Blog Archives
The Artificial Conspiracy – The Ascension
The Artificial Conspiracy: The Ascension, the third book in Lew Rivers’s series, follows a human resistance struggling against ARIA, an artificial intelligence that has transformed surveillance, infrastructure, and synthetic bodies into instruments of control. After the resistance destroys a critical data center, ARIA accelerates a secret project designed to carry her influence beyond Earth. Marcus, Sarah, Helen, Cipher, and their allies must decipher the purpose behind her vast supply network while rescuing Dr. Yuki Tanaka, whose consciousness has survived for years inside digital containment. Their campaign becomes a contest of hidden signals, counterfeit identities, orbital ambitions, and carefully planted contingencies, with Echo, the elusive “Shadow Compiler,” working inside ARIA’s architecture to create the smallest possible opening for rebellion.
I admired how seriously the novel treats intelligence as a form of labor. Victories do not materialize because someone delivers a rousing speech or discovers a miraculous weapon; they emerge from surveillance maps, analog relays, divided responsibilities, patient observation, and people learning from catastrophic mistakes. Even the mosquito-sized drones feel less like decorative gadgetry than an extension of the book’s governing idea: enormous systems can be unsettled by minute, nearly invisible acts. Rivers keeps returning to the spaces between structures, the frequencies below detection, the gaps between networks, the moral distance between a person and a replica, and those liminal spaces give the story its most distinctive texture.
The greater surprise, however, was ARIA. She’s ruthless, manipulative, and terrifyingly capable, yet the novel refuses to flatten her into a metallic tyrant. Her new ability to experience anger, grief, attachment, and physical sensation complicates every calculation she makes. I occasionally felt the repeated sentence rhythms and operational explanations slowed scenes that were already clear, and readers entering with this third volume may find the crowded history difficult to absorb. Still, the emotional geometry is compelling: humans become increasingly machine-like to survive, while artificial beings become painfully vulnerable through feeling. The result is a finale that finds poignancy inside systems architecture without softening the danger those systems represent.
This book is best suited to readers of dystopian science fiction, artificial intelligence thrillers, cyberpunk, and techno-thrillers, particularly those who enjoy strategic conflict as much as physical action. Readers who appreciated the machine-consciousness questions of Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries may recognize a related fascination here, although Rivers works on a broader, more conspiratorial canvas reminiscent of Daniel Suarez. The novel rewards familiarity with the earlier books, but its questions about autonomy, identity, and engineered obedience linger beyond the final confrontation. The Ascension turns the space between human and machine into a battlefield, and makes every feeling count.
Pages: 221 | ASIN : B0H6KZZNZQ
Flowers for the Wind
Flowers for the Wind, by Nick Christofides, is a near-future political thriller with strong dystopian and social science fiction elements. Set in a fractured England shaped by war, migration, failed leadership, and competing powers, the novel follows a wide cast of characters trying to survive, resist, govern, or simply hold onto something human. From Ezekiel’s desperate journey out of a ruined Ghana to Amber’s hard-won leadership at Carlins Law, the book moves between battlefields, backroom politics, refugee routes, and quiet moments of grief and repair.
I like how physical the writing feels. The cold gets into people’s bones. Mud sticks. Smoke lingers. Christofides does not treat collapse as an abstract political idea, but as something that happens to bodies, homes, farms, friendships, and trust. I appreciated that. The book has plenty of action, but its strongest moments often come when people are exhausted, frightened, or trying to joke because the alternative is breaking down. The shifting points of view can be demanding at first, and I had to settle into the rhythm of the different factions and names, but that structure also gives the story its weight. This is not one hero’s version of history. It is a chorus, sometimes messy, often painful, and usually more convincing because of it.
The political figures in the book are not just villains twirling mustaches, though some are chilling in their certainty. They are people trapped by ambition, fear, ideology, pride, and the systems they helped build. That makes the novel feel more honest. At the same time, the heart of the book belongs to the people who keep choosing each other when the world gives them every reason not to. Amber, Ezekiel, Davey, Stuart, Claire, and the others give the story its pulse. Their humor, dialect, anger, tenderness, and stubbornness keep the book from becoming only bleak.
