Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

Cipher Code Review

Cipher Code

By 

_logogriph

Reviewed 

by 

AmyMarieZ

Overview: Cipher Code is a post-apocalyptic science fiction story that begins after a dense, unbreathable fog has engulfed the world, throwing it into chaos. The government is in turmoil, and to make matters worse, horrifying beasts begin emerging from the fog and attacking the survivors. The story follows two main sets of characters: a pair of children lost and alone in an abandoned city, and a group on the inside of the organization in the North fighting to survive.

Structure: The story begins with a set of three prologues. Other than the slight confusion as to why these parts are each "prologues" rather than chapters, the structure makes sense. The prologues introduce the characters, setting, and inciting incident well. Although the beginning starts a bit slow with a decent bit of history of the world and its government, the excitement quickly takes off halfway through the first prologue.

The first prologue focuses on Corey Roya, the minister of the North, one of the four nations the world has been divided into. The second two prologues introduce Esau and Edythe, two children who are eventually left alone to fend for themselves once the fog and monsters that lurk within it begin to devastate the world.

Grammar: Overall, the grammar in the story is very good. There are a few grammatical issues, specifically with capitalization around dialog. However, the grammatical mistakes thin out as the story progresses. There are still one or two typos or misplaced words in later parts, but overall the grammar is good and does not disrupt the reading experience.

Pace: The overarching plot of the story progresses at a fairly slow pace, however it works well with the style of the story because the world building and character development are crucial. The story follows multiple sets of characters and contains subplots that support the main plot, so excitement is present throughout and the story does not drag. With so much going on, progressing the plot too quickly could create confusion. Cipher Code reads like it could be complete as a long stand-alone novel or even a series of novels.

Pacing of individual scenes is good in general, however the pace of some high intensity/action scenes is a bit slow. These scenes sometimes include a bit too much and unnecessary detail, resulting in the story reading at a bit too slow of a pace, one example being when Esau's sister Edythe is attacked during prologues 2 & 3.

Character Development: Character development is excellent overall. The dialog is believable and flows naturally. Although the story introduces a large number of characters fairly quickly, they are each memorable and unique. The main characters are introduced one at a time, giving the reader time to warm up to each of them. The characterization of the children Esau and Edythe is especially well done. After just the first two prologues, the characters have already become extremely enduring and compelling. They play off each other's dialog well throughout and manage to create an emotional attachment with the reader quickly.

Characterization of Corey, Philip, and Dawn, members in the organization in the North, is also very well done. The characters complement each other well. Dawn provides great comic relief and livens up the scene, while Corey and Philip show more of the darkness of the whole situation.

Vocabulary/Description: The use of creative language and the vivid and varied vocabulary makes the descriptions in Cipher Code enjoyable to read. Descriptions of the monsters living within the fog and just the descriptions of the fog itself create eerily impressive visuals!

While the descriptions themselves are excellent, the wording of some of those descriptions is a bit awkward. Sentences tend to contain unnecessary words, making them tedious to read. Additionally, sentences are often long and contain many commas. In multiple places, the excessive length of sentences makes the descriptions and story a bit difficult to follow. More variation in sentence structure, for example including some very short sentences, along with breaking up long sentences into multiple shorter sentences, could improve the reading experience.

Plot: The backstory and general plot of Cipher Code is very intriguing. Although the first prologue starts out a bit slow, the story quickly picks up. It seems as though the story is still only at the beginning of the plot, and things are only starting to heat up. However, in both of the groups of characters (the children and the organization), the story has already started to develop. The children are thinking about venturing off into the fog. The organization in the North is dealing with fatigue, as well as the increasing danger of the monsters emerging from the fog.

The plot manages to generate a lot of excitement as well as mystery. There is still a bit of confusion about what exactly is going on and where the monsters are coming from, but this only makes the reader want to read on further to find out more about the world.

The author's choice to follow two separate groups of characters works well to progress the plot and engage the reader by showing the world from two different perspectives. The reader gets to experience the more emotional and personal horror of a world covered in nearly unbreathable fog along with the children, as well as see what is going on with the government and military along with Corey, Dawn, and Philip.

Summary: Cipher Code is a truly intriguing start for a science fiction story! With engaging, interesting, and varied characters as well as a vivid and frightening post-apocalyptic setting, the story has the potential to really get readers hooked! Although it seems like the plot has not progressed very far, the set up and backstory of Cipher Code holds potential to be a truly thrilling sci-fi read!

Note: The review book offers several options. To review only grammar and sentence structure. To review only character development and plot. To review only vocabulary and descriptions. Or, the requester can ask for all of this to be reviewed. There are two options when making this request – for it to be sugar-coated or not.

This review is for it all to be touched on (not sugar-coated).