Speculative Fiction Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Menticulous by James Te Ronde

Unsettling, imaginative, and laced with dystopian warnings, Menticulous by James Te Ronde is a surreal dive into the dark side of technology and a grim warning for our collective future.

Cooper Timm’s dreams have seemingly hit a dead end when he’s offered a job with ProGnosys Corporation, a massively powerful tech company shrouded in secrecy, but lauded with clout. In a remarkable redirection of fate, Coop is put in charge of the Menticulous – an impossibly advanced AI machine that is practically the stuff of legend – “the Silicon Valley version of the Loch Ness Monster.”

Before he even scratches […]

Review: Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill

A sobering thriller about AI insurgency and the slippery slopes of societal collapse, Carbon Zero (Dawn of the AI Dystopia Book 1) by Craig W. Stanfill paints an ominous picture of a future looming just over the horizon.

When Abigail Thompson finally gets a big break – presenting her impressive AI pet project to the big boss at Intelligenics – she has no idea how much everything is about to change. Through a series of oversights, assumptions, and a painful lack of preparedness, her Xerxes program is unleashed on the world with a singular goal: achieve carbon zero. What begins […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2026-09-22T13:00:02+02:00September 21st, 2026|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Speculative Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Salvation Reigned by Travis James Peterson

Unhinged, unfiltered, and unrelenting in its social commentary, Salvation Reigned by Travis James Peterson is a frightening vision of a species that has reached its tipping point.

A rogue planet is on a collision course with Earth, and the highest halls of power learn that humanity only has a decade before annihilation. Unfortunately, those same halls are filled with supercharged charlatans and corporate sellouts, stooges for the Global Corporate Conglomerate and its insatiable hunger for profits.

The President is an ignorant narcissist with a god complex, blindly determined to blow the offending rock out of the sky with every nuke […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2026-05-22T12:13:30+02:00April 27th, 2026|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews, Speculative Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Memory, Memory, Go Away by Christopher W. Selna

Laden with warnings for our troubled times, Memory, Memory, Go Away by Christopher W. Selna is a timely piece of speculative fiction that echoes with contemporary weight.

In a parallel reality to our own, citizens of the United Founded States of America can participate in a program that wipes away traumatic memories, thanks to the technology of a company called NeuroGlo. Challenging the timeless pillars of religion and the insidious healing power of pharmaceutical drugs, this technology has radically reshaped society’s collective response to trauma, grief, loss, and regret.

At the heart of this rebellion against the societal dominance of […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2025-12-04T10:47:11+02:00December 3rd, 2025|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews, Speculative Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Time and Space by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

A frenzied plunge into a regressive and wildly weird future, Time and Space by Shireen Jeejeebhoy defies genre expectations and the laws of physics with gleeful abandon.

When three mischievous men from the year 3011 abduct a woman named Time from her lonely reality, anxiety over turning 40 is suddenly the least of her worries. Overwhelmed by the impossible technology at every turn, she is treated as a “dumb human specimen” in a mind-boggling society of chauvinists, but the future does have its rules, if not rights for “girls.”

Upon discovering that the young men have kidnapped yet another bewildered […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2025-10-03T16:04:22+02:00September 8th, 2025|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Speculative Fiction Book Reviews|

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 Book Reviews|

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 Book Reviews, Speculative 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|