Scrapped by Nick Venom (the lemonade war series TXT) 📕

Thank you all for reading this universe breakdown about The Zombie Infection. I would love to do more in the future, if possible. 

This universe holds great significance to me as the first installment is the first-ever story released, but it also has some great potential that I would love to explore. 

Until next time, I bid you all a good day!

*Author’s Note #1: Day Before Dawn is a new TZI series that will be in the same universe as the other series, but will mostly act on their own.

*Author’s Note #2: There may be confusion as to the Chronicles Saga and Canon Original Timelines (COT) go to different pages on Bookrix. Both Nick Venom and LI Production are written by the same person - me!

“Good… then I welcome you to The Cold War.”

[Quote From: The Cold War 2: AvD E6 - The Cold War (2020) {LI Production}]

Hello All!

Welcome to the rankings of every LI Production release between the years 2020 and 2021, the years where LI Production really began. Before we start the rankings, here is some background information. LI Production began as the main account of Jayhawk Publishing long before it was even known under that name. During 2019, it suffered a half-year hiatus before undergoing several name changes (from Nick Venom Archives to Asterisk Production to Live-In-Paradise Paradise) until the name stuck with Live-In Production. The first full year of LI Production was 2020, though that year saw a quarter of its releases being canceled and the rest of them remastering old properties - most of which were later deemed non-canon. 2021 saw another wave of pointless remasters, but also several new releases that brought life to the LI Production brand. Below are the rankings of every LI Production release.

10: The unfortunate property that takes last place on this list is Final Moments: Complete Story (2019) {Final Moments}. This property is dead last because it’s an unplanned mess that has little creativity, messy writing, and one-dimensional characters. The main character of Blyke Johnson isn’t a grand hero, a scheming villain, or even an interesting character at all. He’s just a name, not an actual character to who the readers can relate with. As for the side characters, they are all underdeveloped and bland, lacking any real personalities. The overall framing of the episodes being entries in Blyke’s journal is interesting but the execution lays dead on arrival since the messy writing destroys any chance of the story being interesting. Instead, the story of a world-ending in seven days, which could’ve been an interesting story with a lot of dramatic beats, fell on its face with its generic characters and awful world-building. Also fun fact, Final Moments was an idea that had been brewing with no solid thread aside from the main idea of seven days before the world is destroyed, but it became a series because I needed something to put on Revival: A Collection of Shorts. And so this unplanned mess of a series became a reality. A really sad reality.

9:  In ninth place is The Cold War: Remastered (2019) {Remastered}. Remastered, as the name implies, is a remaster of an older story known as The Cold War: The Lost City Battle (2016) {The Lost City Battle}. Remastered remasters The Lost City Battle and expands on that story and its characters. However as you can tell from its rankings on this list, Remastered didn’t do well. Remastered reintroduced The Lost City Battle’s characters and expanded on them, but didn’t do enough to move them away from being one-dimensional characters. They remain as flat characters that just move the plot forward but don’t have any real depth to them. You could take away one of the characters and not much would change. On the other hand, Remastered has some good things going for it - specifically its action which is leagues better than the ham-fisted action in Final Moments. As well as a plot of a siege between two military factions being executed in a better fashion. Overall, the story isn’t a complete mess as Final Moments had been, which earns it this spot on the rankings.

8: Following after Remastered is The Zombie Infection: Original Timeline (2015 - 2021) {Original Timeline}. Original Timeline is a collection of a few entries and not just one. Usually, these entries would be split into their own separate rankings, as you will soon see, but these entries are very similar as they suffer from almost the same problems. The first of the entries, 2015’s The Zombie Infection: Rising From The Grave {Rising From the Grave}, suffers from bland underdeveloped characters, choppy writing, and a non-existent plot. The main character of Nick has no personality aside from a leader whose father was in the military and the side characters have even less, one of them simply being ‘love interest to Nick’. These bland and underdeveloped characters barely receive any real attention or development over the two sequels - 2017’s The Zombie Infection 2: Journey {Journey} and 2019’s The Zombie Infection 3: The Final Chapter {The Final Chapter}. These sequels suffer the same problems because of a poor or nonexistent outline and messy and choppy writing, keep in mind these were some of my first stories and I was rather young at the time. The only reason they are in eighth place is mainly because of the nostalgia I have for the series. And as a side note, I would rank the series, based on nostalgia, as Rising From The Grave, Journey, then The Final Chapter. Based on how well the series was written, then it would be the other way - The Final Chapter, Journey, then Rising From The Grave. 

