he died, I was near convinced he was going to heal, somehow, and save the day at the end. I really, really did. No one kills Steelhooves that easily. But…no, he didn’t. Maybe that was some military grade Copium but if Canterlot ghouls are that hard to kill, maybe he’s okay????? Gonna crawl out of his grave with his head back on and show up at the eleventh hour, Ditzy Doo style?

A girl, however, can dream.

XENITH

I’m not overly familiar with zebras, but I know a bit about Zecora from the show. I also feel like I can’t really comment on Steelhooves’s racism (specism? whatever) toward zebras, so I’m not really gonna dwell on it much. But I’m glad there was zebra rep in the main six. Introducing her in the Pit against Littlepip was excellent.

To me, Xenith feels like the closet we’ve had to a companion from the Legion, ignoring the fact that’s also what they called the zebra forces. She reminds me of Raul from FNV in that regard, as he’s the companion that is the most sympathetic to the Legion. I enjoyed the fact she balanced out Velvet Remedy being a medical pony in focusing more on alchemy and folk remedies. I’m also just glad she reunited with her daughter, even after telling them to mass produce drugs lmao

PYRELIGHT

Best ED-E/Rex/Dogmeat-like companion. 10/10

Now, I want to cover the factions, if briefly.

THE TALONS

Love the Talons, especially Gawdyna. I’m glad they were built up a lot from the start and were essentially the closest Littlepip had to a neutral faction to build up. And to say I was shooketh when Kage fucking died was an understatement. I was AGHAST. Reggie also had me there in the first half of the chapter after that, not gonna lie.

RED-EYE

Cool motive, still fascism <3

THE ENCLAVE

Cool motive, still fascism x2 <3

TRIXIE/THE GODDESS

I realize Trixie/the Goddess is the closest to The Master from Fallout 2. I found the alicorns to be interesting, especially after Littlepip killed Her (F) and they started to get their own agency again. But learning that Twilight Sparkle was part of the hivemind was. A lot. I don’t really have much else to say about the MLP side of the lore.


TDLR if I had a nickel for every time I read a webnovel with a wlw protagonist, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice, right?

[Facedeer · Rating 4 out of 5]

There have been many glowing reviews of this story, and a couple of harsh ones too, but I'm going to try to approach it with a somewhat more middle-of-the-road "objective" analysis (though as you can tell from my star rating, I ultimately come down on the "this was pretty darn good" side of things).

It's a cross between the "Fallout" video game setting and the "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" setting. Not a literal crossover with Fallout, in that there are no actual Fallout characters but rather the setting echoes Fallout and has many references to it. I read this story with no deep familiarity with Fallout beyond the basic "1950s world-of-the-future crossed with nuclear apocalypse," and I don't think I lost much - I could tell that certain things were meant to be callouts to Fallout but I didn't feel like I was missing any plot points for not being aware of the details.

A reader should probably have a bit more familiarity with the My Little Pony source material to really "get" this story, in my opinion. Fallout: Equestria is set about 200 years later than the TV series and all of the main characters are new, but as the story progresses there are plenty of flashbacks (using in-universe "memory orbs" to convey them to modern characters) that give us important glimpses of characters from the series that should have some familiarity to the reader for full impact. But the author wrote this after the first season, and chose not to "update" it to incorporate anything from the second and later seasons directly, so it shouldn't be too hard to brush up on the basics - dig up some episode synopses for the first season and that will probably suffice.

Now for the meat of the story itself. Fallout: Equestria is long. Longer than Lord of the Rings, the gold standard for epic length these days. Fortunately an awful lot of stuff happens, so it doesn't feel like it drags. More like this is a whole series of books in one - there are actually a couple of spots where it could have been divided up like that.

The fact that this was inspired by a video game does become fairly noticeable. The most obvious is how there's a paragraph of text after each chapter describing how the characters have "leveled up" from their experiences, which might be kind of odd for some readers but can be safely skipped without affecting anything. But also, the protagonist gets shot a lot. A lot. There are magical healing potions available, sure, but it's still something you might tend to notice. You can also see "side quests" and other video-game-like narrative structures from time to time. Fortunately it didn't become bad enough to actually distract me very often - it was just an interesting flavour the story had.

The vast scope of the story allows for a heck of a lot of background to be explored along the way, which probably explains some of the massive continuation of additional stories that have been written in this setting. Many sections within the book could stand as their own stories, though there's a continuing quest woven throughout - and the continuing quest keeps moving nicely, with plots being resolved and new problems being discovered all along the way. The book almost never feels aimless or like the protagonist isn't making progress.

So yeah. Good book.

