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wolfshine's review against another edition
5.0
Raw and emotional. This isn’t a story for the faint of heart.
In a post-apocalyptic world exists a girl named Eden who has lost her eyes. Not wanting to leave them behind, she takes them with her in a jar when she is led to escape by a murderer named Miner. Restoring her eyes is possible, but it will take faith and luck to meet a computer program known as Witch Mother. With things out to get them around every corner will Eden and Miner find a safe place to rest and live or will their fail their mission.
I always love a good mash of genres and this is one of those. It takes place in post-apocalyptic world yet we see dashes of science fiction, drama, suspense, and adventure. There was always so much going on, and the author has a way with painting emotional scenes in just about every chapter. I liked the easy friendship between Miner and Eden. In a book filled with chaos, their time together seemed to be the only peace.
I recommend this book for readers who love adventurous stories that aren’t afraid of crossing genre lines.
This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
In a post-apocalyptic world exists a girl named Eden who has lost her eyes. Not wanting to leave them behind, she takes them with her in a jar when she is led to escape by a murderer named Miner. Restoring her eyes is possible, but it will take faith and luck to meet a computer program known as Witch Mother. With things out to get them around every corner will Eden and Miner find a safe place to rest and live or will their fail their mission.
I always love a good mash of genres and this is one of those. It takes place in post-apocalyptic world yet we see dashes of science fiction, drama, suspense, and adventure. There was always so much going on, and the author has a way with painting emotional scenes in just about every chapter. I liked the easy friendship between Miner and Eden. In a book filled with chaos, their time together seemed to be the only peace.
I recommend this book for readers who love adventurous stories that aren’t afraid of crossing genre lines.
This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
directorpurry's review
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Slavery, Body horror, Child abuse, and Blood
david_agranoff's review against another edition
4.0
The thing that first sparked my interest here was someone tweeting about this book and they said it had a Mandy and Mad Max Fury Road feel to it. Well shit, I love both those movies I was interested then I saw the back cover described it as "a genre-bending short novel of apocalyptic fantasy, sci-fi psychedelia, and doom metal." Yeah, sign me up for sure as I like all three of those things. Certainly, in my mind, the look of this story had an unnatural look and I certainly could hear Celtic Frost and Eyehategod sludging through the soundtrack.
Don't go into this book expecting Mad Max-style car battles, that is not why this book and that movie share vibes. It has more to do with the Immortan Joe cult while not shiny and chrome they have that same weird as hell post-human 14-year-old heavy metal goth bad guy vibe. I don't mean this as a pejorative I enjoyed the style but what I saw in my mind seemed like something that a goth metal kid drew in his notebook. Honestly, we could use more 14 goth metal kid design in our end of the world narratives.
The setting is a world long after a nuclear war, plague or maybe climate apocalypse not sure which. in this future mid-evil times blue eyes are extremely rare. So rare that they are thought to be magic. When a slave named Eden with blue eyes is discovered by the evil cult immediately they steal her magic. Eden is left blind and in pain but the story kicks off when a mystic returns her eyes to her in a jar and tells her to travel west to Utopia. There at the city of Utopia she is told they can restore her eyes. With the help of a miner who only goes by the name Miner she sets off on the run.
The way the story is written it is heavy on atmosphere and light on character. It works just fine but I could have read and loved a long novel-length version of this first part, of the three parts this is the tone I liked best. Eden was a character I felt sorry for and connected to. Their journey could have been expanded and I would have been on board, in fact, one of the negatives of this book was how much I wanted MORE.
The third and final act is where things get really weird. Picture the cover of an old school heavy metal magazine come to brilliant life through slick and well written prose. Serna is a talented writer, this novel balances moments of the darkest brutality with very pretty writing. For some novels that would result in style over substance but there is plenty of meaning and heart in the short pages. The final act is bonkers since Utopia is a biomechanical post human freak zone worthy of the post human natures of Neal Asher or Rudy Rucker. Again I felt there was a whole novel here. As much as I liked this third act I felt it lost the through-line of the characters from the opening act, and almost felt like a different story.
