Speculative Fiction | Self-Publishing Review

Review: The Happy Valley by Benjamin Harnett

The Happy Valley by Benjamin Harnett is an innovative and genre-bending work that reveals startling truths about an idyllic rural community in upstate New York.

Separated into two parts – “The Farm” and “The Key” – an unnamed narrator embarks on a journey to find June, his ex-lover who has disappeared. Moving back and forth between the historical and more recent pasts (the 1800s, the 1990s) and a futuristic present (2036 and beyond), the novel is part historical novel, part science/speculative fiction, and part self-reflexive meta-fiction.

In “The Farm,” our narrator recalls junior high, where he first met and fell […]

SPR2022-10-17T16:01:09+02:00September 19th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Speculative Fiction|

The Pystead Group by James Pryor

A twisting, near-future novel about freedom, destruction, and the existential struggle for survival, The Pystead Group by James Pryor is both a chilling and thought-provoking dystopian read.

Philip’s life takes a drastic turn when he accepts a job offer to join the Pystead Group, cloistered on the secretive isle of Nevis. Resembling a contemporary cross between a cult, a corporation, a country, and a next-gen army, this shadowy colossus promises a brighter future, and the resources to build one, but there are plenty who seek to tear down this elite colony – both from within and without.

Bearing watermarks of […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-03-24T09:15:35+02:00March 23rd, 2022|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction|

Review: Utopia? by R.A. Rowlingson

Author R.A. Rowlingson launches readers into an eerily familiar dystopian world with Utopia? The titular megacity may be a last bastion of humanity bulging behind massive walls, but there are dangerous powers growing both within and without, in this sinister work of speculative fiction.

The masses of the Commune outside the walls are beginning to realize that fighting amongst themselves isn’t the way forward, while the political stability within Utopia is being offered up to the highest bidder. In a shifting landscape of power brokers, blackmailers, and infiltrators, the smoking man and the pixelated man villainously vie for control of […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-03-24T05:37:40+02:00February 25th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction, Speculative Fiction|

Review: The Venus World by Hywel Richard Pinto

A femme-dominated future falls into fracture and peril in The Venus World by Hywel Richard Pinto, a sprawling slice of post-apocalyptic and speculative fiction.

Men are reduced to reproductive necessities after a freak biohazard virus is unleashed on the world, wiping out males across the world in staggering numbers. With their population diminished and their power contained, it seems that the future truly is female, but not all are in agreement about the way forward.

Six queens rule over this new world, and each of their regions has its own supplies and demands, leading inevitably to conflict and decidedly bad […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-09-17T06:54:42+02:00August 13th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction, Speculative Fiction|

Review: Song of All Songs by Donna Dechen Birdwell

Donna Dechen Birdwell has crafted an immersive and visceral vision of the future with Song of All Songs, a novel that begs to be savored like few others in recent memory. In an unspecified future Earth, after humanity has once again been decimated and reborn, this first installment of the EarthCycles series plays out as both a wonderful adventure and a well-crafted prophecy.

A rare treasure and a hidden gift leads Meridia on a journey that will uncover the truth of her past, her family, and the fate of the world as she knows it. After being separated from […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-06-08T07:07:13+02:00June 7th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Donna Dechen Birdwell, Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic, Speculative Fiction|

Review: Deleted Dreams by Ren Ellis

Author Ren Ellis releases a bold and visionary novella with Deleted Dreams, a YA speculative fiction novella that delicately pulls from multiple genres and demonstrates exceptional storytelling skill. With remarkable world-building and creativity, as well as a deep focus on character depth and vulnerability, this book is electric and memorable.

Derra is an exceptional young woman torn between two worlds – The Ring of Ruins and the Ring of Radiance. She may be an Incident-stained young woman, but she is well on her way to redemption and the future she has dreamed of: becoming a Fixer to mend the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-08-31T06:21:21+02:00August 8th, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Speculative Fiction, YA Fantasy, Young Adult|

Review: Colors by J.M. Ferreira

Colors, J.M. Ferreira’s stunning literary debut, paints a startling picture of race and sexual discrimination in a not-so-distant future Hawaii.

The year is 2026. Thirty-six-year-old Pualani “Pua” Kahahawai is an educated native Hawaiian living in the shadow of her older brother, Kalani, the “jailbird sovereignty messiah of the Kahahawai clan,” now doing 30 years in state prison. Having lived the first half of her life in a tent on the beach, Pua now lives in an old plantation-style house with her parents, her aunty and her aunty’s son and wife, and their son. Her father is confined to a […]

Marta Cheng2020-04-17T04:57:16+02:00April 16th, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction|

The Request for Lambency by ileso DMC

Although there are many different belief structures surrounding religion in the world, one underlying theme remains quite constant: “You can’t take it with you.” However, what if some greater power suddenly changed that rule? In The Request for Lambency, a visionary new YA novel by ileso Dmc, readers are whisked off to a near future where people can, in fact, take one thing into the afterlife with them.

This development obviously creates a mania all across the globe, a craze that feels all too possible in this age of viral desperation to make it big, and the modern propensity […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T12:11:16+02:00February 10th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction|