Review: “Oblivion,” Skyla Dawn Cameron

Rating: 5 out of 5

Skyla Dawn Cameron’s Oblivion (Demons of Oblivion Book 5) is the conclusion to this wonderful series. Vampire Zara Lain accidentally kicked off the apocalypse in the previous novel, and now it’s really shifting into gear. Quarter-demon and whole-badass Peri is our main point of view character in this volume. She runs into an old acquaintance, who explains that things are about to get bad–particularly for her. She and her friends head to a bunker Zara has equipped and try to figure out how to stop the apocalypse from happening. There’s a rain of toads, the moon has become red, and a lake turned to blood. Not to mention that as the veil thins, there are demons of all kinds running around the city. Mishka’s also back–she was swept into Oblivion in the last book, and even though she really is dead, she’s determined to keep her son out of the clutches of the folks who want to use him to bring about the apocalypse. However, that’s going to require ducking her father, the half-demon antichrist.

We get to find out more than just “it’s the apocalypse” this time. It turns out there’s a very specific reason why all of this is happening, and it’s meant to achieve a similarly specific goal. I’m trying not to give anything interesting away, here.

The characters are still wonderful, particularly what happens with Peri’s relationships with the others. There’s definitely some dark stuff going on, and our unlikely heroes are having a bad time of things. You really get to see how far they can be pushed.

We finally get to see the dimension they’ve been referring to as Oblivion! It’s crazy in there. Enki, the antichrist and Mishka and Peri’s father, can shape it pretty much at will, and it seems to be alive in some sense.

I love that Cameron assumes intelligence on the part of the reader. There are some things that happen that refer back to other events in other books–some great payoffs for things that were mentioned earlier. She doesn’t explain them to death, and if you have a halfway-decent memory for the other novels (or read them recently), you’ll be fine.

Content note for blood and guts, but you should be expecting that after the other volumes in this series. Enjoy!

“Stop worrying.”
“It’s the apocalypse, Peri.”