Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Pandemonium by Bill Harvey

In a world where psychic agents have entered the battlefields of covert intelligence and geopolitics, Pandemonium is an apt title for this head-spinning novel from Bill Harvey.

One of Theta Force’s most powerful trainers has disappeared, and Ed Templegard is tasked by the president himself to find him. Templegard’s persistent curiosity and ability to enter the minds and awareness of others in the halls of international power makes him a perfect spy, even if that leads him on a crash-course with the same megalomaniac murderer who had once captured and tortured him. Navigating the murky waters of mental manipulation, loyalty, […]

Review: The Hell Bound Kids by Manson, Anthony Perconti, Sebastian Vice, & Joe Haward

Co-Authors Manson, Anthony Perconti, Sebastian Vice, and Joe Haward unveil an ominous dystopian world in their novel, The Hell Bound Kids: Wild in the Streets, the first in a longer anarcho-dystopian series.

Populated with childish but street-hardened characters like Ghost, Corpse, Pusho, Mimic and more, this is the story of rugged survival in the face of overwhelming oppression and persecution at the center of Punk City. A once civil society has collapsed into a Kid-filled wasteland of looting, murder, and depravity, with authorities stoking the fires of conflict to keep the gangs at each other’s throats, while the puppetmasters rest […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2023-01-16T15:47:41+02:00December 14th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews|

The First State by Tshekedi Wallace

A vicious and power-mad despot rules over London 50 years in the future in The First State by Tshekedi Wallace, a dystopian thriller with chilling echoes of our present-day world.

As tensions rise between the metropolitan police and the urban fist revolution, the line between justice and violence blurs more dangerously than ever. With a myriad of players, from noble rebels and simpering yes-men to political charlatans and sadistic authorities, this dark drama is Shakespearean, yet pointedly contemporary.

Thematically, the novel offers a strong warning for readers, as great sci-fi so often does. Authoritarianism is on the rise around the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-11-23T12:03:46+02:00November 23rd, 2022|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The Blackest Blue by Luna Wright

A classic fellowship fantasy with original twists and a dystopian mystique, The Blackest Blue by Luna Wright is an ambitious novel that tackles broad ideas of power, loyalty, and freedom. A young woman living a double life – plotting long-term revenge on a society that demands absolute subservience – seeks to expose the truth, even if it costs her everything, in this powerful piece of cautionary fiction.

Sy shines at the heart of this story, brazen and bold in her deception as an acolyte of the all-powerful Rem, deeply committed to a dark purpose instilled in her after witnessing the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-08-18T14:25:13+02:00August 18th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews, YA Fantasy Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: 2048: Demockracy (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

Author Peter Moore launches an entertaining series of standalone novels set three decades in the future with 2048: Demockracy, the starting point of The Covid Chronicles.

A conservative-leaning commentary on the cancel culture of today, and the slippery slope that progressive ideals can stumble down, this novel is written in the spirit of Orwell’s 1984 with caustic wit and a colorful cast of characters with names that summon visions of England’s past. In this iteration, however, Big Brother has been replaced by Mother, a character depicted as being drunk on their own “wokeness,” power, and societal control.

In this […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-09-12T17:01:30+02:00July 13th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews|

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 Book Reviews, Speculative Fiction Book Reviews|

Final Chance by Van Fleisher

A third disturbing reflection on the American mindset, Final Chance by Van Fleisher is a prophetic piece of fiction, and the climactic conclusion to the author’s dystopian near-future trilogy.

Bouncing between our real-world present and an uncertain imagined fate, Fleisher takes readers through a sci-fi envisioning of pandemic-peppered decades ahead, and the desperate decisions the world must make to ensure humanity’s survival. Society has never stood on a more fragile precipice, and while the Domed Generation of the 2050s is growing used to life inside, protected from the “alien” atmosphere, the increased susceptibility to respiratory disease makes remaining populations dangerously […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-10-29T07:45:09+02:00October 29th, 2021|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Of Starlight and Plague by Beth Hersant

A catastrophic spiral of human folly and unflinching perseverance, Of Starlight and Plague by Beth Hersant is a stunning cautionary tale, and an engrossing dystopian thriller. Whether you’re a lover of zombie fiction or a sucker for stories about genetic engineering, this novel is a slow-burning but riveting ride.

After an impossible-to-predict tragedy robs him of his daughter, shortly after losing his wife, Dr. Aaron Pickman turns a corner in his life. Fueled by grief, he dedicates his life to finding a cure for rabies, the rare culprit in his daughter’s case, while also possibly revolutionizing drug-delivery techniques to the […]