Earning over 1.6 billion won (around 900 thousand British pounds) just one month after the release of its webtoon adaptation, the fantasy-apocalyptic webnovel 'Omniscient Readers Viewpoint' by Sing Shong continues to rise in popularity as time goes on.
The story follows a 28-year-old office worker, Kim Dokja. He, being a great fan of a novel called 'Three Ways to Survive an Apocalypse / Ways of Survival', has been reading it since its release, when it first started serializing 10 years prior.
As time passed, the viewer count of the novel dropped from 1,200 in the first episode, to just one after the release of the 100th episode - the sole reader, Kim Dokja. On the day of the release of the last episode, the 3149th, Dokja, on the subway on his way home from work, receives a message of gratitude from the author of his beloved novel, along with a PDF of it.
Shortly after, the train stops, a goblin appears, and the start of the apocalypse commences. Dokja realizes that this is the same situation the main character of the novel he knew so well, faced. The world seems to be in ruin as no one knows how to survive, but Dokja knows exactly how to navigate this ruined world.
The characters, along with Dokja, have to pass scenarios in order to keep on living, specifically in some cases where fighting a monster won't kill them, the penalty for failing the scenario will. If they manage to survive these seemingly impossible challenges, they are rewarded with items or abilities to help them in their journey.
Coins can also be provided by beings known as 'constellations', who choose people to sponsor. These 'constellations' can spend money to send messages to the people taking part in the scenarios, and watch the events taking place on Earth through channels hosted by goblins like the one who entered the train in which Dokja was on that fateful day.
Not only does it have a great plot, but the secret meanings behind certain parts of the novel really add to it. For example, even the protagonist's name, 'Kim Dokja'. The word 'Dok-Ja' in Korean, has three meanings: 'reader' - which is where the title of the story stems from, 'only child' - as he was indeed an only child, and 'alone'.
I will not delve into the deeper meanings of these, but they really show the extent to which the creators of the webnovel thought of, and how hard they worked on such a great story that was completed in just over two years, from January 6th, 2018 - February 2nd, 2020.
The novel 'Omniscient Readers Viewpoint' is truly a masterpiece. While the long length of the story may put people off, it having 551 chapters including an epilogue, I can assure you that it is a captivating story, one that gets you so hooked you don't even realize how much you have read. At first glance, it may seem that the authors are dragging on the story, but that is not the case. Everything has some sort of explanation and ends up linking together which, literally, ties the story together.
But if a long wordy novel doesn't suit your tastes, the webtoon is available and easy to read. However, the downside of this is that it isn't complete yet, and has been estimated to have 600+ chapters. Additionally, it cuts out certain parts, mainly dialogue, that seem to change the way certain characters feel. These changes, although may seem small to some, mischaracterize some parts of the story, leading to backlash from fans, directed to the creators of the webtoon version.
If reading in general isn't your style, an animated version and a live film were both announced this year, but no date has been scheduled, so, be on the lookout.
Overall, I strongly recommend reading this novel, although it is long, it is worth it. Again, it is indeed a masterpiece and I am yet to find a novel that can even come close to the writing of this.
