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Children of the Apocalypse by Skyla Dawn Cameron

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Rated 7.12 out of 10 Statistics

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Genre: Supernatural / Fantasy

Updated: Monthly

Content Advisory

Occasional Sexual Content

Frequent Coarse Language

Occasional Violence

Statistics

Overall Rating: 7.121

Average Rating: 9.22 (Guests), 7.64 (Members)

Ranking: #32

Rating Count: 18 (9 Guests, 9 members)

1 indicates a weighted rating.

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"Pleasant Little Surprise"

Rating: 9 / 10

Opener: When I first read the title of Skyla Dawn Cameron’s “Children of the Apocalypse” my first thought was one of dismay. I was assuming that it would be a web novel about teen saving the world and I was right. I also assumed that it wouldn’t portray the teens the way it should. While surprising – though pleasant – I was wrong. Most times when you have someone writing a teen view they focus only on the story not on the teen’s everyday dramas. Especially when the so called teens are trying to save the world from some not-completely-identified threat. Skyla however managed to work the everyday dramas (and some of the not so everyday ones) into the story in ways that either causes you to feel sorry for the characters, or to laugh at their mentors and them.

Pros: The story is for once devoid of overly common clichés. While one can never avoid one or two I found it free of most of the overly common ones. It was a happy day to see that. I was also glad to see it free of sickening amounts of teen angst. Angst – while amusing – becomes irritating to reader like me in large quantities. I have had enough of my share of angst for one. If you want something with angst in amounts that isn’t overwhelming you’ve found a good little story.

The chapter length is perfect. Nothing is too long for a good before bed one chapter reading but it’s also not short enough to leave you on cliff hangers until the next chapter. Skyla has managed to find a fairly good balance for the size of her chapters.

Finally, the page layouts. I, personally, like it. Not everyone enjoys dark colours for their reading material but I enjoy it when reading supernatural or urban fantasy novels. You never want the lights on for a good horror movie so why should you when you’ve got evil murderers and monsters just around the bend in a fine book. It sets a good ambiance when reading for me.

Cons: While I loved the layout out for when I was reading, navigating wasn’t quite such an enjoyable venture. It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had to deal with but it was far from the best. Everything feels too crammed into the center divider. I wish it was a little bigger to give more room for all that is on it.

The active community. Or lack thereof. While I guess there must be quite a few people who read this I wonder vaguely if people just joined to be on a bandwagon of sorts. As I was glancing through the comments I notice there are generally people who keep coming back to comment, the same people though. Yes there are quite a few compared to some but for the amount of time this has been around the active community seems to have abandoned it.

I wish Skyla was a little more descriptive of her characters in the writing. While she has pictures up yes I wish that when writing about a characters look she would go into more detail. Not much more but just a little more. She does fairly well with Genevieve and later on with Meredith but Sage seems to have gotten to little description in the writing. This may have been my own misreading but I didn’t figure out Sage was black until I went and looked at a picture of her in the gallery.

In closing: The few slight problems in it don’t take away from the experience nearly enough for me to say not to read it. I myself am going to start recommending it too all my online friends and I will to anyone who reads this as well.

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"Captivating"

Rating: 8 / 10

I have stumbled onto this online serial back in December and forgot about everything else while I read all the material online at that time. It’s an amazing story, where characters have depth and emotions. You can tell these could be real people, and not a black and white character as in many written works. While I found the novel entirely captivating, I’d be hard pressed to choose if and who I like most of the characters. More often than not, I don’t like them as people, or I don’t agree with their actions, but that only adds to the work’s appeal. I believe that is one of the main reasons why I do come back for the next part every first day of a new month. While the wait is long, the installments are definitely worth it.

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"Great Story!"

Rating: 9 / 10

Children of the Apocalypse is a great read so far, it is in short a pre-apocalypse story.  The story follows 3 special girls with powers and one bastard of a mentor whose job it is to save the world.  The “bad guys” are mysterious and varied and not everything is what it seems.

