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Release Day Saga #1
Release Day
Earth’s surface is no longer ours.
Humans thought they were safe underground where the invading Arthropods couldn’t reach them. After centuries of occupation, the antiquated subterranean cities have deteriorated and they have exhausted their supplies. Making matters worse, the hostile invaders have destroyed one of the ten remaining cities. Now Huck, Ariadne, and Hemant are in a race to destroy the Arthropod Hive before the “inverts” completely annihilate humanity. But before the candidates can begin, they must survive their corrupt government’s population control scheme—a highly-fatal, barbaric event known as RELEASE DAY.
To accomplish their mission, they must enlist the help of a group of dubious transporters to trek across the planet through numerous biomes, infinite swarms of Arthropods, and deranged surface-dwelling humans on their perilous mission to recover a war-ending device and carry it to the creatures’ hive.
Humans thought they were safe underground where the invading Arthropods couldn’t reach them. After centuries of occupation, the antiquated subterranean cities have deteriorated and they have exhausted their supplies. Making matters worse, the hostile invaders have destroyed one of the ten remaining cities. Now Huck, Ariadne, and Hemant are in a race to destroy the Arthropod Hive before the “inverts” completely annihilate humanity. But before the candidates can begin, they must survive their corrupt government’s population control scheme—a highly-fatal, barbaric event known as RELEASE DAY.
To accomplish their mission, they must enlist the help of a group of dubious transporters to trek across the planet through numerous biomes, infinite swarms of Arthropods, and deranged surface-dwelling humans on their perilous mission to recover a war-ending device and carry it to the creatures’ hive.
399 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 8, 2022
11 people are currently reading
1176 people want to read
About the author
Ryan Matthews
5 books14 followersRyan Matthews is the offspring of a mystery-loving nursing professor and science-advocating environmental chemist who fostered his lifelong love of learning. After working for a decade in the field of graphic design, he felt the call of education and now teaches English to speakers of other languages. Outside of work, Ryan thoroughly enjoys playing board games with his family, torturing the French horn, tromping through state parks, and studying foreign languages and cultures. He lives in Tennessee with his wife, daughters, and the family pets—Luna and Coda.
Memories of Bronze is Ryan’s first delve into the world of supernatural mystery. His debut series, the adventure-packed Release Day Saga, is young-adult speculative fiction.
Follow him on Threads, Instagram, or his website for updates and content.
Memories of Bronze is Ryan’s first delve into the world of supernatural mystery. His debut series, the adventure-packed Release Day Saga, is young-adult speculative fiction.
Follow him on Threads, Instagram, or his website for updates and content.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 9, 2024
This book felt like a cross between Hunger Games & Silo. I love a dystopian, fighting for survival kind of book, & this really satisfied that craving. The characters were very likable and the story was well executed. I’m excited to read the second book!
June 25, 2022
I really love the concept of this book- but even more than that I love the found family that develops throughout the story. There are a lot of real life issues interwoven in this dystopian story that makes the story really come to life. I enjoyed reading the book from multiple points of view. This book is unique to me because in my opinion there are not many books like this, it took risks and it paid off. If you love survival stories where the underdog is fighting against corruption then this story is for you.
January 11, 2023
Disclaimer - I received a free copy of this book to review for the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC).
Humans are outnumbered by insects roughly 200 million to 1 on our planet Earth. We spray them, stomp on them, electrocute them, despise and fear them. Probably because of our long aversion to them, in Release Day Ryan Matthews decided that giant, alien bugs would make the perfect enemy. After the bugs quickly multiply and take over Earth’s surface, humans have to resort to living underground in bunkers. Here humans will try to keep our species alive while figuring out a way to battle back and retake our planet.
While there are many scenes of humans vs bugs, this book is much about humans than aliens. We have; political corruption, classism, greed, sacrifice, population control, and the human drive to survive as some of the main topics of this book.
The cast of characters is extensive with many of the main protagonists being a group of adolescents. On Release Day, this group of “kids” are sent out with their mission to make it to other underground pods hundreds of miles away. Different pods specialize in developing medicine, weaponry, and technology so, after being trained, the adolescents are sent to take their special talents and training to pods where they are needed. Armed with bows and arrows, spears, and knives they are sent out to battle their way through the thousands of bugs that are huge killing machines.
Matthews has done a great job in his first novel. There is a lot of action, believable science, and a lot about human nature. The idea of humans having to burrow underground to survive threats, both alien and human, is a common topic in Science Fiction yet Matthews has creatively put several new spins into his dystopian novel. Good writing, heroes and villains, drama, trauma, and multiple storylines keep you turning the pages. Hopefully this book marks the beginning of a prolific writing career for Ryan Matthews.