I don't give it five stars because I've definitely read better and because I couldn't quite get over a few of the gamey-feeling elements here and there. The evolution of the protagonist's personal character felt kind of slow, too, and a lot of the time she was just a gung-ho "hero" going in with guns blazing to save the day with righteous fury (points awarded back, though, when at several points this becomes a problem for her and the question of whether she's actually doing good with her heroism comes up). Still really good, though. Recommended.

If you've read it and are thinking of delving into the expanded universe, I recommend Fallout: Equestria: Pink Eyes as a good next step. It's much shorter (though still very long) and has a very different feel from this story while still definitely being part of the same setting.

[Josephine Kwok · Rating 4 out of 5]

No I will not elaborate

[Bali Briant · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have ever read, and not just because I am a brony. I have read many bad fan fictions that I didn’t like, and many that I liked only because they were pony related. This tale fits into neither of those categories.

Why is a story that is based off of ponies, and a first person shooter, the best book I have ever read?

First off the character development was astounding. LittlePip, Calamity, Velvet Remedy, SteelHooves; all are characters I will hold close to my heart for the rest of my life. I care for them as much as I do for characters in the show itself, which is unheard of amongst fan fiction writers with original characters (as far as I know, I haven’t read every fan fic in existence though).

However, although the skilled craftsmanship in this story can be appreciated by any connoisseur of literature, and the plot isn’t reliant on that of the TV show, a non brony will hardly be able to appreciate this work. If you haven’t accepted ponies into your life, than you most likely won’t be able to get past the “childishness” of having animal characters. A sad predicament.

If you are a brony considering whether to read this fandom famed tale, than just have trust in me and read it. If you are an outsider who somehow stumbled onto the GoodReads page of this self-published, not mainstream book, and are thinking of reading it, then I would advise watching the show first. If ya can’t appreciate the show, you can’t appreciate this story. But that’s not to say that if you like the show your guaranteed to like this book, it’s violent in a way that rated R movies can’t be and sad at times.

But the message is of hope for a better tomorrow, of will to make it that way, and of the ability of friendship to stand in the face of all obstacles.

It was the best book I have ever read.

[Bryan House · Rating 1 out of 5]

Typically I do not read multiple books at the same time
Typically I read a book no matter the length in a decent amount of time

This book took me many months and I had to put it down and come back to it many times

Now, I love OWNING this book, it's beautiful and one of the most exciting books that I physically own - I will always have it displayed prominently on my bookshelf NO DOUBT

It's a fan-fiction of My Little Pony and Nuclear Fallout - (yes, it's f---ing bizarre) and the moment I found out it existed a year or so ago I've been on the quest to purchase and read the whole thing

I'm not a fan of my little pony or nuclear fallout, so I knew I wouldn't love this book - but here we are

I think I would have enjoyed the story more if it was shorter. The book could easily drop 1000 pages (and it would still have 600) - I'm not saying that the entirety of the book was bad, but it was such a slog to complete

I finished! I will never read this book again, but I will cherish it in a weird way forever <3

[Brian McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two of my favourite things are the Fallout series and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, so I expected to enjoy the nods to both of these. I didn't expect a sprawling work, longer than the Lord of the Rings, with characters I genuinely cared about and some astonishingly good writing throughout.

This fanfic evolved beyond its source material, which both surprised and delighted me. I won't lie, parts of it dragged along at a snail's pace, and some of the 'twists' were exceptionally obvious. But ultimately, the sheer quantity of awesomeness utterly dwarfed the annoyances.

This book took me two weeks to read, and not once did I stop thinking about it. The sad part is, despite the development on the sources, you really do have to be very familiar with both series to truly enjoy this work. Not for an outside reader, but if you're like me and know both well, you're in for one hell of a treat.

[Glyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I can't believe this is on Goodreads...

According to a friend, this fic is actually longer than LOTR. yeah.

It took me several chapters to get into it, but by the time I got to the end, I was deeply attached to the characters. I loved the party banter, and I miss them, now that I'm done reading it.

Some parts of the story are undeniably clunky - the sound effects come to mind - but the depth of the world building and the character growth is awe-inspiring.

I loved reading this, and I can see myself coming back to it sometime in the future. Now if only I hadn't missed out on the print run...

[Ben Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This piece of literature is one of the best pieces I have read. Creative, thoughtful, and oh so descriptive (which is a problem at times, but is mostly good). I listened to the audio version of this by CrazedRambling and was amazed at how good it sounded. Yes, 85% of the thing is description and with all that description, it is easy to miss important pieces of information, but it is all around good. I am not a brony (was at one point) but I still enjoy this great piece of literature.