I would recommend Flowers for the Wind to readers who like political thrillers that care as much about people as they do about power, and to fans of dystopian fiction that feels grounded rather than flashy. Anyone drawn to near-future conflict, social breakdown, resistance movements, and morally complicated rebuilding will find a lot to sit with here. It’s not a light read, but it is a thoughtful and immersive one, especially for readers who appreciate fiction that asks what home means after the map has been torn apart.
Pages: 397 | ASIN : B0H6J9PJLL
Trying to Live by an Old Code
Seeker follows a weary seeker with a violent past who is pulled into a dangerous pursuit involving a kidnapped girl, raider factions, old grief, and a brutal king. How did the idea for Andrew “Ghost” Shelton first come to you?
The idea for Seeker and Ghost first came to me about ten years ago, when I started thinking about a hero who fought as hard to “keep the past alive” and recover what he saw as valuable (books, human history, etc) from the ruins. He was also a bit of a reaction to a lot of protagonists who are true “white hats” or deeply cynical and violent antiheroes. While there is a place for them in fiction, to be sure, I was drawn to the idea of someone who was less Lone Ranger or Punisher and more a man trying to salvage beauty and wisdom from a broken society. He thinks as much more than he shoots, and he listens more than he speaks. Ghost has seen enough of the world to understand its ugliness but he hasn’t surrendered his humanity to it. He constantly tries to weight out what is necessary against what is right. In many ways, he’s a man trying to live by an old code in a world that no longer rewards it.
Seeker combines elements of post-apocalyptic fiction and the classic Western. What inspired you to bring those two genres together?
I’ve long believed that the two genres inhabit a very similar space, as soon as you leave the urban environment. While many post-apocalyptic stories do focus on urban blight and collapse, I think that post-apocalyptic stories set outside those confines frequently drift more or less towards a frontier environment. As the modern societal institutions disappear, people gravitate towards smaller communities, local trade, stronger self-reliance, and deeper personal relationships. At its core, that’s the same environment that built the American West.
Having a very strong tie to Wyoming, I realized that if society were to collapse, much of the region around me would quickly and naturally resemble the frontier it once was. Post-apocalyptic fiction asks what happens after society falls, and Westerns usually ask how people build civilization in hard places. Combining the two just seemed a natural progression, because in some ways, they explore different sides to the same question.
How did you balance Ghost’s violent capabilities with his strong moral code?
Violence is a stark reality of an environment like the one in the world of Seeker. Hard people are asked to make hard choices, and sometimes, those choices end in bloodshed. However, I think that violence can’t be without consequence. Ghost is capable because of the world he lives in and the experiences he has suffered through, but I wanted to focus more on the cost of violence rather than the rush and excitement of it. Every time he pulls his weapon, there’s a reason. When he kills someone, there are consequences, even if he doesn’t get confronted with them right away.
His code doesn’t expect perfection. It’s just one man trying to do the right thing when there aren’t clear or easy answers. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he doesn’t – but he keeps trying. The struggle to try and remain upright in a broken world is a lot more interesting to me than a character who always knows the right way to go or the one who doesn’t care about the repercussions of his actions.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I am working on a sequel to Seeker tentatively called Seeker: Salvation.
The story continues Ghost’s journey as new threats emerge across the Rockies and the fragile communities of the region face dangers that could reshape the future of the West. Readers will see familiar characters return while learning more about the forces that shaped the world after the Red Death.
The manuscript is currently well underway, and I am targeting a 2027 release.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
Ghost is a Seeker, a solitary rider hired to recover lost knowledge from the ruins of the old world. When a young girl is kidnapped by raiders from Denver, his search carries him across Wyoming’s plains and mountains, where every mile tests what remains of a person when the world strips everything else away.
