title: Ponies (short story)
text: # Ponies (short story)
  
  "Ponies" is a 2010 fantasy story by American writer Kij Johnson. It was first published on Tor.com.
  
  ## Plot summary
  
  Barbara, like all little girls, has a magic talking pony with wings and a horn. Barbara and Sunny are invited to a ritual "cutting-out party", where she must destroy two of the three things that make her pony special.
  
  ## Reception
  
  "Ponies" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, (tied with "How Interesting: A Tiny Man" by Harlan Ellison), and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story and the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story.
  
  Strange Horizons called the story a "grotesque".Lois Tilton considered the story to be "Highly Unsubtle." Chad Orzel described the story as "just dreadful", based on a central idea that was "preposterously contrived" and "a gigantic and unsubtle literalized metaphor", and with "essentially no plot."
  
  