[Matthew Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

only in death will i be judged.
read it 5 times on audiobook, once on PDF. if anyone doesn't know what this is before you start then your going to have a bad time reading it. as for me, i like it. it's hard to juxtapose two worlds as different as the fallout games and my little pony, but to write a book (unpublished but come on, it's like 5000 pages long) that takes itself seriously takes a lot of effort.

teouttaten

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has got to be the most fantastic story I have ever read in multiple years! I feel really bad I found out about this after the second printing of the hardback book because that would have been an insta-buy. Thank you kkat for writing something that actually engrossed me to the point of having sleepless nights that I didn't realize I was having and don't regret in the least.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[Jacob Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best product I believe bronies have had to offer. A weighty endeavor to read, but it takes all the liberties it can in its half-million words, while weaving a narrative that's complex, but in the kind of way that's awesome, rather than pretentious. A well-written and interesting story from beginning to end, with all the wit that's to be expected from a first-person narration.

[Alistair Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Came to this randomly as a Fallout fan, not knowing what to expect. Was delighted to find that it's a compelling read, with a special shout-out to the worldbuilding that manages to blend two very different universes without doing terrible violence to either canon, so far as I can tell. Nicely done.

[hay man · Rating 5 out of 5]

win

[Barney Calhoun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wish I could burn it.

[Durian Jaykin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this is a fanfiction of two fandoms, I shall describe what I know about Fallout and My Little Pony respectively to let you understand the context I had going into this book.

I watched only about four episodes of My Little Pony before I got bored, I must say that the animation was rather high quality though.

For Fallout..., I was familiar with Fallout 3 and 4, and I could see the numerous references in the book. With my limited knowledge about Fallout 1 and 2, I could also capture some references to the franchise.

So basically, the driving force that kept me reading was the Fallout. Now being a primarily MLP fanfiction set in Equestria, it had numerous references to the show. I recommend watching the first two episodes of Season 1 to appreciate most of the MLP content. Because there are numerous references to the MLP characters, and you will be able to understand the references. No, in fact the driving force to continue reading would be to discover what happened to the MLP characters. And the first two episodes will get you up to speed.

Now then, enjoyment. The book was rather enjoyable. Fallout logic mixed with magic. I must say that this mix between both systems was extremely interesting. Just imagine having Star Wars Force abilities in Fallout. Just those words alone should evoke a brilliant image in your mind about the combat, which is batsh*t insane lmao. But novelty of the combat wore off, and the book throws in a couple of villains.

Now, your villains are standard villains. They have a vision for the wasteland and want to make it better, but to put it bluntly, they want to mold it into their image. Of course, the means they do so.. aren't palatable, so our protagonist has to stop them. Now if the author spent more time emphasizing on the good they have done, instead of emphasizing why our protagonist should stop them, then perhaps some of the villains could be more relatable. Unfortunately, development in that department was sparsed but readers could accept it. They did bad things, stop them.

Our protagonist is not a mary sue. They are flawed, but sometimes they get out of the situation the exact same way all the time that it makes one go through to the motions while reading. Oh no protagonist in trouble, time to go super Saiyan, problem solved, but oh no collapses from super Saiyan mode. But its alright, the author shifts up the model somewhat, but it's in the latter parts of the book. Almost as if they do so once the novelty wears off.

But I must commend the author for the vast vocabulary used in the novel. Every chapter I read, I see a new word. Environments are described poignantly, the author never dragged their descriptions too long. A single short paragraph or two sums up the environment. And I'm thinking the author must be some interior designer or architect because the attention to detail in every environment is borderline obsessive. Other books, I'm expected to slot in a generic environment. Here, the author will take my imagination, and carve it up with their descriptions, but handing it back to me, letting me enjoy the environment that they have conjured.

Is this book good? Yes. I recommend giving it a read because it's enjoyable as books ought to be. Four stars as the book could do better to be a masterpiece in my eyes.

[Katrina Blau · Rating 4 out of 5]

If anyone had told me that I would be obssesively reading a story about magical ponies I would have laughed really hard in response. Because, seriously, no. No way.

Yet here I am now. I was doing a bit of Fallout scanning in the webiverse and stumbled against Fallout Equestria, which had such huge positive reviews I thought... Okay, I'll give it a go. I figured, I'd read maybe one chapter, because normally... I try to give any fan fic I start out to read at least a chapter to get things right.

But dude.

This story. This amazing, I haven't finished it yet, story...

If you are looking for a the gentle and funny My Little Pony, don't read this. This is not a happy fic. It's a Fallout Fic. It is a story of the consequences of total magical war and it's brutal. It doesn't spare you. I even learned new cusswords to match old. The monsters, which are logically drawn from both fallout and MLP scenarios, make me want to hide under covers and maybe way back in the closet, where I will try not to breathe loudly. The slavers and raiders are vile. There are no trigger warnings in the disclaimers and their should be, because terrible, terrible things happen.

But so do good things.

Because this is the story of being's (in pony shape) attempt to make things better. And slowly, they do.

