A Rational Zombie (Complete)

...it's a comedy, not in modern sense comedy, but classical comedy, like Dante's Divine Comedy, which is as bleak if not bleaker, like an ancient Greek's comedy where you pits two group of people or society in an amusing conflict in very dramatic irony to provoke laughter.

Nah, the fiction is not really about seeking God, but it's a good overarching motive as any. That said, I'm actually impressed. The fiction is so solid it makes author's last works, Godking Legacy, seems so shaky it might fell under its own weight. Author's skill has improved by leaps and bound! I'm now giddy about his/her next project.

Now, time to criticize.
Disclaimer: This review is written when I reached ch.101. I need to express my criticism at that point, so here we go.

Protagonist

The rational zombie protagonist started its journey by suddenly gaining lucidity. Its memory was limited, but it didn't prevent it from make sense of situation or did it best to keep itself from losing its sanity. From then on, it's a series of curious prods, experiments, and application newly acquired knowledge. It sometimes took a leap of logic, I caught myself frowning when the zombie so quickly understand the importance of grace period between hunger emergence. Same leap of logic happen elsewhere, but overal it's fine. Its adventure were written skillfully, with humor sprinkled in every now and then. Full score for protagonist.

The word choice followed its level of knowledge. I believe it took considerable effort to find simplified term, but reader may sometimes find the author failed in that regard. A complex word, whether it's a noun or a verb, can suddenly enter its vocabulary. I think it's about 20% of the times its vocabulary acqusition took a leap, but it's quite jarring nonetheless. Grammar score 4/5.

Worldbuilding

The world in Zombie's Journey is bleak. Governments crumbled, utilities fallen into disrepair, even anarchy cannot sustain itself. People are forced to gather in small, tribal-like, community. There's no effort in trying to build back civilization and I think it's weird. Why don't they try to take over defensible building complex, like military base. Why don't people try to revive farmland or small-sized industry?

After anarchy died down, organizing people should be easier, so is resources acquisition. It makes sense people must depend on raids in first few months, but leadership should emerge and the strive for expanded security should start. It's really unthinkable the most advanced tribe only has cesspit for sanitary facility. The zombies are dumb, the village should easily expand. People should live in relative peace, at least until, spoiler ahead, they realize no baby is born to replenish the population. In this sense this fiction is wanting in the worldbuilding department. I suppose worldbuilding is a part of story score, so 3/5 over there.

Antagonist

Then the antagonist, the still living humankind. What a failure they are. They have no sense of military tactic! When they send foraging party, they don't appoint any scout. When they recognize the threat of intelligent zombie, they assume but never assess. The five fighter party who try to loot fallen Ranger Station is the very picture of incompetence.

The Garrison is another. Why it doesn't come into their mind that offense is an essential part of defense? The threat is only a single commanding zombie! They indeed send three scout, but once they understood that single zombie can fight back, why did they not prioritize securing more information? They should run away once they know their defensive position untenable. These scouts also understand that the zombie know English, why don't they at least whisper if not speak in other language?

The defeat of college kid group (the first group the smart zombie attacked) is understandable. They were caught unaware. But everyone following them are idiots. For this reason, the antagonist got zero score. Since protagonist and antagonist are part of character score, I suppose 3/5 to balance the wonderful protagonist.

Verdict

All in all this fiction is very worth reader's time. I think it's very well written I start to hold it to a higher standard. Until the part where the protagonist attack the five cabin base, I even think this may be a rational fiction (I'm a ratfic sucker), too bad it failed two key aspects of it afterward. But it's a very good adventure story indeed.

 It was a interesting read.. I think it's the autors best fiction, but it's def not for everyone . Unfortunately the ending is feels like really rushed. 

I really like that book, it was my daily dose of pure logic, it was extremely refreshing to see our society from such a point of view, I reaalllyyy encouraging people to read it, if they aren't scared by different point of view that the mainstreams ones, if you aren't discussed by not realy humain MC and have seen a looottt of internet

It's a Virlyce story. The world building is great, there is humor, things never get too dark or tragically edgy. What more is there to say ? Read it and enjoy!!!