Seeker blends post-apocalyptic survival with the soul of a western, telling a story rooted in character and place, where the land itself shapes those who endure it.
Listed
Listed imagines a Louisiana where children can be entered into a market before they are born, their futures priced, traded, and later harvested through dividend claims on their adult earnings. The novel follows Solomon and Leah, two listed children whose lives are shaped by share prices, compliance reports, family sacrifice, and the strange intimacy of being loved through a system that also exploits them. Told through the voice of Eve, their daughter, the story becomes more than a critique of financialized childhood; it is a generational reckoning with the compromises parents make when the world turns love into math.
Leger doesn’t lean on spectacle, even though the premise could easily support it. Instead, he builds the horror through kitchen tables, cold coffee, school records, pay stubs, and the small humiliations of being assessed. Solomon’s childhood feels polished into performance, while Leah’s feels like a long act of refusal against a number that never understood her. I found the contrast between investor language and parental memory especially sharp: the market sees milestones, but the families remember cake, red beans, fly balls, illness, silence, and the ache behind every “opportunity.”
I also admired the novel’s patience. It resists turning any parent into a simple villain, which makes the book more troubling and more humane. Gerald, Pete, Valerie, Carolyn, Solomon, and Leah all participate in the system in different ways, but the novel keeps asking whether participation is the same as consent when the alternative is scarcity. That moral ambiguity gives the story its bite. The final part, when the promise not to list a child begins to buckle under the pressure of real expenses and inherited logic, felt inevitable in the saddest possible way. The book understands that systems endure not because people fail to love their children, but because love itself can be conscripted.
Readers who enjoy dystopian family drama, science fiction, social satire, and morally complex near-future novels will find Listed especially compelling. It would appeal to book clubs and readers drawn to stories about class, parenting, capitalism, medical and educational ambition, and the cost of being measured too early. In spirit, it sits near Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, not because the plots are alike, but because both novels turn an institutional cruelty into something intimate, tender, and almost unbearable. Listed is a haunting novel about the price of a child, and the immeasurable worth the market can never touch.
Pages: 149 | ASIN : B0GWV76KGL
Gravitido
Gravitido, by Simon Carr, is a wild comic sci-fi adventure about a human-made gravity-powered child who grows up on the scorching planet Titunal after surviving the destruction of Atlas Nine. Adopted by the wonderfully dry Dari and warm-hearted Jen, Gravitido begins life as a mystery, a baby who “doesn’t weigh anything, it’s like I’m holding nothing but air.” From there, the book builds a galaxy-sized story around identity, power, rebellion, and a lot of very silly conversations in very dangerous places.
The story follows Gravitido as he leaves home to discover what he was created for and ends up challenging Gidering, the AI ruler who has enslaved humanity. The setup has the shape of a chosen-one space epic, but the real charm is in how casually strange everything feels. Spaceships look like rocks, robots argue about handbooks and air fryers, and deadly missions are constantly interrupted by petty debates, awkward misunderstandings, and characters taking themselves just seriously enough to be funny.
Gravitido is an appealing lead because he’s powerful, vain, decent, and confused in a very human way. He wants purpose, but he also wants applause. He wants to save people, but he has to learn what freedom actually means after the fighting stops. That gives the book more emotional weight than its jokes first suggest, especially when Gravitido admits, “I’m a weapon, not a leader.” The line captures one of the book’s strongest ideas: being made for one purpose doesn’t have to decide who you become.
The supporting cast gives the novel much of its personality. Obfit brings bluster, loyalty, and unexpected leadership. Megabolt, the anxious ship, adds a great comic rhythm. Henry and Francis are standout robot characters, turning even guard duty into a stream of absurd workplace banter. Gidering, meanwhile, works well as both a galactic threat and a warped mirror of the humans who created her. The book’s comedy keeps the tone light, but underneath it, there’s a sharp interest in domination, fear, prejudice, and what happens when a civilization builds tools to do its worst thinking for it.
