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Post by haffyfan on Oct 13, 2017 19:20:45 GMT 1
Did anyone go back and re-read the originals and find any reference to the 'mystery' affliction/illness of one of the characters? Also wondering if i was well off the mark in my thoughts of what they were suppose to be suffering from?
I've only read Six Ponies and part of Team so far. The only thing i've come across so far is reference to the character having Flu in six ponies.
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Post by fizz on Nov 12, 2017 10:07:21 GMT 1
*WARNING SPOILERS* I have been considering this myself. It does rankle me in what is quite an entertaining and enjoyable book. I haven't noticed any symptoms or back story, but one gets the impression that his parents are very distant, in London a lot and entertain a lot and he is on his own. I am pretty sure he is away at a boarding school and not educated locally. The main difference is that in the earlier books he is highly regarded as a rider. In Pony Club Team, where he makes his real debut, he is well thought of and wins a prize at the Hunter Trial. He has also passed his Pony Club B test before the other children. He is also older than the others are he is preparing for his O levels.
I would have thought any number of others would have been more suited to some sort of break down. Henry, Christopher, Noel and John.....and going further back Richard, even June and Merry would have been more believable.
Though I did enjoy the book, this aspect bemused me and I wonder very much why she chose this character?
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Post by ginslinger on Jan 13, 2018 13:23:07 GMT 1
I have read this now and I am confused and unhappy about it. I don't think she is a bad writer on the whole (though there is some clunky dialogue and lazy characterisation) and had this be written as an independent novel I would have enjoyed it more, but for what is essentially fan fiction she doesn't seem either to know or like the characters very much and has not very successfully retrofitted them to suit more modern mores. I would almost have thought she hadn't even read the whole series if there weren't the odd indicator that she must have (like the Major telling Henry not to call him "Uncle". It certainly didn't seem that she had read "One day event" - you really get the impression that when Dick rides Tranquil it is for the first time, also that he hadn't been lunged. There were lots of errors that I concede that many less geeky and obsessed than I wouldn't notice but to wilfully ignore the events of previous books seems bizarre if you are presumably trying to attract the fans of the original.
All in all it seemed that they had regressed to the Pony Club team adolescent squabbles and I found it irritating. And she doesn't seem comfortable in the period it is set either. I do understand that many people are passionately anti hunting but these characters as originally conceived weren't - however JPT never described a hunt in this series, only ever referred to people having been hunting so there was no real need to have a hunt in the book and if you are going to have one shouldn't you make a tiny effort to find out about what you are writing about and not refer to hounds as dogs and have the Master riding up front with the huntsman (I admit it might be ultra picky for me to mind him hunting Harmony the delicate dressage horse).
I have read a lot of fanfic as I am a Tolkien geek and sometimes you find stuff and while it may not chime with your own ideas of what might have happened it is plausible and well researched and fits into the world as written by the original author. This is what I would call alternate universe fan fic. It doesn't fit well with the world established by the author and the events and behaviour don't ring true often enough. The Holbrookes have been made dreadfully suburban - Mrs Holbrooke is apparently delighted to be making cups of tea in the kitchen after a lifetime of having domestic staff and presumably her expertise in cage-birds isn't pc enough for modern times because that has disappeared. She has also apparently been living a lie her whole married life.
As for the main plot... well yes his parents were a bit semidetatched and the father very exam focussed but they weren't cruel and probably not untypical of the era. While I suppose some sort of crisis wasn't impossible it does seem odd timing. He was the same age as Roger Radcliffe IIRC so I don't see that if he had been so unhappy on the path he had been set on he wouldn't just get off it. He was 20 not 14. Degrees were far from necessary then. It all seems too angsty and unlikely and out of kilter. JPTs series was started under the shadow of war and her characters were children and adults who had survived that and were grateful for it. They were tough emotionally and physically and the books are filled with a humour that is pretty much completely absent here. As for the Noel /Henry situation it really didn't fit with the situation as left at the end of Pony Club Camp. I read it while staying with aunt over Christmas and now I am reunited with my books I will read through the whole lot and see if my impressions are confirmed.
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Post by kunuma1 on Jan 13, 2018 17:45:45 GMT 1
I think one word you used ginslinger, sums up my feelings about the book too - bizarre! Why, why on earth write it, write yourself an emo teenage book with a horse or two thrown in - no problem - but why she used a previous well known series' characters to do so, in the process running totally wild, killing off horses and changing characters totally - well it was beyond me. Like you, I was extremely confused and unhappy about it too!.
