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Boar Guest's "Book of Fanciful Beasts", Chapter 5
5. AIR RAY
Although Air Rays are well established in Equestrian histories, many modern scholars consider the species apocryphal, and perhaps with good reason — for no species in pre-Unification lore has as varied a description and reputation.
For example: Peony the Elder's Natural History describes Air Rays as pony-sized swarms of predators, malevolent and cruel. Aristrottle's History of Animals casts them as shy and solitary behemoths, remnants of ancient magical experiments. And Georges Hoovier's Les Règnes Non-Chevaux claims that the Air Ray was a singular, immortal behemoth named Al'Ecsei, "son of the sky and daughter of the stars". Her Highness merely affirms that they (or it) are extinct, stating (as she so often does) that "there are bad dreams in the past which ought be left to slumber".
About the only thing on which all sources agree is that Air Rays are as beings of elemental Air (the singular exception is Peony, who associates them with the humours of Void). They are invisible to the unaided eye — though in shape they resemble the common Ray of Frost, with a bulbous head, two broad wings, and a tapering tail — and feed upon cloudstrat. It is common for accounts of the Air Ray to note that they preferentially eat cumulonimbus; a notable exception is the second-century-BCE Lost Empire tragedy The Wræth of the Skys, in which the protagonist Sombra uses a cumulonimbus cloud to poison one.
Their appetite is typically described as voracious — as in an old gryphon bawd boasting that Grover could drink "faster than Rays strip the heavens". Peony suggests that Air Ray feeding is the reason why no trace was ever found of the legendary Cloud Castle of Kathmun-Dew. And Hoovier quotes the creation myth of a Titmoose nest near Seaddle, in which the whole of existence was solid cloud until Al'Ecsei consumed enough of it to leave behind the clear sky, and excreted a pile which became the earth.
Their relations with other elemental beings are surprisingly little mentioned. The anonymous Roamin work De manibus Homini reports an eyewitness account of Air Rays and Earth Rays meeting at the horizon for revelry upon one particular Equinox Eve, and claims that the Scorching Ray is the Air Ray's natural enemy — although this is likely to be wholly fanciful, owing to its flagrant disregard of elemental affinity theory. On the other hoof, its assertion that "startled Air Rays are quicker than a Ray of Light" finds some support in Hoovier's survey of tribal legends.
Pegasopolian lore places Air Rays as a parasite of windigos, tracking their movements and migrating behind them in order to devour their hatestorms. The pre-Unification foal's tale of "The Fate of Thunderbuck" concerns an ill-tempered stallion who built a cloud house in anger, attracting Air Rays which devoured his village. But Aristrottle dismisses this story as fanciful, and recounts speaking with the daughter of one Trailing Mist, whose beautiful singing enchanted an Air Ray; she doted upon it and gave it her construction cast-offs, until one day it saw her also feeding clouds to a baby windroc, and died on the spot of a broken heart.
In The Collected Exploits of Commander Hurricane, she is said to have singlehoofedly frightened off an army of marauding Air Rays by drinking a barrel of rainbow juice and then passing gas in their direction. However — despite no shortage of tales of pegasus prodromes defending the walls of their outposts from Air Ray predation — her exploit is never known to have been repeated.
Although Air Rays are well established in Equestrian histories, many modern scholars consider the species apocryphal, and perhaps with good reason — for no species in pre-Unification lore has as varied a description and reputation.
For example: Peony the Elder's Natural History describes Air Rays as pony-sized swarms of predators, malevolent and cruel. Aristrottle's History of Animals casts them as shy and solitary behemoths, remnants of ancient magical experiments. And Georges Hoovier's Les Règnes Non-Chevaux claims that the Air Ray was a singular, immortal behemoth named Al'Ecsei, "son of the sky and daughter of the stars". Her Highness merely affirms that they (or it) are extinct, stating (as she so often does) that "there are bad dreams in the past which ought be left to slumber".
About the only thing on which all sources agree is that Air Rays are as beings of elemental Air (the singular exception is Peony, who associates them with the humours of Void). They are invisible to the unaided eye — though in shape they resemble the common Ray of Frost, with a bulbous head, two broad wings, and a tapering tail — and feed upon cloudstrat. It is common for accounts of the Air Ray to note that they preferentially eat cumulonimbus; a notable exception is the second-century-BCE Lost Empire tragedy The Wræth of the Skys, in which the protagonist Sombra uses a cumulonimbus cloud to poison one.
