Necroepilogos

Just finished the 2nd arc, and damn if this isn't great. It's dark, it's heavy, it feels like you're right there with them, and there's nothing you can do.

For now this story has been everything I had hoped from it. Elpida is great cuz, while she's a consumate BADASS, she's also clearly human at her core, and therefore relatable.

Same with the other characters, sure one or two of them are less impactful, but they all feel real, and each unique (at the risk of being somewhat gimmicky, maybe, not sure yet.)

So... yeah, pretty great.

I rarely make reviews so I'll do my best to keep this concise.

Necroepilogos is something different and well-made. In my opinion, the two best things you can aim for. This is a story that doesn't rely on blue box's or OP MC's pummelling 2 dimensional villains thinly mascarading as plot.

Necroepilogos gives you characters thrown into a dangerous mystery with danger and confusion stalking every corner. And a cast of traumatised misfits being dragged forward by a will to survive and make sense of the world they awake to.

I would say this story isn't for everyone the author used the content warnings and if you want a happy-go-lucky light read this isn't it. If you want something different with interesting characters. Well written dialogue and a sense of real danger this is for you.

My one criticism is that the first chapter is probably the weakest, in that it is the one chapter that doesn't have what this author excels at. Dialogue. Instead it's a bit heavy on bringing you up to speed with the MC. A little clunky but honestly, not bad.

Necroepilogos is possibly the most interesting story I have on my follow list at the moment. I've gotten through the first ten chapters which, I think, is enough to give a answer on whether it's a worthwhile read. The answer is this:

Absolutely yes.

The story follows a group of girls dropped into a bizarre world. Each character is individually interesting and distinct from one another, helped along by the fact they come from radically different settings. Generally, it's often difficult in scenes with a large cast of characters to keep track of who's who, however Hungry manages to completely overstep that issue by imbuing each individual with their personalities, beliefs, and verbal tics, which I think is a fantastic indication of how good the characters are.

The protagonist, Elpida, is by and large the most interesting out of all of them. Her backstory tells of a delightfully alien setting, and is replete with its own personal history and trauma. She feels real, to a standard that's incredibly difficult to write. But, perhaps more importantly, on a moment-to-moment level she's just a good protagonist: asking good questions, keeping the plot moving, disciplined, perceptive, generally the kind of character that's easy to respect. As a focal point of the story, she's great.

But what really steals the show is the setting. At this point, it's rather unclear how or why things are happening, however the prose is good enough at depicting this incredibly alien world that I'm left with a hunger to know more. There's a real history behind anything - a fantastical one spanning ages - and that's not even accounting for a present time that seethes with Dead Space-esque horror. Except it's a whole planet - our planet. More importantly, it's not even clear how the girls exist, or how their bodies work - but there's enough there to hint at future answers.

The story seems to simply be about surviving in this world, which is actually all I feel is needed: exploring the unbelievably interesting characters and setting seems as if it should take priority. 

Haven't spotted any grammatical errors, and even if I did I don't think that they'd take me out of the story too much.

The style is good at conveying what is happening and how things appear and feel without obfuscating much meaning. On the flip side, it feels as if the majority of nouns have at least one or two adjectives attached to them. This is a bit jarring at first, and lends itself to walls of text that encourage eyes to glaze over. Here, in the story's foetal phase, it doesn't detract too much: readers are hungry to feel the contours of the world, and Necroepilogos is happy to provide a glut of information. I'm more concerned with what will happen once it's more established. When the honeymoon phase disappears, will my eyes start to glaze through walls of text that refuse to leave details to my own imagination? Dunno.

The effect of the above is a very deliberate world, a thousand details filagreed into its sediment by a master crafter; but sometimes a chair's just a chair. Doesn't need to be anything more. The reader can fill in the blanks.

Of secondary concern is that sometimes it's unclear who 'she' refers to, due to its all-female cast. Surprisingly, it's only happened one or two times so far, so I think Hungry has this well in-hand.

Anyway, it shouldn't need to be said but I love the story, and am pretty mad desperate for more. I'm actually somewhat frustrated it doesn't have more RR readers, though maybe they're all on SH or the story's website. It's difficult not to like, and I think you'll find the same if you start reading.