What I like about it:  The story progresses smoothly without the perspective confusion that you find in stories that follow more then one main character.  The characters develop nicely and the author stays true to the characters’ characteristics, there is never a question as to why a character did what they did.  The overall plot is engaging with enough sub-plots and twists that keep the story interesting.  The story never seems drawn out and stale, it always feels fresh.  The character’s may have special powers however the story revolves more around the characters themselves and how they interact then their wham-bam powers (wham-bam is a technical term  ).  The chapter length is nice and long, no tid-bits here and there.

What I don’t care for:  I would love to see this updated more frequently then once a month, but understand that, that is probably not feasible with the chapter length and the author’s other work (Curio Killed the Cat).  The new 50 point system, a user must register and acquire 50 points (from commenting, donating, reviewing etc.) in order to read new chapters (old chapters are available for free until Part III Chap 8) while I can understand where the author is coming from and some of the problems they encountered, I would like to see a better way of doing this, maybe some type of yearly subscription service.

If you are looking for an engaging web-serial check this out or the author’s other works, the complete list can be found here:  http://www.skyladawncameron.com/books.

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"children of the Apocalypse, Skyla Dawn Cameron"

Rating: 9 / 10

I’m a readaholic. Plain and simple. And since I’m a student, I can’t exactly go buy all the books in a bookstore so the search began of scouring the Internet to find novels that interest me. I don’t remember how I found Skyla’s site (I think it was Google, bless them), but I have seriously never regretted it. Children of the Apocalypse is so far the best teen read on the net. Skyla has managed to create the most believable characters with the most unbelievable story. There are flaws that make everything even more real. The serial is captivating, awe-inspiring and nail-biting. I can’t wait to find out who would make what choice and to see what Skyla has planned. It’s an amazing read, so thumbs up and huge applause goes to talented Skyla Dawn Cameron!

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"Worth a Look"

Rating: 9 / 10

When the thought occurred to me, a couple of years ago now, to scour the internet in search of what sort of free reading materials were out there that could quench my need for a good story, I hadn’t had particularly high hopes of finding anything spectacular. “Who on earth with any skill would have their work free online?” I had asked myself. I knew of many wonderful fan fictions, of course, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted something new, something entirely original, something that didn’t make me feel guilty getting attached to it.

Eventually I did find my way to many interesting online novels, or serials, rather, but very, very few ever really managed to successfully trip my trigger. No matter what my writing sometimes may suggest, I actually am aware of how spelling and grammar are supposed to work, how plots are supposed to flow, what makes a twist predictable and what doesn’t, and many, many stories online, for one of these reasons or another, eventually lost my interest over time.

Skyla Dawn Cameron’s Children of the Apocalypse, however, has had me glued like an addict since I first came across it. Her writing style is wonderfully intelligent for someone who offers her work free, and her characters are well rounded, with personality and depth that even some of the most published and popular authors have never managed to pull off (I’m looking at you, Meyer). What’s more fun than her skill at formulating these “real” characters however, is Cameron’s ability to weave them into a plot you just can’t tear yourself out of, with wonderfully refreshing twists that actually surprise, mystery that remains just that until the big reveal comes, and enough intrigue to make sure it’s always worth coming back for more. While this book is available for money on the physical plane, the fact that Skyla offers it to her readers for free online just makes it, and her, even more impressive to me in the end.

Her stuff can be "adult", but I would definitely recommend a visit.

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"CotA, review, Lala, Skyla Dawn Cameron"

Rating: 5 / 10

Children on the Apocalypse is a great story! The way it is put together is fantastic. It is a wicked awesome story! Skyla is a great author who captures her readers and takes them on a fun, fast-paced ride.  I have read a lot of books and stories, and this particular serial makes it to the top three. I love her originality! Her characters are so complex. Sometimes, while I am reading I wonder what weird dream she had to have had to find the inspiration she needed to make these characters. I like the way she made each character have a back story. Something that made them special, and even things that were not even really important to the story, but made the reader picture what made the character why he or she was that way. I love stories like that and make me happy to have read such a great story. I hope to read many more of Skyla’s books in the future!

Lala…

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