Their appetite is typically described as voracious — as in an old gryphon bawd boasting that Grover could drink "faster than Rays strip the heavens". Peony suggests that Air Ray feeding is the reason why no trace was ever found of the legendary Cloud Castle of Kathmun-Dew. And Hoovier quotes the creation myth of a Titmoose nest near Seaddle, in which the whole of existence was solid cloud until Al'Ecsei consumed enough of it to leave behind the clear sky, and excreted a pile which became the earth.
Their relations with other elemental beings are surprisingly little mentioned. The anonymous Roamin work De manibus Homini reports an eyewitness account of Air Rays and Earth Rays meeting at the horizon for revelry upon one particular Equinox Eve, and claims that the Scorching Ray is the Air Ray's natural enemy — although this is likely to be wholly fanciful, owing to its flagrant disregard of elemental affinity theory. On the other hoof, its assertion that "startled Air Rays are quicker than a Ray of Light" finds some support in Hoovier's survey of tribal legends.
Pegasopolian lore places Air Rays as a parasite of windigos, tracking their movements and migrating behind them in order to devour their hatestorms. The pre-Unification foal's tale of "The Fate of Thunderbuck" concerns an ill-tempered stallion who built a cloud house in anger, attracting Air Rays which devoured his village. But Aristrottle dismisses this story as fanciful, and recounts speaking with the daughter of one Trailing Mist, whose beautiful singing enchanted an Air Ray; she doted upon it and gave it her construction cast-offs, until one day it saw her also feeding clouds to a baby windroc, and died on the spot of a broken heart.
In The Collected Exploits of Commander Hurricane, she is said to have singlehoofedly frightened off an army of marauding Air Rays by drinking a barrel of rainbow juice and then passing gas in their direction. However — despite no shortage of tales of pegasus prodromes defending the walls of their outposts from Air Ray predation — her exploit is never known to have been repeated.
Pics
Well, that's... a style I've never seen before in fiction: textbook. Points for originality, dude.
Unfortunately, because it's in a textbook mood, it really just got dry and boring about halfway through, and kinda became a slog to read through. So while it's well written, I don't think this was a good choice of styles. Sorry, mate.
If you ever wanna expand this, though, please do. I really wanna know about those other chapters. I adore world building of this sort. You have an absolutely amazing start here. Just look into finding a way for it to not get dry.
Unfortunately, because it's in a textbook mood, it really just got dry and boring about halfway through, and kinda became a slog to read through. So while it's well written, I don't think this was a good choice of styles. Sorry, mate.
If you ever wanna expand this, though, please do. I really wanna know about those other chapters. I adore world building of this sort. You have an absolutely amazing start here. Just look into finding a way for it to not get dry.
In The Collected Exploits of Commander Hurricane, she is said to have singlehoofedly frightened off an army of marauding Air Rays by drinking a barrel of rainbow juice and then passing gas in their direction.
And that's how jet engines were made. Also, "singehoofedly" here is imprecise – he didn't use his hoof.
I very much enjoyed reading this, because I just love lore. My biggest issue, though, is that this does come across as a random collection of facts about Air Rays. Which may have totally been your intention, but personally I was reading this and kinda hoping a story would develop, or there would be a cool link between all these accounts, or it would reveal some kind of truth about Equestria and its inhabitants. I can't help but to compare it to Asymmetry, which has the same prompt picture and overall format. While I like the lore here more than Asymmetry's, I definitely liked how Asymmetry pulled all its threads back together. Here, it feels like the entry stops, rather than ends.
Gah hah hah.
So, as I've been saying over in the Discord Chat, this story is absolutely a reference to Jorge Luis Borges' Libro de los Seres Imaginarios, which I guess in English is translated to Book of Imaginary Beasts. It's a book I actually own twice, and it was the first Borges book I ever read. It scared the shit out of me as a kid.
I'm so sure that this is a reference to that book, not so much for the title -- which is, like, a dead giveaway -- but for the structure, too. This is actually a very well put-together homage to that book, because what Borges does is to create a sort of dictionary of mythological beasts, all of them weird as hell, and explain them and their characteristics based on old legends and what pieces of literature accross the globe have said about them.
It reads exactly like this story, which is why I liked it so much. The idea of random facts about the Air Rays (as well as the way they're told) was the entire point of this thing.