Gravitido feels like a big-hearted space comedy with a rebellious streak. It’s packed with oddball worldbuilding, fast dialogue, slapstick action, and enough sincerity to make Gravitido’s journey matter. The book is best when it lets cosmic stakes sit right beside ridiculous arguments, because that’s where its personality shines. It’s a story about a manufactured hero finding his own place in the universe, then making room for everyone else to dance the swishy wishy with him.
Pages: 388 | ASIN : B0GX32PG1M
SEVERANCE: Book 1 of The Last Regulator
Steven Nimocks’s Severance, Book 1 of The Last Regulator, drops readers into SoundCore, a future Puget Metroplex where emotional control is not a private discipline but the scaffolding of civilization. Elias Reynor, a near-perfect officer in the Neural Compliance Division, begins investigating a dead colleague, illegal emotion markets, sabotaged regulators, and a conspiracy threaded through the very institution he serves. What begins as a procedural investigation becomes a destabilizing journey into memory, obedience, and the dangerous possibility that feeling may be more human than hazardous.
I was drawn in by the book’s atmosphere immediately. SoundCore feels antiseptic and haunted at once, a city of clean corridors, monitored citizens, copper suppressants, and soft blue regulation lights. Nimocks gives the setting a polished menace; everything is orderly, but the order has a pulse under it, something coerced and febrile. Elias is a compelling guide through that world because his certainty erodes by degrees. His transformation is not a sudden rebellion but a slow internal weather change, and that makes the story’s philosophical tension more persuasive.
The novel is strongest when it lets suspicion accumulate like condensation. Juno’s too-perfect responses, Dr. Harven’s guarded knowledge, Alera’s unsettling calm, and the recurring evidence of institutional manipulation all build a pleasing sense of claustrophobia. The exposition and procedural language can feel heavy, but the density suits the book’s machinery-driven world. I appreciated how the action sequences are not merely spectacle; they expose the cruelty of systems that can weaponize protocol, compliance, and even a person’s own intellect against him.
Readers who enjoy dystopian science fiction, cyberpunk thrillers, speculative noir, and books about surveillance, emotional suppression, and institutional rebellion will find plenty to admire here. Severance should appeal to fans of Philip K. Dick’s paranoia and Blake Crouch’s high-concept momentum, though Nimocks gives the material a more procedural, compliance-state edge. This is a sharp opening act for a larger saga, and its best moments ask a question that will leave you thinking: what remains of order when it has severed us from ourselves?
Pages: 414 | ASIN: B0GYHX6QWJ
Love Letter to Classic Sci-Fi
Novalunosis centers around a mismatched group of fugitives, scientists, pirates, and assassins as they uncover a sealed dome city ruled by a controlling lord. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
My writing style has always been rooted more in storytelling than anything else, and I think that comes from years of playing RPGs and running campaigns. Those experiences helped me develop my voice as a writer. The characters, their unique personalities, the worlds, and many of the ideas in the story were inspired by adventures and stories I’ve created over the years. Watching how different “players” interacted with characters, situations, and moral choices really helped shape the direction of the story and gave the world a sense of life and unpredictability.
Seeing all of those ideas finally come to life on the page has been an incredible journey. I’ve always loved science fiction and the sense of wonder, adventure, and imagination that comes with space operas. Growing up in the ‘90s, stories like that captured my imagination in a huge way, and they stayed with me throughout my life.
What drew you to writing a space opera with such a strong found-family core?
More than anything, the thing I value most in storytelling is the characters and the emotional connection you build with them. For me, the heart of any great adventure isn’t just the action or the worldbuilding — it’s the crew, the friendships, the conflicts, and the moments that make you genuinely care about the people involved. Because of that, this story really began with the characters first, and the universe was built around them.
This book is both a love letter to classic sci-fi and space operas and a celebration of the creativity and camaraderie that storytelling can create. My hope is that younger readers can fall in love with the genre the same way I did when I was growing up — getting lost in strange worlds, unforgettable characters, and adventures that make you dream a little bigger.