Humans are outnumbered by insects roughly 200 million to 1 on our planet Earth. We spray them, stomp on them, electrocute them, despise and fear them. Probably because of our long aversion to them, in Release Day Ryan Matthews decided that giant, alien bugs would make the perfect enemy. After the bugs quickly multiply and take over Earth’s surface, humans have to resort to living underground in bunkers. Here humans will try to keep our species alive while figuring out a way to battle back and retake our planet.
While there are many scenes of humans vs bugs, this book is much about humans than aliens. We have; political corruption, classism, greed, sacrifice, population control, and the human drive to survive as some of the main topics of this book.
The cast of characters is extensive with many of the main protagonists being a group of adolescents. On Release Day, this group of “kids” are sent out with their mission to make it to other underground pods hundreds of miles away. Different pods specialize in developing medicine, weaponry, and technology so, after being trained, the adolescents are sent to take their special talents and training to pods where they are needed. Armed with bows and arrows, spears, and knives they are sent out to battle their way through the thousands of bugs that are huge killing machines.
Matthews has done a great job in his first novel. There is a lot of action, believable science, and a lot about human nature. The idea of humans having to burrow underground to survive threats, both alien and human, is a common topic in Science Fiction yet Matthews has creatively put several new spins into his dystopian novel. Good writing, heroes and villains, drama, trauma, and multiple storylines keep you turning the pages. Hopefully this book marks the beginning of a prolific writing career for Ryan Matthews.
April 14, 2022
Release Day is a thrilling adventure! I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know who would survive the next encounter. The story is told from different perspectives of various characters. Throughout the story, the characters gain depth and maturity, giving them all purpose. I was left wanting to know more, and hoping they all survive their journey.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2024
This was an easy 5 stars for me. This book was so well written, with plot twist, humor, and heartbreak (The amount of times my jaw was on the floor!!) this took me back to reading books such as Maze Runner and Divergent where I was just immediately obsessed with the story and the characters. I could NOT put it down!! Read this book!!
June 7, 2023
Wow! Sci-Fi is NOT usually my “thing.” However, I could not put this book down! I had a difficult time following the multiple POVs and different story lines in the beginning, but I am so glad I kept reading! The characters and plot are very well developed. I am excited to read Kano’s Grasp, next!
April 11, 2022
It's a good adventure book with concerns about friendship and society. Highly recommended.
November 26, 2022
So, this one turned out to be a multi-POV story and all the POVs were written in the first person. And there’s quite a few POV characters in this one, and they’re all a bit difficult to tell apart – at least at the outset. It takes a while to settle into it and get them all sorted out. I guess ultimately multiple first-person narrative isn’t for me, but I don’t intend to penalise the book for that. No sir.
It’s the future. The damn bugs took over, possibly dropping an asteroid on Puerto Rico, we don’t know. Seriously though, they kind of just spore-egged in and started overwhelming the ecosystem, and before humanity knew what was happening the multi-species alien arthropods were everywhere.
Universal basic income and leisure time made people uncreative and weak, so we lost the fight, naturally. No drive, no desire to work anymore, all that entitlement … I’ll level with you, I almost stopped reading in disgust at this plot point but it didn’t seem like a major one. Anyway, the remaining humans quickly made underground cities and hunkered down to regroup and figure out a way to win. And then like four hundred years went by.
Mind you, it’s not as if the can-do attitude of the underground cities actually created a healthy or functional civilisation, so maybe that was the point? I also would have accepted an emergent storyline wherein the douchebags and sheep who bought into the perpetual busywork culture and the elitist oligarchies that came with it were moved underground, while the well-adjusted people found a way to live doofy and innocent on the surface. Sort of a Morlocks / Eloi thing. There was a hint of that, but … not really. Only kind of. I don’t know. Make up your own mind on that one, I was just trying to puzzle it out.
The point is, the idea that a universal basic income and sane working hours leads to a decline in productivity and industry, let alone creativity, is the complete fucking opposite of what studies (AND HISTORY) have shown. I mean sure, if you want to make the premise “humans are lazy and stupid and greedy and shitty”, I’m right there for it. But whatever. Not the point. Moving on.
So there’s this bunch of people living in pod cities under the ground while attempting to buy time to kill the bugs. Every “Release Day”, a bunch of people are sent to the surface to fight the bugs and … battle their way to another pod, where they … earn their citizenship, and all that.