Okay, I'm being a little bit fuzzy here, because I don't know if I'm squeeing over the book or over the story. This is gonna be a bit long, but hey, the author went and wrote a fic about the one book I'd marry if it were legally possible. They sorta deserve it.
Look, the quality of this story is hard to read. On the one hand, if it's supposed to simply be a "translation" of Borges to Equestria, with a completely new imaginary beast, then the story is impeccable. Details about how Air Rays are voracious based on a single line Gryphons say is a very Borges thing to do. The style is brought perfectly well, and on that basis alone, this story would be a perfect ten from my completely and utterly unbiased point of view.
However, if we take this as a story, things change a little. The thing about that book is that Borges made up the concept and created an entire dictionary you can look at random to read about some imaginary animals you'd probably never heard of (there's literally an entry that's just "an animal dreamed by Kafka", go figure) and then chuckle and go back to your business. It's a great book, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird one, and it definitely benefits from multiple entries.
Because when you have an entirely original concept and you play it out like that, the book actually becomes something extremely rewarding for the reader, based on novelty and ability to lose yourself alone. It's a strange kind of worldbuilding, so to speak. But that isn't exactly translated to this minific entry, even if it really does a good job in imitating Borges' style.
First of all, because it really doesn't do anything... new? With that? It's just an entry. It's also the single most basic interpretation of the picture you can think of, which does not exactly add points -- you literally went and wrote a dictionary entry of the title of that picture and submitted it. Sure, you went and chose the single best dictionary ever written, but it's still kind of dry.
This doesn't tell a story, is the thing. The book told a story because it was a series of entries; one, by itself, just sorta happens on its own. I like how it paints Air Rays, I love everything about this minific, but I also understand that this is not actually a story, it's, as Bachiavellian said, a random collection of facts about Air Rays.
That's in the end what the story wanted to be, and I get that -- so in that regard, well-done, Author. If you told me you wanted to post this in fimfic as part of a bigger anthology of imaginary animals, I would beg you to tell me so I can participate and write one or two entries too. But as it stands, this kind of thing needs a narrative to work; the readers don't know what they're supposed to expect, and it's easy to think this is leading up to something.
So tl;dr: this is a great homage to Borges, but that's all it is, really. It doesn't really add anything to that idea, it doesn't tell a story with the format, it doesn't particularly benefit from being a ponyfic... It's just doing exactly the same thing Borges did in 1981, but it lacks one of the things that made that book special -- mainly, the fact that it was a dictionary, that it was a SERIES of entries that built on each other to create an entire catalogue of stories and books.
This, alone, in the end is nothing but random tidbits that add up to nothing and are left floating. I'm glad this wasn't on my slate, because I would have had a really difficult time rating it. My first instinct is to immediately place it first, but analyzing it on its own? I don't know, it's a tricky one.
Fucking props on the writing and on the imagination it took to write shit like the Air Ray dying of heartbreak after witnessing the filly feeding a windroc, though. Those details I loved; it's just that this doesn't work as a single minific.
So, as I've been saying over in the Discord Chat, this story is absolutely a reference to Jorge Luis Borges' Libro de los Seres Imaginarios, which I guess in English is translated to Book of Imaginary Beasts. It's a book I actually own twice, and it was the first Borges book I ever read. It scared the shit out of me as a kid.
I'm so sure that this is a reference to that book, not so much for the title -- which is, like, a dead giveaway -- but for the structure, too. This is actually a very well put-together homage to that book, because what Borges does is to create a sort of dictionary of mythological beasts, all of them weird as hell, and explain them and their characteristics based on old legends and what pieces of literature accross the globe have said about them.
It reads exactly like this story, which is why I liked it so much. The idea of random facts about the Air Rays (as well as the way they're told) was the entire point of this thing.
Okay, I'm being a little bit fuzzy here, because I don't know if I'm squeeing over the book or over the story. This is gonna be a bit long, but hey, the author went and wrote a fic about the one book I'd marry if it were legally possible. They sorta deserve it.
Look, the quality of this story is hard to read. On the one hand, if it's supposed to simply be a "translation" of Borges to Equestria, with a completely new imaginary beast, then the story is impeccable. Details about how Air Rays are voracious based on a single line Gryphons say is a very Borges thing to do. The style is brought perfectly well, and on that basis alone, this story would be a perfect ten from my completely and utterly unbiased point of view.