7: The first 2021 release featured on this ranking is Infection: Episode One (2021) {Infection}. Infection is a short story written for a short-story collection titled Starter Scrolls: Installment One (2021) {Starter Scrolls 1}. Starter Scrolls 1 contains three short stories, with Infection being one of them. Infection is a typical zombie story except for some hints of a hive mind within the zombies giving the series an edge over similar zombie stories, an example being The Zombie Infection Universe. The pacing is slow but the action and tension are done well that forgives the slow pace. The content of the story isn’t a complete tale, but a fraction of it - which makes sense considering that this is the first episode. However, even by itself, it’s an interesting piece with some good buildup to the second installment. Though the main character here isn’t a completely thought-out character, he still does well as the lead and is an interesting character for readers to follow and see his growth. This series isn’t a revolution in the zombie genre, but it’s still done really well and has a lot of potential. 

6: Just missing the top five on this list is The Day The World Broke: Chapter One - Welcome To The Family (2021) {The Day The World Broke C1}. The Day The World Broke C1 is the second of three installments apart of Starter Scrolls 1. This story is another incomplete story, which makes sense considering that it's only chapter one, but what’s there is still interesting. The main character, Justin, is interesting and he isn’t as flat as other main characters. There is a lot of potential in this series and many available avenues for the story to travel through. And Justin’s family is a family portrayed correctly, in my opinion of course, and they contain some interesting characters, though some are more one-dimensional than the others. The pacing treads well and the action is light but effective, especially towards the end of the story. The Day The World Broke C1 is also the first series to introduce two storylines into its tale that many other stories later utilize. Though, the second storyline characters aren’t as strong as the main storyline character. 

5: In fifth place is Blood: The Chosen One (2021) {Blood 1}. Blood I hits fifth place on this list mostly as it’s a “meh” installment. The characters aren’t overly developed and the plot isn’t anything new, but what drives this series farther than the others is that the story was fun to write and the characters were interesting, especially Jemma. She doesn’t get much development but she also doesn’t find herself stuck in stereotypes. She isn’t some pretty wallflower waiting for help, instead, she finds herself fighting off with Crevitar, Blood 1’s villain, and even managing to wound him. She can drive the story onward as a good protagonist. Opposite her is Crevitar who is interesting, though still very much underdeveloped, and provides a menacing beast who is at times is strangely a perfectionist and other times a bloodthirsty monster. The writing and framing of the story does the story’s plot well and isn’t messy or overly choppy. Overall, this story did what it set out to do and deserves to be at this spot on the list.

4: Taking fourth place is the most recent release, The Cold War 2: Aztecs versus Deltas (2021) {AvD}. AvD takes place after Remastered and does well in developing these established characters and giving them an avenue to travel down away from the others. Wix, Ash, and Gunner slowly grow into their own characters and aren’t as dependent on each other as they were in Remastered. The new characters introduced in AvD bring new life to the property, though their character development is rather slow, mostly stuck as one-dimensional characters. Hopefully, future installments can flush out their characters. As for the writing, it’s superior to Remastered and flows a lot better. It isn’t choppy and the plot doesn’t tread slowly and bores the reader. Instead, the plot is much more entertaining and isn’t fixated on one storyline, but rather several. AvD is a step up from Remastered and has much potential for future installments or even an entire universe. 

3: Taking the bronze medal on this list is the last of Starter Scrolls 1’s installments - Hunt: Chapter One (2021) {Hunt C1}. Hunt is older than AvD, being released half a year prior, but it scores higher on this list for a few reasons. The first of which is that Hunt is the longest short-story written to date (as of 12/23/21) at around 10,000 words. The nostalgia and the fun time I had while writing this story continues to fill my mind even to this day. In addition, the plot of people finding themselves on a random island in the middle of nowhere after a plane crash isn’t a genre-changing idea, but it’s one that I find interesting and new among my mostly fantasy-related catalog. Though Hunt C1 definitely has its fantasy elements, the story is rooted in realism, even tackling issues of domestic abuse, even though it was brief, and sexual harassment. Kyle serves as a fun protagonist who is relatable and simply someone who is an interesting character to follow. The