No further references to the Starship Troopers movie will be necessary at this point.
On a technical level … the text in the ebook was sometimes grey and sometimes black, what’s with that?
Ugh, okay anyway, so there’s more to the story than meets the eye. People are just getting slaughtered each Release Day, nobody seems to be getting their citizenships, and it’s just a way to control the population? We meet a few of our heroes at this point, as they graduate from the communal childhood mode (which is super interesting as a dystopian / survival concept by the way) and are trained to prepare for Release Day. There’s some drama, and we get to know them all a bit. To be honest a lot of them are kinda jerks. One of them beats the tar out of her boyfriend (good) for being a cheating dipshit, and her friend (with whom he cheated on her) came along for the adventure. I won’t spoil the little personal and political stories that take place around the characters, but they’re not bad.
What happens next is an exciting and creature-action-packed adventure as the heroes make their way across hostile alien-infested country in an attempt to take down bug central. It was a pretty engaging read!
Sex-o-meter
Some hanky, no real panky. Makes sense since they’re all getting ripped apart by alien bugs and having revolutions and stuff. Regent whatsisface scores with his estranged wife which is sweet. There’s a nice layering of representation and cuteness, but it’s not what I’d call horny. I give Release Day a Frustrated Groan Day out of a possible Release Day.
Gore-o-meter
Now this, there’s plenty of. Not to go back on my commitment not to mention the Starship Troopers movie again, but there was a lot of gross bug action and a very satisfying variety of killings and maimings. Four flesh-gobbets out of a possible five.
WTF-o-meter
There was a solid WTF rating on this book as well, I was impressed. Like, what’s with the bugs? What’s with the pod cities? What’s with all of it? Hmm. There’s also some cool references to mutants and hippies and all sorts on the surface, and the “transporters” of course. There’s plenty of people left out there after all, which is interesting. A fun blend of intriguing plotting and classic WTF. I give it a Doogie Howser wearing a Stetson hat out of a possible Barney Stinson wearing a Doogie Hinser hat.
My Final Verdict
I really needed the twist to be that the UBI lazies on the surface found a way, and the grind culture fuckledusters in the pods had been isolating themselves from the gene pool for the good of everyone. That wasn’t the twist, which is mildly disappointing. But there’s more to the story. It ends on a cliffhanger as they head off into the main adventure, which left me a little cold. At 15% into the book I made a note: “Two stars, pending something fucking spectacular in the last 85% of the book.” While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was spectacular, the story definitely solidified and the characters turned into a sort of (admittedly faceless and sometimes difficult to distinguish) group I could root for. It settled down and was far more readable than annoying. So, fine, three stars it is.
Hatboy on November 26, 2022 at 11:02 pm
“Enough of your precious studies from the University of Uranus,” – classic call from Mr. ThePatriot when I was grumbling to him about the UBI scepticism (admittedly only briefly) raised in this book.
Reply
View Full Site
Blog at WordPress.com.
It’s the future. The damn bugs took over, possibly dropping an asteroid on Puerto Rico, we don’t know. Seriously though, they kind of just spore-egged in and started overwhelming the ecosystem, and before humanity knew what was happening the multi-species alien arthropods were everywhere.
Universal basic income and leisure time made people uncreative and weak, so we lost the fight, naturally. No drive, no desire to work anymore, all that entitlement … I’ll level with you, I almost stopped reading in disgust at this plot point but it didn’t seem like a major one. Anyway, the remaining humans quickly made underground cities and hunkered down to regroup and figure out a way to win. And then like four hundred years went by.
Mind you, it’s not as if the can-do attitude of the underground cities actually created a healthy or functional civilisation, so maybe that was the point? I also would have accepted an emergent storyline wherein the douchebags and sheep who bought into the perpetual busywork culture and the elitist oligarchies that came with it were moved underground, while the well-adjusted people found a way to live doofy and innocent on the surface. Sort of a Morlocks / Eloi thing. There was a hint of that, but … not really. Only kind of. I don’t know. Make up your own mind on that one, I was just trying to puzzle it out.
The point is, the idea that a universal basic income and sane working hours leads to a decline in productivity and industry, let alone creativity, is the complete fucking opposite of what studies (AND HISTORY) have shown. I mean sure, if you want to make the premise “humans are lazy and stupid and greedy and shitty”, I’m right there for it. But whatever. Not the point. Moving on.
So there’s this bunch of people living in pod cities under the ground while attempting to buy time to kill the bugs. Every “Release Day”, a bunch of people are sent to the surface to fight the bugs and … battle their way to another pod, where they … earn their citizenship, and all that.
