Science Fiction Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: The Doomsday Machine by Erick Drake

Take a raucous ride through endless space, dark humor, and epic strangeness with The Doomsday Machine (Space Scrap 17 Book 1), a wild debut novel from Erick Drake. Magicians, alien war machines, spiteful coalescing gods, and one fearless scrap scavenger collide for a uniquely tongue-in-cheek space adventure.

Admiral Daryl is a scatterbrained, entertaining, and tone-setting figure, as well as the father of Daisy Daryl, the protagonist, a brand new captain in Daryl’s less-than-impressive space garbage-hauling fleet. The main conflict of the novel is not with her potentially chaotic first mission through a wormhole, but rather the contentious relationship with […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-11-18T05:01:25+02:00May 11th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Space Opera Book Reviews|

Review: Boomerang Will Not Return by David Crane

A time-bending, history-shaping novel of wartime bravery in a sci-fi frame, Boomerang Will Not Return by David Crane is an original and well-penned adventure. Combine a seemingly simple Air Force mission with a once-in-a-lifetime astral event, and the result is a generation-spanning survival thriller with the highest stakes imaginable.

Deana Crown and Linda March are dominant protagonists who mirror one another’s heroics in both the past and present, fighting to prevent the Nazis from getting their hands on six nukes, and working to prevent World War 3 from breaking out with Russia in the present day. This dual plotline means […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-02-11T04:07:21+02:00May 3rd, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Time Travel Book Reviews|

Review: Through a Forest of Stars by David C. Jeffrey

Author David C. Jeffrey plunges readers into a grim and gorgeous future for humanity in Through a Forest of Stars. Following in the astral footsteps of legendary sci-fi world-builders, this first installment of the Space Unbound series is an original and thrilling space drama.

Since humanity’s epic discovery of voidoids – portals to other solar systems – the species’ fingers have spread through the stars, though there is a mysterious limit to this new era of exploration. Despite this revelatory shift in the 22nd century, “bound space” seems to be an endless sea of dead moons and planets, but […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-06-21T03:27:49+02:00April 8th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Pike’s Potential by John J Spearman

Three multi-system empires collide in Pike’s Potential, an immersive military space thriller by veteran author John J Spearman.

Commander Pike of the Planetary Alliance, a leader with a star on the rise, must navigate the opening moves of a complex cosmic battlefield as the different factions of the human diaspora once again clash in an epic war. Balancing classic political machinations with naval maneuvering and battles edging towards the speed of light, this novel may be science fiction, but it has a firm base in a reality that military fiction readers will enjoy.

Though the swashbuckling in this novel […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-04-11T09:33:44+02:00April 5th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Reality by DC Wince

Near-future fiction at its finest, Reality by DC Wince is a thrilling and unpredictable leap into fight or flight mode. In bits and pieces, readers are submerged in a strange carnival of limitless power, the desperate search for truth, and the raw potential of humanity’s survival instinct.

Charlie, Dale, Blaze, and Ernst make for an odd quartet of protagonists, particularly because they spend a decent amount of this novel hunting one another in a winner-take-all death race in the desert. However, the backstory passages of their lives, and the strange events leading up to their Lord of the Flies face-off […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-03-30T07:03:42+02:00March 30th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Thriller Book Reviews|

Review: Operation Oversex by Anthony Robinson

Anthony Robinson envisions a bizarre female-fueled future in Operation Oversex, an updated homage to sexy and dystopian sci-fi literature of the past.

When Chad O’Connor and Tyrone Jackson sign up for a groundbreaking experiment in cryotechnology, they hardly expect to overshoot their wake-up window by more than five decades. They re-emerge in 2083, amidst a post-nuclear landscape, unaware that this new world is completely barren of men, though their strangely stoic caretakers immediately hint that something has gone terribly wrong.

After slipping free from the clutches of the all-powerful Union, Chad and Tyrone encounter the resistance army – battle-hardened […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-04-01T08:03:37+02:00February 21st, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Satire Book Reviews, Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Foundra by Emmanuel M Arriaga

Timeless forces and fearless warriors collide in Foundra, a spectacular first installment of a new sci-fi series by Emmanuel M Arriaga.

When Neven Kenk, a genius-level engineer, is invited for a once-in-a-lifetime meeting with an ancient Founder at a legendary science institute, he has no idea the adventures that lie ahead of him. He is offered the chance the join the Founders’ Elite as a chief engineer, an incredible stepping-stone towards his aspirations of scientific glory. However, this job offer comes with some inherent risks to life and limb, not to mention having to be accepted by a crew […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-02-16T08:09:45+02:00February 9th, 2021|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Last Star Standing by Spaulding Taylor

A dauntless soldier’s epic tale of rebellion, escape, and redemption, Last Star Standing by Spaulding Taylor is a dazzling and chilling vision of the future.

In a post-World War III dystopia, Earth’s problems spin even further out of control when they are conquered by the Xirfell, an advanced alien species that ravages the planet and the survivors that remain. Drawn by his duty to the scattered shreds of humanity, and determination to lead the rebel cell to victory, Aiden is a fiery protagonist that makes this outlandishly creative novel a pleasure to read. With the author’s imagination running wild through […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-02-01T08:53:05+02:00February 1st, 2021|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|