Over all Serna told a cool story that is the essence of why we need the small press. This is a novel that the major publishers would never touch, from the short length to the blacker than black tone it needed a smaller press. With the co-sign of a gatekeeper like Apex publishing I might not have bothered to check it out. Yeah, it sounded super cool but if it was self-published without the flag of Apex flying over it I might not have ever checked it out. I am super glad I did because holy hell this is a baddass book. I not only suggest you buy/read it but but I think you should make a play list of stoner and doom metal and putting it on shuffle while you read will great improve your experience.
Suggested soundtrack:
Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Celtic Frost, Eyehategod, Witch Mountain...
Don't go into this book expecting Mad Max-style car battles, that is not why this book and that movie share vibes. It has more to do with the Immortan Joe cult while not shiny and chrome they have that same weird as hell post-human 14-year-old heavy metal goth bad guy vibe. I don't mean this as a pejorative I enjoyed the style but what I saw in my mind seemed like something that a goth metal kid drew in his notebook. Honestly, we could use more 14 goth metal kid design in our end of the world narratives.
The setting is a world long after a nuclear war, plague or maybe climate apocalypse not sure which. in this future mid-evil times blue eyes are extremely rare. So rare that they are thought to be magic. When a slave named Eden with blue eyes is discovered by the evil cult immediately they steal her magic. Eden is left blind and in pain but the story kicks off when a mystic returns her eyes to her in a jar and tells her to travel west to Utopia. There at the city of Utopia she is told they can restore her eyes. With the help of a miner who only goes by the name Miner she sets off on the run.
The way the story is written it is heavy on atmosphere and light on character. It works just fine but I could have read and loved a long novel-length version of this first part, of the three parts this is the tone I liked best. Eden was a character I felt sorry for and connected to. Their journey could have been expanded and I would have been on board, in fact, one of the negatives of this book was how much I wanted MORE.
The third and final act is where things get really weird. Picture the cover of an old school heavy metal magazine come to brilliant life through slick and well written prose. Serna is a talented writer, this novel balances moments of the darkest brutality with very pretty writing. For some novels that would result in style over substance but there is plenty of meaning and heart in the short pages. The final act is bonkers since Utopia is a biomechanical post human freak zone worthy of the post human natures of Neal Asher or Rudy Rucker. Again I felt there was a whole novel here. As much as I liked this third act I felt it lost the through-line of the characters from the opening act, and almost felt like a different story.
Over all Serna told a cool story that is the essence of why we need the small press. This is a novel that the major publishers would never touch, from the short length to the blacker than black tone it needed a smaller press. With the co-sign of a gatekeeper like Apex publishing I might not have bothered to check it out. Yeah, it sounded super cool but if it was self-published without the flag of Apex flying over it I might not have ever checked it out. I am super glad I did because holy hell this is a baddass book. I not only suggest you buy/read it but but I think you should make a play list of stoner and doom metal and putting it on shuffle while you read will great improve your experience.
Suggested soundtrack:
Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Celtic Frost, Eyehategod, Witch Mountain...
raforall's review against another edition
4.0
Review will be appearing in the October 2019 issue of Library Journal
Here is the link: https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=horror-novellas-readers-shelf
Here is the link: https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=horror-novellas-readers-shelf
stranger_sights's review
4.0
3.5 rounded up to 4 stars for Goodreads.
If you like robots, drugs, or antifascist fiction, I bet you’ll enjoy this. I know I did!
You can read my full review at: mediadrome.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/snow-over-utopia-by-rudolfo-a-serna/
If you like robots, drugs, or antifascist fiction, I bet you’ll enjoy this. I know I did!
You can read my full review at: mediadrome.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/snow-over-utopia-by-rudolfo-a-serna/
errantdreams's review against another edition
4.0
Rudolfo A. Serna’s novel Snow Over Utopia is… umm. Well, I’m having a little difficulty with this review so please bear with me. It’s surreal. Kind of psychedelic, really. And I wasn’t always entirely sure what was going on, or where/when things were in relation to each other. (That’s what dropped it from a 5 to a 4: I don’t really enjoy being confused all the time while reading.)
