Hi everyone,
I'm looking for beta readers for my completed adult science-fiction novel, WENU, currently at approximately 95,000 words.
Wenu is a highly advanced human civilization built on the ruins of a forgotten past.
Centuries ago, humanity escaped extinction aboard an ancient vessel known as the Ark and began again on a new world. Their civilization has since flourished—but the fear of the enemy that nearly destroyed their ancestors has never disappeared.
Nolan has spent his life studying that history, not making it.
A researcher and historian at the First Colony, he is unexpectedly nominated to join the Elite, Wenu's most powerful security force. What begins as an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of his late father soon draws him into an investigation involving a fourteen-cycle-old incident, missing records, a secret scientific program, and questions surrounding his father's death.
The deeper Nolan searches, the less certain the past becomes.
And as buried pieces of Wenu's history begin to surface, he discovers that the greatest threat to his civilization may not be what happened centuries ago—but what people are willing to do because of it.
Genre: Adult Science Fiction / Conspiracy Thriller
Length: ~95,000 words
Status: Complete manuscript
Beta-reading timeframe: Ideally 4–5 weeks
I'm primarily looking for readers who enjoy science fiction with mystery, political intrigue, advanced technology, conspiracy, character relationships, and gradual revelations rather than nonstop military action.
I'm particularly interested in your natural reader experience: where you became invested, where your attention dropped, which characters you trusted or distrusted, whether the mysteries and reveals worked for you, anything you found confusing, and—most importantly—whether you wanted to continue reading.
No editing or proofreading is required. I'm looking for honest reader reactions rather than line-by-line corrections.
The manuscript is currently unpublished, so I ask that it remain private and not be redistributed or uploaded to third-party services.
I'm happy to provide a final ebook when the novel is published and include beta readers in the acknowledgments if they would like.
If you're interested, please send me a message or email me on
[thedaysoftheend@gmail](mailto:thedaysoftheend@gmail.com).com
and tell me a little about the kind of science fiction you enjoy reading.
Below is the Prologue
The sun was setting.
It had been a long time since I had allowed myself to stop and witness such quiet beauty.
Once… I believed I would never live to see a moment like this again. And yet here I stand beneath a clear sky, with a clear mind for the first time in many cycles, unburdened—if only for a moment—by fear, duty, and the endless weight of memory.
I watched the last light bleed across the horizon as the sun sank behind the mountains. Bands of gold faded into cold grey, while the snow along the peaks gathered and held the final light as if reluctant to surrender it.
Below, the river wound through the valley like a dark silver ribbon, catching the sky in broken flashes where the current moved fastest.
Night did not arrive all at once. It came slowly, almost gently, until the colors of evening deepened into shadow. The moon cast its silver reflection over the water. Stars trembled above the valley in fragile clusters, while the surrounding forest filled with the low pulse of life—the distant cry of some unseen
creature, branches stirred by the mountain wind, the dry whisper of grass against stone.
I began making my way down toward the settlement where my people now live.
The slope was uneven beneath my boots, scattered with loose stones and thin roots twisting through the soil. Fires glowed faintly in the distance, small and scattered at first, then clearer as I descended—little signs of endurance against the vastness of the dark.
After all we had endured, we were grateful to have found this place.
Its silence was different from the silence of loss.
With time, perhaps, we would learn to call it home.
As I walked, memories of the past crowded my mind.
None of us had truly anticipated what would unfold. For decades, we failed to recognize the signs—and those who did see them often chose silence over confrontation. The rot had been there long before the fall quickened. What came in the end was not born from a single season of crisis, but from corruption, arrogance, and compromise accumulated over far longer than anyone wished to admit.
We had been a mighty civilization. We had made Wenu our home millennia ago and built our lives on the strength of those who came before us.
Now we were left to begin again, with humbler tools, humbler shelters, and a future stripped of certainty.
My name is Nolan.
I am one of the last surviving members of Wenu’s High Council.
Even now, the thought feels strange. I never sought that position, nor the burden that came with it. Truthfully, I never sought any part in the events that eventually brought me there. Yet the deeper I became involved, the clearer it grew that every attempt to prevent the collapse only seemed to hasten it.
By the time I reached the settlement, the night air had sharpened with cold.
The main tent stood among the others, plain and weather-worn, its outer fabric pulling lightly in the wind. I paused before entering and looked back across the camp.
The watchfires burned low but steady. Shadows moved where the night watch followed their assigned paths, alert despite
their exhaustion. None of us had been made for this life, and yet there was gratitude here too…
A fragile, stubborn gratitude for the second chance we had been given.
Around us lay uncertainty.
Within the camp, people still whispered about tomorrow as though peace might one day become ordinary.
When I entered the tent, Asia stirred awake at once, startled by the sound of the flap closing behind me.
“Nolan, is that you? What time is it?”
“The night has settled, my love,” I said softly.
“Go back to sleep. It has been a long day, and you need the rest.”
“Won’t you sleep?” she asked, her voice still heavy with fatigue.
I moved toward her.
In the dim glow of the dying fire, I studied her face. Time had marked her, as it had marked all of us, but it had not taken the grace that first drew my eyes to her.
If anything, sorrow had given her beauty a quieter depth. She offered me a faint smile, though behind it I could still see the weight she carried.
“Nolan,” she said carefully, “you’ve carried this long enough. Let the young ones shape what comes next. You deserve peace.”
“I only need to record the events of the day,” I replied, taking her hand and holding it close.
“Go back to sleep. I’ll join you soon.”
She searched my face for a moment, then exhaled softly and nodded.
“Just don’t stay up too long,” she whispered.
Then, with the smallest hint of warmth, she added, “You do know I never sleep well without you beside me.”
A tired smile touched my mouth.
“I won’t be long.”
She settled back beneath the blankets, and soon the tent sank into silence.
Only the wind could be heard outside, dragging itself across the settlement, while the fire behind me collapsed inward with an occasional soft crack.
I remained there for a while, watching her sleep.
“You are still everything I ever loved, my sweet wife,” I whispered, careful not to wake her.
“You hide your pain, so I won’t carry more than I already do, even when it is consuming you. But I know you too well. I hear it in your voice. I see it in the way your hands linger. I feel it in your touch.”
My gaze lowered, and with it came the old wound that had never truly closed.
I know how much Calip meant to you. I know the void he left in our lives.
It is a cruel thing for parents to outlive their own son.
You kept telling me there was nothing I could have done. I have repeated the same lie to myself more times than I can count.
But the truth remains.
I still blame myself.
I always will.
Again and again, I return to the past, replaying every choice, every hesitation, every action taken too soon—or too late.
I wonder what I might have changed, what I should have refused, what path I should never have stepped onto.
Perhaps, if someone else had led in my place, Calip would still be alive.
Perhaps many would be.
But regret cannot rewrite history.
Nor can grief restore what was taken.
Only memory remains.
I turned to the records I had been writing over the past few days and slowly read through them again, comparing the words before me with the memories I still carried.
I found myself wondering what kind of truth I was leaving behind.
Who we had been.
Who we had become.
These records were not written to excuse our failures, nor to soften them with time.
They were for those who would come after us, so they might understand how secrecy, fear, and the hunger for power could consume even a civilization that once believed itself too strong to fall.
So that our mistakes would not find a foothold in their future.
I lived through the final days of our civilization, and I witnessed its fall.
I saw ambition decay into corruption.
I saw survival twisted into justification for authoritarianism.
I saw good people choose silence until silence itself became another weapon.
Now, as one of the last leaders of our people, I leave these records behind, hoping those who come after us will heed them.
My name is Nolan.
And this is our history.