However, if we take this as a story, things change a little. The thing about that book is that Borges made up the concept and created an entire dictionary you can look at random to read about some imaginary animals you'd probably never heard of (there's literally an entry that's just "an animal dreamed by Kafka", go figure) and then chuckle and go back to your business. It's a great book, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird one, and it definitely benefits from multiple entries.
Because when you have an entirely original concept and you play it out like that, the book actually becomes something extremely rewarding for the reader, based on novelty and ability to lose yourself alone. It's a strange kind of worldbuilding, so to speak. But that isn't exactly translated to this minific entry, even if it really does a good job in imitating Borges' style.
First of all, because it really doesn't do anything... new? With that? It's just an entry. It's also the single most basic interpretation of the picture you can think of, which does not exactly add points -- you literally went and wrote a dictionary entry of the title of that picture and submitted it. Sure, you went and chose the single best dictionary ever written, but it's still kind of dry.
This doesn't tell a story, is the thing. The book told a story because it was a series of entries; one, by itself, just sorta happens on its own. I like how it paints Air Rays, I love everything about this minific, but I also understand that this is not actually a story, it's, as Bachiavellian said, a random collection of facts about Air Rays.
That's in the end what the story wanted to be, and I get that -- so in that regard, well-done, Author. If you told me you wanted to post this in fimfic as part of a bigger anthology of imaginary animals, I would beg you to tell me so I can participate and write one or two entries too. But as it stands, this kind of thing needs a narrative to work; the readers don't know what they're supposed to expect, and it's easy to think this is leading up to something.
So tl;dr: this is a great homage to Borges, but that's all it is, really. It doesn't really add anything to that idea, it doesn't tell a story with the format, it doesn't particularly benefit from being a ponyfic... It's just doing exactly the same thing Borges did in 1981, but it lacks one of the things that made that book special -- mainly, the fact that it was a dictionary, that it was a SERIES of entries that built on each other to create an entire catalogue of stories and books.
This, alone, in the end is nothing but random tidbits that add up to nothing and are left floating. I'm glad this wasn't on my slate, because I would have had a really difficult time rating it. My first instinct is to immediately place it first, but analyzing it on its own? I don't know, it's a tricky one.
Fucking props on the writing and on the imagination it took to write shit like the Air Ray dying of heartbreak after witnessing the filly feeding a windroc, though. Those details I loved; it's just that this doesn't work as a single minific.
Boar Guest's "Book of Retrospective", Epilogue
I honestly wasn't expecting this to make finals. Especially when >>horizon happened, and I found myself a paragraph from the end and with five minutes to clean it up before I scrambled into uniform. Those comments about it not really ending? Yeah. It didn't.
I am amazingly glad for >>Aragon's comment, however, because if I were trying to review it, I cannot think of a thing there I would disagree with. Like, not a single line. (Except for the bit about Borges scaring the shit out of me when I read it as a kid — because it scared the shit out of me when I read it as an adult on acid.)
This was, in fact, meant to start and end as an imitation of Borges. As Aragon (and >>Bachiavellian and >>MLPmatthewl419) note, though, that's the pitfall here: the majesty of Borges' work was in the greater format unfolding as you read through. It's very hard to excerpt. And that's why this did better than I expected: as fun as the worldbuilding is here, I agree, it's just a fragment —
— HOLD THE PHONE, YOU AMAZING IDEA-HAVER.
. . . :D
With the benefit of a few hours' discussion, I am happy to report that Aragón and I have bounced enough ideas back and forth to charge forward with a joint anthology project. THIS IS GONNA HAPPEN! WE ARE GONNA FIND OTHER AUTHORS WHO LOVE THE IDEA AS MUCH AS WE DO, AND MAKE A FULL ENCYCLOPEDIA HAPPEN.
Keep an eye on our FIMFiction blogs, and start thinking of awesome mythological creature ideas! Once we build the framework, we're gonna post a call for submissions, most likely in the next couple days.
And thank you all for reading and reviewing (cc: >>Samey90)!
I honestly wasn't expecting this to make finals. Especially when >>horizon happened, and I found myself a paragraph from the end and with five minutes to clean it up before I scrambled into uniform. Those comments about it not really ending? Yeah. It didn't.
