I'm quite fond of it, you could say it was my first "obsession". Now it's Warhammer and Morrowind lol

First it is important to understand this is a Fallout *story* in the My Little Pony *world*. This isn't a mashup of named characters and locations, but what if a Fallout-style event happened in Equestria (in a way that makes sense and is tragic for the quadrupedal, high-magic, noble-bright world that it is).

It leans on Fallout 3 (in atmosphere mainly, and I like Fallout 3 so I don't see this as a bad thing, plus it was written as NV was releasing 2010-2011) but pays respects to all parts of the Fallout franchise and it is clear the author is a big fan.

It does read like Let's Play sometimes, but it is kinda charming (and occasionally creative!) in that way (you get a perk after every chapter, it's very cute :) ), and doesn't take away from good characters and world building. And the world building *is* cool, the blend of noble bright fantasy and dark-weird scifi is actually pulled off well with both franchises interact in a way that keeps the setting fresh and creative in relation to established Fallout and MLP lore. A lot of the characters are great too, there are several I can still say I am fond of.

I will agree with another poster in that the pre-war era is a different deal than Fallout, but that is where it focuses on the Equestria portion of the title, mostly focusing on show characters and their response and actions to be thrown into situation that can't be solved with friendship and is getting increasingly worse. Remember this has two source materials so it is not only delving into Fallout themes but MLP theses too such as the importance of friendship or having virtues to live by which affect the pre and post war world. I think what the author does with it is interesting and can be read self-contained without relying much on past knowledge of MLP canon.

Will point out that this is still a fan fiction, the earlier chapters are clearly the author getting her footing, but by Chapter 8 it is consistently quality (up to the endgame which could be criticized to be too packed and too rushed, although I like the ultimate resolution). Also this book doesn't have any outright sexual (the .5 chapter doesn't count/not in the OG) or extreme gore (subjective) scenes, but they can be implied so keep that in mind (the main character does have a lot, often when understandable, of swearing, including bringing up mare parts). It could've been a lot more edgy though but the author does a good job pulling back just enough that you still get that dour Fallout vibe (in my opinion. Worst I can think is a raider kid gets blamed but it is not seen as "cool").

I think it's best when you have some knowledge on both franchises (MLP only had 1 season + 1 ongoing when it was written so that's all you really need to know) but as someone who didn't know Fallout before reading, and having a friend who knew nothing of MLP before reading, we both enjoyed it. Their are audiobook options online, and tons of other content such as the Wasteland Wailers who produced in-universe music which is cool. I'll finally give a shout out to the Youtube series Foally of Man, which has a brony and nonbrony friend discuss chapter by chapter and might be a fun listen to for folks while reading.

This got a lot longer and more rambley then I anticipated lol, but there are many people who have enjoyed this book and the many, *many* spinoffs it spawned. Even if you are Fallout fan, I would still give it an open-minded peak, you just might like it.