Simonmcneil.com is currently open for review submissions. This is a genre and medium agnostic review site although preference will be given to fiction and non-fiction books over 50,000 words, and for feature film projects.

Preference will be shown for art on queer themes, works in translation and art created outside of the Anglosphere.

In fiction I dislike heavy reliance on verisimilitude and prefer sf, fantasy, horror, weird fiction, fabulism and theory fiction along with hard-to-categorize fiction.

In non-fiction I am comfortable reviewing works about art theory, philosophy, sociology and psychology.

If you are interested in soliciting a review please contact me via email at simonm223@gmail.com, include the words “Review Submission” in the subject line. If submitting a digital ARC please attach it to the email in .pdf or .epub formats. I love to receive physical ARCs, if you are interested in sending me a print ARC please note this in your review request and I will reply with mailing instructions.

I will respond to review submissions within 1 week of receipt. I will notify the submitting party of my decision prior to beginning review work and will give a ballpark timeline to completion at that time. I will not show a draft review to a submitting party prior to publication. I do not provide quantitative ratings in reviews and may reveal plot details at my discretion and depending on the needs of the review. If you don’t want a review audience exposed to “spoilers” I may not be the best choice for your review.

This review site supports all striking workers. If a work is submitted for review while a strike action is underway the review will be held until such time as the strike is resolved.

Please note I will not accept a review of any AI generated work. If your book has an AI generated cover and I choose to review it I will address the use of the AI generated cover in the review text and recommend against purchase of the work until such time as the cover has been replaced by one created by a human artist. I want to be very clear that you will not get a favorable review of a work that used AI in any discernable way. This includes cover art or accompanying images, grammar and logic, marketing material, etc. If you use AI in your writing workflow I am not the right reviewer for you. If you are a minor self-published author the most likely outcome is that I will not review your book. If, however, you are a significant enough author that I don’t feel it would be punching down to review the work I will do so. And that will be a much worse outcome for you than if I do not review your book. Please do not solicit me to review books if you have used AI at any point in the workflow.