I am amazingly glad for >>Aragon's comment, however, because if I were trying to review it, I cannot think of a thing there I would disagree with. Like, not a single line. (Except for the bit about Borges scaring the shit out of me when I read it as a kid — because it scared the shit out of me when I read it as an adult on acid.)
This was, in fact, meant to start and end as an imitation of Borges. As Aragon (and >>Bachiavellian and >>MLPmatthewl419) note, though, that's the pitfall here: the majesty of Borges' work was in the greater format unfolding as you read through. It's very hard to excerpt. And that's why this did better than I expected: as fun as the worldbuilding is here, I agree, it's just a fragment —
If you told me you wanted to post this in fimfic as part of a bigger anthology of imaginary animals, I would beg you to tell me so I can participate
— HOLD THE PHONE, YOU AMAZING IDEA-HAVER.
. . . :D
With the benefit of a few hours' discussion, I am happy to report that Aragón and I have bounced enough ideas back and forth to charge forward with a joint anthology project. THIS IS GONNA HAPPEN! WE ARE GONNA FIND OTHER AUTHORS WHO LOVE THE IDEA AS MUCH AS WE DO, AND MAKE A FULL ENCYCLOPEDIA HAPPEN.
Keep an eye on our FIMFiction blogs, and start thinking of awesome mythological creature ideas! Once we build the framework, we're gonna post a call for submissions, most likely in the next couple days.
And thank you all for reading and reviewing (cc: >>Samey90)!
>>horizon
Me upon learning this is actually happening.
I'm up for writing some, especially with the backlog of monsters in my head. I'm definitely not used to Borges' style though, so I might need some help on that front.
Can't wait!
Me upon learning this is actually happening.
I'm up for writing some, especially with the backlog of monsters in my head. I'm definitely not used to Borges' style though, so I might need some help on that front.
Can't wait!
>>horizon
#excite
Y’know what, man? Now I’m even gladder that I took that random photo while I was standing in line to see Judas Priest.
That was a great show, this story was massively entertaining, and the prospect of more?
:coolphoto:
#excite
Y’know what, man? Now I’m even gladder that I took that random photo while I was standing in line to see Judas Priest.
That was a great show, this story was massively entertaining, and the prospect of more?
:coolphoto:
>>WritingSpirit
I encourage you to pick up a copy! A good alternate title for it is "Approximately 100 Mythological Creatures You Mostly Haven't Heard Of, And Why They're Super Badass"; it was published in the 1950s and so many creative people have read it that even some of its more obscure monsters have leaked into the popular consciousness. (Oh hey look here's a well-known song by a famous band that's directly based on a Borges entry.) Even talking only about things relevant to MLP, hippogriffs, minotaurs, phoenixes, sphinxes, manticores, dragons, and unicorns have entries, and all cite really obscure mythology from ancient sources for a glimpse of those creatures as you've never seen them.
And of course I don't support pirating books — not even of authors who will never see another cent of royalties because they've been dead for 22 years. But if you were to want to do something so scurrilous, googling the phrase "borges book of imaginary beings pdf" without the quotes would have a high probability of turning up the full work on the first link. So don't do that.
I'm definitely not used to Borges' style though
I encourage you to pick up a copy! A good alternate title for it is "Approximately 100 Mythological Creatures You Mostly Haven't Heard Of, And Why They're Super Badass"; it was published in the 1950s and so many creative people have read it that even some of its more obscure monsters have leaked into the popular consciousness. (Oh hey look here's a well-known song by a famous band that's directly based on a Borges entry.) Even talking only about things relevant to MLP, hippogriffs, minotaurs, phoenixes, sphinxes, manticores, dragons, and unicorns have entries, and all cite really obscure mythology from ancient sources for a glimpse of those creatures as you've never seen them.
And of course I don't support pirating books — not even of authors who will never see another cent of royalties because they've been dead for 22 years. But if you were to want to do something so scurrilous, googling the phrase "borges book of imaginary beings pdf" without the quotes would have a high probability of turning up the full work on the first link. So don't do that.
>>horizon
IT'S HAPPENING
Back When Tigers Used To Smoke is now taking submissions! Go check out the blog post for details. :)
(cc: >>Pascoite >>CoffeeMinion >>WritingSpirit)
IT'S HAPPENING
Back When Tigers Used To Smoke is now taking submissions! Go check out the blog post for details. :)
(cc: >>Pascoite >>CoffeeMinion >>WritingSpirit)