No further references to the Starship Troopers movie will be necessary at this point.
On a technical level … the text in the ebook was sometimes grey and sometimes black, what’s with that?
Ugh, okay anyway, so there’s more to the story than meets the eye. People are just getting slaughtered each Release Day, nobody seems to be getting their citizenships, and it’s just a way to control the population? We meet a few of our heroes at this point, as they graduate from the communal childhood mode (which is super interesting as a dystopian / survival concept by the way) and are trained to prepare for Release Day. There’s some drama, and we get to know them all a bit. To be honest a lot of them are kinda jerks. One of them beats the tar out of her boyfriend (good) for being a cheating dipshit, and her friend (with whom he cheated on her) came along for the adventure. I won’t spoil the little personal and political stories that take place around the characters, but they’re not bad.
What happens next is an exciting and creature-action-packed adventure as the heroes make their way across hostile alien-infested country in an attempt to take down bug central. It was a pretty engaging read!
Sex-o-meter
Some hanky, no real panky. Makes sense since they’re all getting ripped apart by alien bugs and having revolutions and stuff. Regent whatsisface scores with his estranged wife which is sweet. There’s a nice layering of representation and cuteness, but it’s not what I’d call horny. I give Release Day a Frustrated Groan Day out of a possible Release Day.
Gore-o-meter
Now this, there’s plenty of. Not to go back on my commitment not to mention the Starship Troopers movie again, but there was a lot of gross bug action and a very satisfying variety of killings and maimings. Four flesh-gobbets out of a possible five.
WTF-o-meter
There was a solid WTF rating on this book as well, I was impressed. Like, what’s with the bugs? What’s with the pod cities? What’s with all of it? Hmm. There’s also some cool references to mutants and hippies and all sorts on the surface, and the “transporters” of course. There’s plenty of people left out there after all, which is interesting. A fun blend of intriguing plotting and classic WTF. I give it a Doogie Howser wearing a Stetson hat out of a possible Barney Stinson wearing a Doogie Hinser hat.
My Final Verdict
I really needed the twist to be that the UBI lazies on the surface found a way, and the grind culture fuckledusters in the pods had been isolating themselves from the gene pool for the good of everyone. That wasn’t the twist, which is mildly disappointing. But there’s more to the story. It ends on a cliffhanger as they head off into the main adventure, which left me a little cold. At 15% into the book I made a note: “Two stars, pending something fucking spectacular in the last 85% of the book.” While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was spectacular, the story definitely solidified and the characters turned into a sort of (admittedly faceless and sometimes difficult to distinguish) group I could root for. It settled down and was far more readable than annoying. So, fine, three stars it is.
Hatboy on November 26, 2022 at 11:02 pm
“Enough of your precious studies from the University of Uranus,” – classic call from Mr. ThePatriot when I was grumbling to him about the UBI scepticism (admittedly only briefly) raised in this book.
Reply
View Full Site
Blog at WordPress.com.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2025
To start, this was a very well-written book, but I just couldn’t get through it. It had nothing to do with the writing or plot - I am just in a funk with sci-fi at the moment.
If I wasn’t, I can guarantee, I’d have loved this and given it five stars. But because of my funk, I was only really interested in Ariadne’s parts for most of the book.
But if you like alien invasion stuff, definitely pick this up - it is a good and well-thought-out book.
If I wasn’t, I can guarantee, I’d have loved this and given it five stars. But because of my funk, I was only really interested in Ariadne’s parts for most of the book.
But if you like alien invasion stuff, definitely pick this up - it is a good and well-thought-out book.
April 9, 2022
I thought Release Day was a fantastic book, but I'm partial. I've read it many times. If you're looking for something that has an enemy like Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, underground living conditions like Hugh Howey's Wool, and a pinch of Joss Whedon's Firefly, this is for you.
April 15, 2023
Release Day, a dystopian work by Ryan Matthews, is full of thrills and chills! It has suspense and action. I felt all the emotions, including horrified. As I got deeper into the story, I hated to put it down. I needed to know what happened next. This is Matthew’s first book in his series. I liked it. As a warning, this book contains violence as the characters are trying to reclaim earth’s surface.
April 1, 2025
Garbage
November 18, 2025
3.5 Stars.
January 6, 2023
What a fantastic book! The main characters trekked their way out of their protective pod to deal with the giant inverts (alien bugs) who’ve overtaken the surface. Their goal? To stop the inverts for good. Matthew’s voice is strong, and the story is compelling. I highly suggest this book for anyone who loves dystopian. I give it 5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews