Award-winning Sci-fi Author

An underground city, built centuries ago to ride out the devastating heat. A society under attack. And a young solar engineer whose skills may be the key to saving her city…if she doesn’t get herself killed first.

AS OF SEPTEMBER 26, 2023, AESTUS SHOULD NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE FROM ME. I HOPE THIS WILL BE A TEMPORARY SITUATION AND APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST IN MY WORK!

Rating: 5 out of 5.

“…at the level of Frank Herbert’s Dune.”

– IHeartSci-fi

Rating: 5 out of 5.
“…nothing short of brilliant.”
– C. J. Shane

Rating: 5 out of 5.
“…has the makings of a viral sensation.”
– Ian the Reader, SPSFC2 judge

Rating: 5 out of 5.
“…masterful…on par with the best in the genre.”
– A. R. Saida

Rating: 5 out of 5.
“…flat out one of the best science fiction novels I’ve read in recent years…S. Z. Atwell [sic] is a gifted writer who knows how to maintain suspense as well as anyone writing today….”
– C. Dorman, Science Fiction Writer

Rating: 5 out of 5.
“One of the best books I’ve ever read.”
– The Very Bookish

When Jossey was ten, the creatures of the aboveground took her brother and left her for dead, with horrible scars. Now, years later, she’s a successful solar engineer, working to keep her underground city’s power running, but she’s never really recovered. After she saves dozens of people during a second attack, she is offered a top-secret assignment as a field Engineer with Patrol, but fear prevents her from taking it…until Patrol finds bones near where her brother disappeared.

She signs on and finds herself catapulted into a world that is far more dangerous, and requires far more of her, than she ever imagined. The creatures and the burning heat aboveground are not the only threats facing the City, and what she learns during her assignment could cost her her life: one of the greatest threats to the City may in fact lie within. With thousands of lives at stake, can she act in time?

Aestus is an adult dystopian science-fiction series set centuries after climate change has ravaged much of Earth. An epic story of vengeance, power, shifting loyalties, and survival that looks at just how far people will go to protect what they love, brought to you by science writer S.Z. Attwell, Aestus paints a picture of a world in which far too little has changed.

AS OF SEPTEMBER 26, 2023, AESTUS SHOULD NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE FROM ME. I HOPE THIS WILL BE A TEMPORARY SITUATION AND APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST IN MY WORK!

Blog and News/Events

Short story: Thompson, Ellis, and Patrol
A side fic from the Aestus fictional world Thompson plunked himself down …
Producing My Own Audiobook! (Part 1)
I decided I wanted to try producing an audiobook after several months …

S. Z. Attwell

S. Z. Attwell is a bestselling, award-winning science-fiction author and a sci-comm writer. She is a member of the SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association) and multiple writing groups including The Inkwells and her work has been featured in Simultaneous Times (Space Cowboy Books). The first book in her series Aestus was the 3rd-place winner in the second annual SPSFC (Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, run by Hugh Howey and Duncan Swan). Aestus 1 was also a 2021 Finalist for the Kindle Book Award and a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree.

In her free time, she does photography and archery.

Find her on social media at @szattwellauthor (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), and on Mastodon (writing dot exchange)!