The story although not good I wouldn’t say it was a bad experience but by no means was it exceptional, the ending especially. Well if I could say something else about it is that although it caught my attention with the interesting plot at the beginning I found myself skimming through chapters without truly reading them. Basically I found the story boring albeit there are several funny and good moments scattered around. Overall it's just quite a meh expierence.

Scrolled past this thinking, not much of a summary, skip. Then at the bottom Virlyce, instafollow.

i like it, its something different,unique. Keep it up 

Style: The zombie’s inner thoughts pervade much of the story. I liked how this was written; although, the content of the thoughts left much to be desired (started out promising, stagnated after). Besides the blocks of narration from the zombie MC, we follow a group of humans combatting zombies and the infected. Perhaps if the zombies thoughts were written like dialogue, it would’ve made it less like a ramble or train of comprehension/thinking and instead more engaging. At this point, the humans were much more interesting to follow. So better balancing between the zombie blocks and human dialogue could’ve been beneficial.

Grammar: Fine enough.

Story: Until chapter 7, it’s just a zombie basically eating flesh. Lovely. At 7 and various points until chapter 23 when I stopped, the humans plight was introduced and delved into more. Their sections of the story soon became more interesting than the zombie’s. At first, a zombie MC was intriguing, especially its thoughts which made him somehow arrogant and quickly unlikable. I expected this to be a sort of “Warm Bodies” movie plotline after hearing that this zombie was different from the rest. But nah, this zombie is just doing it’s own thing which is basically finding whatever it can eat to survive. The promise in the synopsis of finding the meaning of life is missing after the firat chapter or so in. Maybe it’ll come up eventually. I have a feeling it will. But it’s taking too long of a time where all this gorging of flesh and smacking of metal rods gets old.

Character: The zombie MC narration becomes boring and repetitive quick. What could’ve been a great coming to enlightenment about the world or becoming humanized was left sorrily in the dust. At this point, no MC development is really made. Even though we don’t see as much of the humans thoughts, their struggles/actions were more interesting. One very minor detail to add. Jen, Joe, James. Why the heck do their names all start with J? It momentarily confused me at times since the names are so similar. It’s not a biggie, but it’s somewhat of an odd (minor) pet peeve that I didn’t realize I had until now.

Overall: If you want to read several chapters (though each is somewhat short) of a zombie strolling around to find things to eat plus a few panicked humans who seem to slowly become more of a story focus, then go right ahead and read for at least 20 chapters before you feel like you’re getting somewhere. The prospect is interesting, but the potential gets lost. Perhaps later on it’ll pick up into something substantial, but I’m not going to drag myself through another 40 chapters to get there.

I enjoyed this story, although I did have a headache at the end so my opinion of the end of the story might be off. To be exact, the ending was cool, took you for a spin, but felt kind of lackluster compared to the rest of the story. I still recommend reading it though, that was probably just the headache. 

Oh, and personally I wasnt too shocked at the gore. Probably a combination of headache, no emotional attachment to people being eaten, and of course my emotions dont really work like they do for others. Anyway, it's bad but not the worst I've seen.

Style wise, it's got It down. Gorey, but curiosity invoking, you can't help but want to see what the main character will do next. At times its impressive what they manage, but there is a fairly good excuse:

Story, well, it works? It isnt very clear to be fully honest, but it is there. More of a slice of life than anything else.

I can't remember anything serious about grammer, although based on my fading headache, it might if been that the grammer of the entire story was just slightly different to what I am used to from other books, annoying my brain just enough by making me reconsider everything subconsciously. But that's my problem, not yours.

Character wise, well, everyone has a different character. You can kind of tell who is who, and there are hints at what kind of person someone is based on their actions. And the main character also has a personality and what not. But they are a zombie at the end of the day, so dont expect any growth in that area. Same with the other characters, it's too short a time frame for their to character growth.

Tl;dr read the book. It's good. No serious problems beside gore. So read it.