Possibly the strongest writing I've seen on RR. This story is dense; there is a tremendous amount of action and information and meaningful horror packed into the wordcount. The dialogue is impressive, and the characters' wildly disparate backgrounds are clearly displayed without any of them seeming like caricatures. Very, very compelling stuff. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes.

“The world makes no sense; it's been dead too long. Now it's full of worms.”

That's part of an author's note a few chapters in, and it evokes the vibes of the story damn well. And this is absolutely a story that revels in its own immaculate vibes; you could call it Dark Souls meets Gene Wolfe meets Dead Space meets Blame! and Biomega, but that's still just gesturing at the shape of it. You can tell that the author is a fan of her own setting, and that enthusiasm is both merited and infectious.

But while the setting is evocative and imaginative enough that it could steal the show from a lesser cast, the characters are still the best part here in my opinion. Elpida gets star treatment as our primary POV, and she deserves it. From a certain point of view it doesn't make sense for me to be this invested in a character backstory that's already been over for a million years when the story begins - but Elpida is, because a million years ago was just yesterday for her, and so I am too. Because the story doesn't just show you the events that are happening from her perspective, it truly draws you into her point of view, and that's deeply rooted in her experience and history.

And that sense of reality, via emotional realism in the characters, is vital to providing the grounding that keeps a story in this very fantastical and alien setting accessible. The world and the things that are happening are very strange, and the characters themselves don't recognize or understand them for the most part. But the characters, even with their own strange backgrounds, are very recognizably and legibly human, and that keeps the story as a whole feeling real.

The mystery of the strangeness of the world is definitely one of the main story drivers so far - that and the struggle for survival in a very, very hostile and unfamiliar environment. For me that's a draw - I like the puzzle of it, I like thinking about the strangeness of what's happening and trying to figure things out and watching the characters try to do the same thing and turning up new pieces of the puzzle in the process. But if you like very clear lines of "this is what's happening and why, so here's exactly what the characters' goals are" then this story might be a harder sell for you.

I will also say that there has been a bit of POV switching so far and it's been intimated that may be a recurrent feature of the story, which I know is sometimes unpopular on this site. I think it's actually done well and works well here, though. Out of the POV switches we've seen so far, one was a single-chapter interlude that gave us another angle on the mystery of the setting (and introduced some characters that I rather suspect will be showing up later). And the other is to another member of the core cast/main group; the intent there seems to be to offer perspective in stereo and show the (perhaps unexpected) inner life and POV of another character, as well as how they view the primary POV character, rather than to have any intention to split the story into multiple threads. Which avoids what is to me at least usually the biggest issue with POV switches.

The story is also definitely well-executed from a technical standpoint as far as grammar and style go. Grammatical/spelling errors have been both few and minor, and I haven't actually seen any that were still present in the text, because the author fixes them basically as soon as they're identified in the comments. The style is also well-suited to the setting, as it works well for both evoking the unique and fascinating vibes of the setting and at making the details of this alien world legible to the reader.

Overall this story is very much recommended by me. It should tell you something that as soon as I caught up I decided to leave just a brief review to help the story out a little... and then as soon as I started writing about it, all this happened instead.

The story has a lot of atmosphere that feels a bit distressing but also kept me on edge like I want to keep reading it. The setting and story have some mystery to them but the author keeps things moving and provides info. I like the pace of developing the setting and developing the characters and events happening in the plot.

the narration comes from the perspective of one of the characters as her interpretations of what's going on, so we learn just as much about our main character as we do about the actual story. the character is unique enough that this doesnt feel dull.

A very enjoyable store about a bunch of girls trying to avoid getting eaten by cannibalistic psycho zombie girls. It's the apocalypse, it's in the future, and so far Illushi is best girl. Definitely worth a follow if you enjoy yuri, action, sci-fi horror, and a good mystery. Something to look forward to every week.

Very unique world and setting, so as reader you discover the world at the same time as the characters instead of it being a "standard" fantasy or sci fi world. Also very interesting and diverse cast of characters who all have their own (back)stories yet their stories come together in the present and move as one. Write, i ask you to not please indefinitely HIATUS this story but write it to a fitting close. Or if not, don't give false hope ans just say you've dropped it.

i binge read this in 1,5 days so i'm momentarily completely invested but i hope good writing to you, author!