The gun thing still throws me, as, unless things are used telekinetically or the battle gear is used, I just can't take seriously that a pony would willingly risk their teeth with a gun-stock. But.... that is like one "flaw" I can overlook, because the whole premise of My Little Pony (so, okay, this is a MLP story.... but really, no.... it's not sunshine and roses here at all!) is that this is an alien universe where the beings are four footed, yet somehow using toothbrushes and whatever.

Oh, and I should warn you, there is sex. Though it is mostly through the teasing of the main character, but you do get a fairly good idea how things work, though it is played a little for comfort and laughs.

That said, this is a serious story and it deserves all the praise it's been getting. I'm about 10 chapters away from the end and I have a legitimate hope that it ends fairly well. Even if not everything is solved at once. Because this is not that kind of story.

So.... yeah, would I recommend it? Absolutely. (Surprisingly!) But know that is definitely NC17/Mature and it has triggery things in it.

[Hazy Spark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set 300 years after the first season of Hasbro's My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, KKat somehow creates a hybrid of the colourful and friendly world of MLP with the harsh politically satirical world of Bethesda's (and originally Obsidian Entertainment) Fallout. Through a clever use of MLP's central theme of friendship being the tool to overcome all obstacles, KKat creates a future that is somehow believable for the characters in season 1.

Fallout: Equestria, otherwise shortened to FoE, tells the story of LittlePip a pipbuck (the FoE equivalent to Fallout's Pipboy) repairpony, who sets out into the wasteland in order to bring back a member of her stable (Vault for those familiar with fallout) who escaped the stable by tricking Pip. To try and make up for her mistake, Pip sets out to bring back the escaped pony and finds herself in an utterly alien world to all that she knows. This is particularly well shown in the initial exit of the stable with Pip experiencing extreme vertigo when she sees the open sky, having lived her entire life beneath the metal ceilings of Stable 2.

Without spoiling the majority of the book, I will say that the story is an enjoyable read for someone unfamiliar with My Little Pony. Whilst for those who have been fans of the series for any length of time, or have at the very least seen the first season of Friendship is Magic (and have a very basic level of knowledge of the fandom) they will find the story utterly enthralling.

It's worth a reread if you go in without any knowledge of MLP, particularly after watching the first season, as Kkat hides in references throughout the work that subtly reveal the fates of fan favourite background characters whilst leaving the fates of others hidden. This paired with the level of passion that FoE ignited in the fandom means that there are dozens if not hundreds of fan sequels to Fallout Equestria.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fan fiction is a tricky thing to be objective on. The Brony phenomena is also something it's a bit hard to look back on objectively. So this, a My Little Pony crossed with the post apocalyptic world of Fallout fanfiction that's got a word count that outstrips the Lord of the Rings, should in every way be a Trainwreck.

It's actually completely engrossing. Somehow the author has created characters you care about. A genuinely heartbreaking history of how a world of magic and freindship became a hellscape. Villains that you can sympathise with and enough dark humour and chunky gore to put fallout 4 to shame.

This story is one of the strangest phenomena I've ever seen but it just completely works. I'm not a huge reader of fanfiction but I would absolutely put this on my shelf. If you're sceptical just give it a go. I can't tell if it's just the perfect story for me but somehow it's a fantastic read.

[Lupin · Rating 5 out of 5]

""We... we are basically good."
"Haven't you been paying attention, Littlepip? Deep inside, we're all raiders."
"No! That's not true."
"No? Even the best of us fall to evil at the drop of a hat.""



While the ending of it wasn't exactly what I had hoped for I know where kkat was going with wrapping it all up and I understand that for some it was what they wanted, I won't let that subtract from my overall enjoyment of this story.

I would like to own a copy of this book as I know there are some printed copies floating around and I'm in love with this universe. I'm currently going through Project Horizons and next on the list is Murky Number Seven as I preread the first few chapters and very much enjoyed it.

I will be honest I have also listened to it through A Nuclear Reading Show on Spotify and highly recommend that to anyone who is interested, it's how I'm currently enjoying Project Horizons.

[Dezmodian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up on the Fallout franchise starting with the first game, last century. For many reasons, it has continued to be a part of my life. I have a Fallout metal lunchbox on my counter, and yes-it is filled with bottlecaps. The MLP-FM series came into my life at depressed time, and helped raise me up.

Kkat's intersection of these two exceedingly different worlds was pure artistry. As a Trekki and avid sci-fi lover quite familiar with shifting timelines, I could easily appreciate a few foundational changes to the MLP world needed to facilitate this new concept... and it worked so very well.

Lilpip will always have a place in my heart in the aftermath of this work. I love long stories, and 1600 some pages flowed easily into my mind.

The brutality of the Fallout world metting the heart of the MLP was a fusion I didn't know I needed.