Story link

Review by Elimona

Title [10/10]

The title was really original and it made me really interested as well! I could also tell a bit about what the story was going to be because of the title and the genre of the story but I was fine with that. Also when I searched for your story in Google, there were no other stories with same name as yours or similar titles to it so kudos to you! The chapter titles were also amazing and I personally felt were fitting for the chapters.

Appearance [9/10]

I loved how you kept the background a simple blue colour because it wasn’t distracting and I could feel a sci-fi mood from it for some reason. (Don’t ask me why.) The poster was good as well because it was quite simple and didn’t hurt my eyes like some posters do. The font you used was readable too and overall I felt that everything was fine.

Description and foreword [9/10]

I have to applaud you on the description and the foreword! The description was short but straight to the point and it hooked me in straight away. The excerpt that you used for the foreword was also intriguing and the grammar and punctuation was all correct and fine. The foreword was really good as it made me ask questions like, ‘What was the bet Kris had made with Suho?’ Or ‘Why was Kris creating a code for human life in the first place anyways?’ and it made me want to read on. This is exactly what a foreword is meant for so this is great!

Characters [9/10]

I think you did a good job of defining your characters since there was such a small cast. At first, all Kris cared about finally beating Suho and to see him being buried under the ground once and for all. But when he created Yixing, he started to change and this is where you see the change in his personality. You could tell that Yixing started to mean a lot more to him than just an experiment when he started to show compassion and when he also let him see the rain and you could tell that he started to treat Yixing like an actual human being rather than a thing that he could cut open and see what happens. I also loved the way that you drew the similarities between Kris and Suho although they were supposed to be nemeses.
Suho was actually added in the story a bit later than I expected but I could still define him. He was genuinely sorry for leaving Yixing behind and he clearly had no idea about Yixing’s Fatal Bet and you could tell how sad he was to let Yixing go because at the end he asked Kris to use the code again to create Yixing again which showed that he still longed for him.
Yixing’s character broke my heart. When he was created, he thought that he was a human and he could think like a human being and looked like one. But when Kris cut into him and he couldn’t feel pain and he could see no blood, that’s when he realized that he wasn’t human and this was a massive revelation for him. For me, Yixing was the one with the most complex character because he had so many things kept from him by Kris and when he found them out, I could feel his pain and I felt that he could almost break at any second. When his code actually started to mutate on its own, it started to make him more human with every passing day. This might have been the downfall for him because as he became more human, more memories started to come back to him and he started to re-discover more things and he felt more emotions.
When he changed his code himself to protect one of the ones he loved, which absolutely killed me. Thank you for creating a character that I felt so connected to and I loved so much although Lay/Yixing is not one of my biases.

Plot [38/40]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a plot like this before. The basic element with bringing someone back to life with science is heard of but the way you added a dystopian future and with the Fatal Bet added in the mix created a captivating story. Although it had the typical love triangle, the way you added the different elements and made the plot and story yours, it didn’t once make me think it was clichéd when I was reading the actual story itself.
If there was one thing that I felt you could slightly improve on was when Kris and Lay started to fall for each other which I felt was a bit too quick but then again I’m not sure how long the times span was supposed to be. I also felt that the flow was a bit fast at times but this is just my personal opinion.
Overall, I think you created a brilliant story and plot for the prompt you’ve chosen.

Grammar and spelling [9/10]

Three years of misery, tears, and frustration would finally subside to a bright smile, a mocking smile as he showed the people who doubted his ambition the power of his intellect.
Correction: Three years of misery, tears, and frustration would finally subside to a bright smile, a mocking smile as he showed the people who doubted his ambition, the power of his intellect.
This sentence would make sense with a comma in between since you’re talking about 2 different things.
After the third Great Depression wreaked havoc in the world and millions of worthless reigned on the streets of all the nation’s greatest cities and millions more starved from the global food shortages.
Correction: After the third Great Depression wreaked havoc in the world and millions of worthless people reigned the streets of all the nation’s greatest cities and millions more starved from the global food shortages.
I’m assuming that when you wrote ‘millions of worthless’, you simply missed out the ‘people’ and it’s a simple typo. Also you should write ‘reigned the streets’ not reigned on the streets since this is grammatically correct.
You mostly just had simple typos which isn’t a problem for me at all. I would just suggest reading over it again so you can correct the typos.

Overall enjoyment [10/10]

You have no idea how shocked I was to get a request to review ‘Humanity’s Code’ because I had already read part of it before-hand! I absolutely loved the story and the story you have in your hands is just absolutely amazing! I know that this review is probably just all praise and you probably expected this but to be honest there was hardly anything bad I could say about this story. I will always remember this story although ‘Kray’ is not at all one of my OTPs. I also wish you the best of luck with the writing contest!
I’m so sorry that this review didn’t come earlier but I’ve been busy lately and ill and I’m so sorry you had to wait for such a long time!

Total [94/100]