There’s a town in which slaves with dark hair and dark skin work at pulling ore from a mine. People in this town don’t have names; they’re known by their occupation. A girl gets noticed for her unusual blue eyes. You see, there’s a religion used to help keep the slaves in line, and one of the tenets of that religion is that a figure called “the Juggernaut” used to have blue eyes, and any miner who finds those eyes is guaranteed a happy afterlife (I think). It helps to keep the miners working, always hoping to make that find. When someone takes those blue eyes from the girl, she’s helped by an old woman who lives alone–except for the nearly-dead folks she “resurrects” to serve her. She names the girl Eden, and sends the girl, together with a man called Miner who escaped the town, on a trip to Utopia. There, supposedly someone will be able to restore her sight.
This is definitely sci-fi rather than some sort of historical or alternate fantasy world, despite how the above sounds. There are nanomachines, mutated people who run the town from behind the scenes, psychic transmissions, an Earth Machine with a Witch Mother program running on it, a Robot Queen, genetically altered humans, a futuristic Utopia filled with nearly-identical blond-haired blue-eyed people programmed to be happy, a terrible slave town where people are kept constantly drugged into submission… It’s quite wild. They’re really two ends of a continuum of slavery. One that’s supposedly for the betterment of the overlords in charge, and one that’s supposedly for the betterment of the population. There are purple fumes, yellow potions, and pink flowers that get turned into yet more drugs.
The characters are, uh… hard to really get a handle on. Miner and Eden are the most complete, although a friend Eden makes along the journey (Delilah) and that girl’s father (the Librarian) have some interesting depth. There are “free-range humans” still living on the planet. A group of hunters have genetic alterations. Some descended from gangs use significant body modifications and try to kill the hunters. The Robot Queen seems like she’s going to be the standard fascistic ruler (of Utopia) with the usual accoutrements, but develops into something more than that.
There were definitely times when the book surprised me. At one point I remember going, “wait, what?” and going back a page to make sure what I thought had happened had really happened.
I just wish the story had been less confusing. I always felt like I needed more context, or more specificity, or… more something. I enjoyed what I read, but I wanted to understand it better.
Minor content note for a little bit of sexual content, violence, and cannibalism. I think.
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2020/07/review-snow-over-utopia-rudolfo-a-serna/
There’s a town in which slaves with dark hair and dark skin work at pulling ore from a mine. People in this town don’t have names; they’re known by their occupation. A girl gets noticed for her unusual blue eyes. You see, there’s a religion used to help keep the slaves in line, and one of the tenets of that religion is that a figure called “the Juggernaut” used to have blue eyes, and any miner who finds those eyes is guaranteed a happy afterlife (I think). It helps to keep the miners working, always hoping to make that find. When someone takes those blue eyes from the girl, she’s helped by an old woman who lives alone–except for the nearly-dead folks she “resurrects” to serve her. She names the girl Eden, and sends the girl, together with a man called Miner who escaped the town, on a trip to Utopia. There, supposedly someone will be able to restore her sight.
This is definitely sci-fi rather than some sort of historical or alternate fantasy world, despite how the above sounds. There are nanomachines, mutated people who run the town from behind the scenes, psychic transmissions, an Earth Machine with a Witch Mother program running on it, a Robot Queen, genetically altered humans, a futuristic Utopia filled with nearly-identical blond-haired blue-eyed people programmed to be happy, a terrible slave town where people are kept constantly drugged into submission… It’s quite wild. They’re really two ends of a continuum of slavery. One that’s supposedly for the betterment of the overlords in charge, and one that’s supposedly for the betterment of the population. There are purple fumes, yellow potions, and pink flowers that get turned into yet more drugs.
