Science Fiction Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Blowback ’07 by Brian Meehl

★★★★½

Blowback ’07 by Brian Meehl is a stunning start to an exciting new series.

Time travel is a popular theme in fiction – YA and otherwise – and Blowback ’07 stands out immediately within the sub-genre for its original plot and charismatic heroes, Arky and Iris. The context of the story is revealed rather quickly, and we soon learn that Iris is in possession of a family heirloom – the Jongler cor anglais – a musical instrument with unknown powers that their mother left to the twins before she disappeared.

Arky and Iris don’t always get along very well, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-03-02T09:39:48+02:00November 6th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Time Travel Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Explosive Decompression by John L. Sheppard

★★★★

Explosive Decompression by John L. Sheppard is an intense, wry and wonderfully written novel.

From the very start of Explosive Decompression, author John Sheppard welcomes readers into a fantastical new world, hundreds of years into the future, and proposes a unique premise – a dystopian Earth that has experienced and persevered past the Great Collapse, a period of nuclear war, environmental disaster and global chaos. Canada, an unlikely national hero, has become one of the strongholds of humanity, and has now extended into what was once the United States of America, ravaged by soaring sea levels and rimmed […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-11-15T06:14:30+02:00October 13th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Titan by Michael Van Cleve

Titan by Michael Van Cleve is more than your usual post-apocalyptic novel. Though the blurb makes it seem like standard fare of surviving a nuclear holocaust and its after-effects, Titan veers more into science fiction than naturalistic post-apocalyptic wasteland, as the family at the heart of this novel has to fare a rise of a mutant population – the after-effects of radiation.

The core to any post-apocalyptic tale is not necessarily the environment, but the sympathetic resilience of its characters, and on this front Titan excels. There is also plenty of brutal imagery to spare, and thought-provoking exposition about man’s […]

Henry Baum2019-01-22T05:37:05+02:00September 8th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Apocalyptic Fiction Book Reviews, Post-Apocalyptic Book Reviews, Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver by Shawn Inmon

★★★★★

The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver by Shawn Inmon is a gripping story of the ultimate “What if?”

The time travel genre is populated by a number of standard premises, meaning that multiple authors have discussed many of the same philosophical and ethical issues over the years. In The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver the classic time-traveling tropes are present, but they seamlessly weave between highly developed characters and an emotionally gripping story line that makes readers forget that they’re reading fiction.

Thomas Weaver has not had a particularly good life, and after 55 years on the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-09-30T09:36:08+02:00August 31st, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Time Travel Book Reviews|

Review: Radio Sphere by Devin terSteeg

★★★★★

In the not-so-distant future of “20XX,” the world has changed dramatically. Human innovation has advanced far beyond our ability to truly stay in-touch with the latest news and technology, leading to a social stagnation of endless consumption. We have greatly elongated lives, and yet we have so much more to experience; we’re a progressive society, progressed beyond our limits.

It should have been obvious humans were weak, and now it’s too late.

When human foolishness brings an abrupt end to our golden age of technology, an alien force dramatically alters the Earth in fantastic, unknowable ways. Our world is […]

James Grimsby2016-09-29T08:26:58+02:00August 20th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Mind Vs. Matter by Konrad Koenigsmann

Mind Vs. Matter by Konrad Koenigsmann takes place in the year 2067 – post World War III when the world has now been divided into separate empires, which hasn’t exactly fixed the world situation. A shadowy organization called the Tyrannei, led by the despotic Karl von Liebnitz is bent on taking over the world. But he has a foil: Will Hartford and son Pierre have advanced mental powers to take him, but they find that the new apocalypse may just be inevitable.

Mind Vs. Matter is an ambitious novel, focused on technology and the potential for human evolution. It’s a […]

Henry Baum2020-07-13T06:14:55+02:00August 3rd, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Tesla Evolution (Box Set) by Mark Lingane

In the far-flung future, long after society as we know it has withered and decayed into only unremembered remnants, humanity will rise again from the ashes of the old. But we are not alone. Legends will tell of a mere orphan, Sebastian, who grew from obscurity into a hero of the wastes, who discovered his true talents under the keen eye of his teacher at the Academy, and gave everything for the strange, yet beautiful world he came to understand. Embroiled in an ever-evolving conflict, it’s steampunk versus cyberpunk; technology versus humanity; old versus new…versus absurd. In the “Mad Max”-like […]

James Grimsby2022-04-28T07:32:55+02:00August 1st, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Apocalyptic Fiction Book Reviews, Post-Apocalyptic Book Reviews, Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: City on a Hill (Vol 1: The City) by Ted Neill

City on a Hill by Ted Neill is an epic tale of belief, chaos and conflict.

While many post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels center on the ravages of atomic fallout, the wasteland lifestyle of survivors, unholy abominations or alien overlords, there are few books in the genre that have placed religion as the focal point. City on a Hill is the bold and provocative tale of Lysander and Fortinbras, the Twin Cities, the last two havens in a world destroyed by violence and religious conflict. Following the Cataclysm, the new leaders of the world, the Head Ministry, have outlawed religion in all […]