Dread Haven

by Devin Wieland

The Haven was built to keep humanity alive—but for Tallis and his family, it may be the most dangerous place left. Behind the concrete walls of Haven Cape Town, safety is rationed, order is brittle, and survival comes with a cost few are willing to name. As Tallis uncovers what the Haven really is—and what it demands from those who depend on it—his daughter Maeve begins to sense something stirring inside her, a dangerous connection to the poisoned world beyond the walls. When it becomes clear that staying means slow suffocation and leaving means near-certain death, Tallis is forced to make an impossible trust the system that’s already failed them, or step back into the toxic air and gamble everything on the road ahead. Dread Haven is a tense, character-driven post-apocalyptic thriller about false sanctuaries, inherited guilt, and the moment survival stops being enough.

96 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 23, 2025

Reviews

[Diana M · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow- an adventure from the first page

This story is in multiple povs. It’s in a post-apocalyptic world where survival is relegated to (essentially) FEMA tents in stadiums.

The writing is descriptive and the tone is melancholy depending on the pov. You have three varying shades of hope. Ilya (no hope); Tallis (no choice left but hope); and Maeve (there is always hope)

The world is grim and the writing does a wonderful job of making you feel that gritty side of who would be left at the end of the world.

The air on Earth is poison and there are creatures that have adapted. I pictured pterodactyls, but they weren’t described that way, but the vibe of an air bound predator that has adapted and will kill you if you leave the Haven. The other side of adaptation is a group of humanoid beings that can breathe the toxic air and go long periods of time without food. These beings are seemingly the only hope to find what could be better. The problem, they’re viewed like Piggy from Lord of the Flies, iykyk. They are best left in the shadows so they can survive the mob mentality of the residents of the Haven.

This would be a beautiful graphic novel. Im looking forward to the next installment!

[Blainew1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I evaluate many Apocalypse stories because I like the action, the drama of civilization's collapse, and the way that setting requires us readers to think through our assumptions and what we all take for granted. But, often, the characters are so undeveloped that they strike me as caricatures, one-dimensional, and lacking in the complexity and conflict of real human experience. And when I no longer care what happens to them, I get frustrated and stop reading.

I was surprised to realize I liked the people who unfolded on the pages of Arkbound. Especially Maeve, the young girl in the tale, who retains her sense of wonder, her quest for meaning and belonging amid the chaos that breaks out when society breaks down. The dignity of being is at stake in such a collapse, and she is a source of it, not by exerting control, but by inspiring the people around her to persevere in the face of difficulty and desperate situations. There are elements of this book that remind me of both the Silo series and The Diary of Anne Frank. In world-ending events, not only are the mechanics of survival at issue, but the very reasons we want to survive. These are very complex considerations, and the author of Arkbound has taken them on with unusual sensitivity and a deft, smooth readability.