The characters are, uh… hard to really get a handle on. Miner and Eden are the most complete, although a friend Eden makes along the journey (Delilah) and that girl’s father (the Librarian) have some interesting depth. There are “free-range humans” still living on the planet. A group of hunters have genetic alterations. Some descended from gangs use significant body modifications and try to kill the hunters. The Robot Queen seems like she’s going to be the standard fascistic ruler (of Utopia) with the usual accoutrements, but develops into something more than that.
There were definitely times when the book surprised me. At one point I remember going, “wait, what?” and going back a page to make sure what I thought had happened had really happened.
I just wish the story had been less confusing. I always felt like I needed more context, or more specificity, or… more something. I enjoyed what I read, but I wanted to understand it better.
Minor content note for a little bit of sexual content, violence, and cannibalism. I think.
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2020/07/review-snow-over-utopia-rudolfo-a-serna/
whatmeworry's review against another edition
2.0
This was one of those books I thought I liked at first, but by the end I had literally no idea what was going on.
alexanderp's review
4.0
Review originally posted here.
I read a lot of books throughout the year, but there are only a handful that make me take a step back and say “What the F.”
SNOW OVER UTOPIA by Rudolfo A. Serna was one of those books. Loaded to the very brim with genre-melded, blended goodness, and richly poetic prose, Serna challenges the most well-read to pierce his narrative.
Combining elements of frenetic apocalyptic fantasy, psychedelic science fiction, and dashes of doom metal, SNOW OVER UTOPIA is a visceral, but deeply emotional read. While, this is not a book for the faint of heart, who cannot handle disturbing violence or abuse, it does contain at its heart a promise of beauty.
After the world has ended, humanity has changed, evolved, and mutated. A girl named Eden, who has lost her rare blue eyes, flees from slave masters with the help Miner, a murderer. They come across the Librarian and Delilah, who take care of them both inside their mountain sanctuary, but Eden is meant for much more. Eden will have to dive into the necrotronic stream to seek out the living computer program called Witch Mother to aid her, yet will it be enough? It will be up to Eden and Miner to face horrors upon horrors and reach the city of Utopia and break the tyrannical hold the Robot Queen has over this fallen, but healing world.
Serna’s prose is both sparse, yet so deeply enthralling, I was on page fifty by the time I emerged to take a breath. This is not a story that treats readers kindly either, you have to just lean into the strange world and float amidst the purple mist and yellow smoke and the throbbing black-mass that powers various technologies. It is both disturbing and comforting, terrifying, but peaceful all at once. Even by the end, I could not decide how to feel about it, other than be in awe of such an intricately written novel.
Readers who enjoy a sprawling narrative that has elements of almost every single genre that exists, SNOW OVER UTOPIA is a must-read.
I read a lot of books throughout the year, but there are only a handful that make me take a step back and say “What the F.”
SNOW OVER UTOPIA by Rudolfo A. Serna was one of those books. Loaded to the very brim with genre-melded, blended goodness, and richly poetic prose, Serna challenges the most well-read to pierce his narrative.
Combining elements of frenetic apocalyptic fantasy, psychedelic science fiction, and dashes of doom metal, SNOW OVER UTOPIA is a visceral, but deeply emotional read. While, this is not a book for the faint of heart, who cannot handle disturbing violence or abuse, it does contain at its heart a promise of beauty.
After the world has ended, humanity has changed, evolved, and mutated. A girl named Eden, who has lost her rare blue eyes, flees from slave masters with the help Miner, a murderer. They come across the Librarian and Delilah, who take care of them both inside their mountain sanctuary, but Eden is meant for much more. Eden will have to dive into the necrotronic stream to seek out the living computer program called Witch Mother to aid her, yet will it be enough? It will be up to Eden and Miner to face horrors upon horrors and reach the city of Utopia and break the tyrannical hold the Robot Queen has over this fallen, but healing world.