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Post by Claire on Jan 13, 2018 23:08:27 GMT 1
Interesting comments you two. I feel I SHOULD read it but people's comments have put me off rather and I'm not a fan of fanfic anyhow - well not to be published, writing for your own pleasure or on a website is a different matter. The one thing about being a writer is that you can let your imagination create your own world and characters, which is really an amazing thing, so why an author would want to borrow someone else's ideas and characters is beyond me.
I'm surprised at the hunting bloopers. Altho not a fan of hunting, I've read enough pony books to know the terminology, etc. You'd think that a pony book fan would get it right. I hope the character of Major Holbrooke hasn't been watered down too much, he was one of my favourites and I liked his very dry humour.
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Post by ginslinger on Jan 14, 2018 1:01:11 GMT 1
I have read some excellent Tolkien fanfic and have just started a Lord Peter Wimsey story by Jill Paton Walsh who is a fine writer in her own right and so far seems to have caught the feel and voices. I don’t think After the pony club works at all. While it plays fast and loose with the central characters it then brings in other minor characters fo no real reason. I loved Gay in Pony Club Camp but she doesn’t really do anything in this story and loads of other minor characters all happen to be at the same party simply to be name checked it seems. It is a pity since JPT had set up a cast of younger characters which could have carried West Barset on but I don’t think this is the way she would have taken it.
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Post by Claire on Feb 20, 2018 13:48:13 GMT 1
Well I've finally read it now and think a lot of your points were spot on Ginslinger. I thought it was in the main well written (certainly better than most fanfic or even some modern pony fiction) and it was nice to read about the characters again. Apart from far too much navel gazing and teenage angst it was a fairly entertaining read if you hadn't read the Pony Club books before. BUT if you had, there were a lot of inconsistancies. I too was puzzled by Dick's mental problems. He seemed quite a solid character in the original books. I know a fair bit about pychology and he appears to be suffering from anorexia/bulimia and depression but does not really fit the profile for easting disorders. But my main question is why did we need a character suffering from a break down? Although the original series was not shallow, there was not a huge amount of self absorption in them. In this book however most of them seem to be suffering some sort of crisis - even Margaret who was as insensitive as they come in the original series, is having a bit of teen angst over whether she's a good enough rider for her new pony - something the real Margaret would never have even comnsidered! I can understand the love bits, tho thwy were a bit mawkish at times, as this had been alluded to in Pony Club Camp, but why did the story have to be so depressing. As ginslinger says there was no humour at all in the book and humour played a huge part in the series, especially Team and Camp: that's one of the things that makes them some of my favourite books. I found the links to the earlier books a bit clunky at times - like John and Henry re-creating their fight in Pony Club Team and something I found quite irritating was that all the characters were constantly saying 'Oy' - I know Henry had said it a couple of times in the original books but the author went a bit mad with it. All in all I quite enjoyed the book, found it readable, but it oculd have been so much better: in the end I was not convinced the characters would have acted the way they did. Sadly it does not capture the spirit of the original books or characters.
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Post by fizz on Sept 7, 2018 9:49:45 GMT 1
Has anyone read the second one in the series? I was disappointed, it is very dull in the first section, nothing really happens, some new characters are introduced who don't really need to be. The "dramatic"end was depressing. Unconvincing it could have been developed from book one this didn't happen. I will write a proper review, but I don't want to spoiler it for people, after all he doesn't peep at the "Warning contains spoiler" bit?!
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Post by antilles on Sept 10, 2018 16:36:12 GMT 1
I didn't know there was a sequel and I won't bother reading it. The first wasn't at all in the spirit of the original series, and if you want to write something that's so different, then why bother using anything of the originals at all ? 'After the Pony Club' could pass as an alternative universe fanfic (though still not one I'd want to read). It doesn't deserve to be marketed as an official follow-up to the originals. If I wanted a sequel to the JPT Pony Club, I could write something decent myself.
