Post by: Helena Trooperman
Dated: 9th April 2026

Isbn: 978-1777663803 (352 pages)
ASIN: B092W8ZV1V
Title: The Nightmare Schematic
Author: 🇨🇦 Kyle Bentley

 

***** Super imaginative. Think-tastic!

Yes, it’s a big book, but you’re in fast!

Holy-moly, this story played on my mind from just a few chapters in. The style of the story is more of a telling. The reader is inside the main character’s head. At first this feels unusual, but ignore. Soon you won’t care. All you’ll want is more… more… more. The whole way this inventor story is told, works to give a unique feel to the characters.

The Blurb

Since he was a child, Connor has dreamt of horrible machines. Years of nightmares have left the young inventor clinging desperately to his unravelling sanity, but that isn’t the worst part; that would be the gnawing certainty he could build those mechanical terrors, no matter how impossible they might seem. Everything changes when his dreams reveal a new machine, a miraculous device that brings hope instead of terror, and could save humanity from the many threats facing our modern world. Connor sets to work immediately, desperate to know once and for all if the visions haunting him are merely bad dreams or something far more sinister. As the machine takes shape and forces Connor to question everything he thought he knew, unseen forces begin circling. Even with the help of his closest friends, can Connor escape the burgeoning threat? What’s more, will he ever unravel the mystery of the nightmare schematic?

The Nightmare Schematic is the debut novel of Canadian author Kyle Bentley, and the first book in The Age of Entropy series. It was also the recipient of Author Shout’s Reader Ready 2022 Top Pick Award.

Book Review Time

He’s going to build an impossible machine — from his nightmares!

Connor lives alone, a recluse who thinks he’s going mad. Since childhood, he can’t sleep without nightmares. The story opens with such a dream even though that’s a bit cliché, it works because this story is about the dreaming. He attends regular appointments about his sleepless nights and nightmares. When he has a new therapist she suggests the unthinkable—building one of the machines.

But will the machine work?

I enjoyed the planning and building of the machine, which is a new take on a replicator style machine that can copy things. Connor tests the machine with help from his friend. You get caught up in these tests, as part of the proof needed from the patent office. The tests seem to sap his energy. Is it his sleeplessness or something else? That’s left for the reader to decide as you continue reading.

You have to read it!

This is a really big, get stuck in, twisty turny story. I couldn’t even guess where the story was going. The novel gave me a complete escape.

All the way through I worried what the invention might get used for besides the good, intended by Connor to stop world hunger. This book doesn’t get that far and I’m not saying anymore because no spoilers here, but the story itself is so inventive.

Fantastical pseudo science.

While the story has many dystopian twists, I loved the hopeful ending and set up for the next book.The pseudo science is obviously not true, fantastical even, but that’s a nice change too. I’m looking forward to seeing how Connor’s new life works out!

I recommend The Nightmare Schematic to anyone that enjoys inventor stories with a modern twist on the mad scientist trope and how he finds his way through with help from those closest to him. 

Check out 🇨🇦 Kyle Bentley’s website at: https://facelesspublishing.com/  for his books and all about his love of rpg characters and merch.

Buy:   Amazon Kindle    Amazon Paperback

The Age of Entropy series…

1. The Nightmare Schematic
2. The Price of Progress

Until next time, keep calm and read on.

NEXT MONTH… Ben’s Pick (RHS) another invention story but it’s up to you to decide is he’s a forgetful professor sort or the mad scientist?  Wahahaha.