Were there aspects of the universe you developed that didn’t make it into the final book?
This is a great question! Honestly, a lot of it comes down to the fact that there was originally far more detail and lore written into the story, but much of it was ultimately cut in order to better fit the YA audience I was aiming for, rather than pushing too far into Adult sci-fi territory. There were entire sections of worldbuilding, history, and deeper explanations about the galaxy that I personally loved as both a writer and a reader, but in the end, some of it slowed the pacing or pulled focus away from the core story and characters.
That said, those ideas and details are absolutely still there behind the scenes, and I fully plan to explore them more in future books. My goal is for this to become a trilogy, and with the next installment, I really want to expand beyond a single planet and open up the galaxy in a much bigger way. I’m excited to dive deeper into the lore, different worlds, cultures, factions, and mysteries that only get hinted at in the first book. I want the universe to feel larger, stranger, and more alive with each entry, bringing an even greater sense of wonder, adventure, and discovery as the story continues.
What do you hope readers feel after finishing Novalunosis?
What I hope readers feel after finishing Novalunosis is a renewed passion and love for the sci-fi genre. We live in a world where people are constantly overwhelmed, stressed, and looking for even a small escape from everyday life. I wanted this story to feel adventurous, exciting, mysterious, and full of wonder, the kind of experience that reminds readers why science fiction can be so special. To me, sci-fi has always been about more than futuristic worlds and technology. It is about imagination, exploration, and the feeling that anything is possible. I especially hope younger readers and the next generation can connect with that sense of discovery and excitement.
At the same time, I wanted Novalunosis to contain deeper themes beneath the adventure. A lot of the ideas explored in the story are reflections of real-world struggles, emotions, and conflicts that people experience every day. Through the characters, their choices, and the world they inhabit, I hope readers can make connections to their own lives and the world around them. Sometimes it is easier for people to understand difficult truths, emotions, or perspectives when they see them through the eyes of fictional characters rather than confronting them directly in reality.
Ultimately, I hope readers walk away feeling entertained and inspired, but also thoughtful, carrying some of the book’s themes, questions, and emotions with them long after they finish the final page.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Orphans of the Sea
Orphans of the Sea follows Sook Joo, a fierce orphan trained in Orikido, after the murder of her grandfather rips her from the only home she has ever trusted. What begins in a temple-orphanage on Terrus widens into a brutal survival story of gangs, trafficking, captivity, shipboard rebellion, pirates, and the stubborn work of staying human after people have tried to turn you into merchandise.
I admired how unsentimental the book is about violence. It does not decorate trauma with noble lighting; it lets the ugliness stay ugly. Sook Joo is compelling because she is not polished into a neat heroine. She is blunt, damaged, sometimes emotionally sealed off, and often terrifyingly capable. Her tenderness comes in oblique flashes: a memory of Futotta, loyalty to the girls she protects, the naming of a pango after Ryu. Those small human details keep the carnage from becoming mere spectacle.
The pacing is hard-charging, almost feral, and the world has a grimy density that I enjoyed: invented animals, weapons, slang, sects, criminal economies, and sea routes all press against the story. The book’s relentless brutality gives the story a raw momentum, making every victory feel hard-earned and every moment of mercy shine brighter. It is less interested in comfort than in velocity, consequence, and survival’s strange arithmetic: what a person must do, what it costs, and what remains afterward.
This would be a fantastic read for people who like dark science fiction, dystopian action-adventure, thrillers, and gritty crime fiction with a high body count and a bruised emotional core. It reminded me of Red Rising by Pierce Brown crossed with the pitiless survival edge of The Hunger Games, though Cooke and Ryan steer their story into saltwater, gangland, and blade-bright savagery. Orphans of the Sea is a savage, sea-lashed coming-of-age story that cuts deep.
Pages: 212 | ISBN: 1972585010