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Post by haf fy fan on Sept 10, 2018 20:32:03 GMT 1
Has anyone read the second one in the series? I was disappointed, it is very dull in the first section, nothing really happens, some new characters are introduced who don't really need to be. The "dramatic"end was depressing. Unconvincing it could have been developed from book one this didn't happen. I will write a proper review, but I don't want to spoiler it for people, after all he doesn't peep at the "Warning contains spoiler" bit?! No, if it ever comes as a freebie (don't have unlimited) i might try it but i didn't like the first, (which i wanted to and bought a paper version of). I read a review review/thoughts on the second and won't be wasting my money again!
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Post by fizz on Sept 11, 2018 9:53:14 GMT 1
*****Contains Spoilers*****
I may have been in a minority, but I enjoyed the first book. I was looking forward to the sequel as I expected the author to develop the characters and the plot; there was quite a lot to go on. The end of the first book left us with John and Susan getting engaged, Henry's love life in ruins, Noel moving to a new job, Dick with an undisclosed mental illness, giving up a law degree to work as a stable hand at the Majors and Margaret acquiring a new pony. Quite a lot to follow up....
So I was somewhat disappointed that first of all it is just six months since the last instalment. We hear little of Susan and John compared to the previous book, lots of material and interest lost there. Henry is back from Sandhurst, surprising that he never goes to his parents, they had a delightful manor house in The Radney Riding Club with extensive stabling and horses and a mother who wants to maintain the Arts and Crafts movement. Does Henry want to go to Uncle George's because his schooling of Echo has never developed from the first books? Surely he would have been able to be balanced on a trot now, after all, he has won quite a few elementary tests over the years. Noel is what sounds to be a working pupil somewhere in Yorkshire, but gives up her job just in time to run a Pony Club Camp. The Radcliffes loom larger, Dr Radcliffe still an important character, Roger absent, the twins playing a larger role, Evelyn being pretty out of character and Margaret suddenly becoming the total star of the local riding scene, she gets up early to school all the horses and ponies before breakfast and wins all the events at the local shows. Christopher is still Christopher even replicating an injury from a previous book. As for the Major and Aunt Carole, well fate deals a harsh blow.....The death didn't ring true for me, medically it seemed unconvincing, maybe her complete personality change was a factor, her sudden hard work cooking, cleaning and gardening must have done for her when she always had staff? As a I read, and the first part is deadly boring, I kept thinking how much more interesting it could have been. The National Service could have led to a death or maiming of one of the male characters. Dick surely would have been found work at another stables by the end and also I am pretty certain Dr Radcliffe would have signed him off as medically unfit. The new characters were irrelevant, why introduce someone new when plenty of potentially complex characters to go on? It also felt very much a weak version updated a couple of years of some of the plot lines of "Camp" but without the humour. So we are now left with an ending that most likely is final, I think Henry being killed at Korea would have been much more satisfying. It feels like an author fulfilling a contractual obligation and is lacking any excitement apart from the miserable end, which is the best written and most engaging (although not totally believable) of all.
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Post by haffyfan on Nov 9, 2018 20:34:57 GMT 1
Has anyone read the latest one? I have seen a kindle offer of 3 months unlimited for 1.99 so might sign up and give it a go, there are some Kim Ablon Whitney titles i'd like to read too but do't want to pay about £4 for an e book.
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Post by Claire on Nov 17, 2018 16:39:26 GMT 1
I haven't read the second instalment and after Fizz's review probably won't. I had mixed feelings about the first one, probably enjoyed it more than a lot of people, but it never left me panting for more.
The kindle unlimited deal is pretty good, I had one a few months back and there were a lot of pony books on there, defo worth giving it a go Haffy.
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Post by haffyfan on Nov 17, 2018 20:42:19 GMT 1
I signed up! Reading the pony club book now, it's better than the first but i still don't like it, the character development just isn't working for me at all, I don't think myself and the author even read the same original books! And i'm also convinced the time frame is to cock too, their ages seem to be all over the place or maybe that's just me. Glad i didn't buy this one!
I have discovered, as you say, there is a lot of horsey ones to give a go - i have a list as it only lets you get 10 at a time, lol, looking forward to reading Laurie Twizels racing themed one as love her eventing ones to date and i don't think that ones available in a print copy.
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Post by haffyfan on Nov 17, 2018 20:44:31 GMT 1
Sorry fizz btw, i totally missed you'd read it and posted a review, i just scrolled down here assuming the posts were about the original so i'd have read them already x
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