Serna’s prose is both sparse, yet so deeply enthralling, I was on page fifty by the time I emerged to take a breath. This is not a story that treats readers kindly either, you have to just lean into the strange world and float amidst the purple mist and yellow smoke and the throbbing black-mass that powers various technologies. It is both disturbing and comforting, terrifying, but peaceful all at once. Even by the end, I could not decide how to feel about it, other than be in awe of such an intricately written novel.
Readers who enjoy a sprawling narrative that has elements of almost every single genre that exists, SNOW OVER UTOPIA is a must-read.
jonbob's review
4.0
SNOW OVER UTOPIA is the most batshit crazy book I’ve ever read. It’s like Snowpiercer and Legend hooked up in a post-human hellscape, dropped a shit ton of acid and proceeded to viscerally tear each other apart limb by limb.
This genre-defying story is set in a post-human age that has moved so far beyond our own world that it’s simply unrecognisable, where fanatical and sadistic slave masters rule company towns with an iron fist, where mutantoid creatures monitor the transmissions of living computer programmes and biohacking demon worshippers battle genetically modified forest hunters in a twisted and brutal apocalyptic landscape. A world where blue eyes are rare and mystical.
Amidst all this a young woman called Eden has her blue eyes brutally cut out of her head by greedy and covetous company men and is left for dead before being rescued by the living computer programme known as Witch Mother and sent on a mission to the city of Utopia, ruled by the ruthlessly fascistic and bloodthirsty Robot Queen, where Eden hopes her eyes can be restored.
I’ll say at the outset this book is not going to be for everyone. It’s not conventional. It’s heavy on atmosphere and light on character. And it’s very, very dark. And I don’t mean dark in the usual sense that it has morally ambiguous characters who do bad things; I mean the thing is absolutely saturated with brutal oppression, violence and visceral prose that at times is stifling and nauseating.
It’s not a book that treats the reader kindly and yet, in the face of all that, I felt this was a book ultimately about hope. This was reflected quite masterfully in a wonderful synergy between the setting and Serna’s prose; both are savage, merciless and yet at the same time shot through with a poetic beauty that is both evocative and strangely optimistic. What I particularly love about Serna’s writing (and it’s something he shares with other great world builders like William Gibson and Tade Thomspon) is the confidence he has to throw you in at the deep end of the unrecognisable world he’s created and just let you sink or swim. I was absolutely pulled into his bizarre setting and yeah, I found it difficult to keep up at times, but for me this just means that Serna has succeeded in imagining and creating a world so far beyond our current idea of humanity that it’s inherently difficult to wrap your head around. And he’s done it masterfully.
Snow Over Utopia is a book that starkly highlights the importance of small presses. I mean never say never, but I can’t see a Big Five publisher ever willing to take a risk on a book like this. It’s simply not mainstream enough. Not conventional enough. Not marketable enough. And yet we need books like this. Props to Apex for putting out books like Snow Over Utopia and for being such important engines of experimental and unconventional storytelling.
Originally reviewed at Parsecs & Parchment
This genre-defying story is set in a post-human age that has moved so far beyond our own world that it’s simply unrecognisable, where fanatical and sadistic slave masters rule company towns with an iron fist, where mutantoid creatures monitor the transmissions of living computer programmes and biohacking demon worshippers battle genetically modified forest hunters in a twisted and brutal apocalyptic landscape. A world where blue eyes are rare and mystical.
Amidst all this a young woman called Eden has her blue eyes brutally cut out of her head by greedy and covetous company men and is left for dead before being rescued by the living computer programme known as Witch Mother and sent on a mission to the city of Utopia, ruled by the ruthlessly fascistic and bloodthirsty Robot Queen, where Eden hopes her eyes can be restored.
I’ll say at the outset this book is not going to be for everyone. It’s not conventional. It’s heavy on atmosphere and light on character. And it’s very, very dark. And I don’t mean dark in the usual sense that it has morally ambiguous characters who do bad things; I mean the thing is absolutely saturated with brutal oppression, violence and visceral prose that at times is stifling and nauseating.
It’s not a book that treats the reader kindly and yet, in the face of all that, I felt this was a book ultimately about hope. This was reflected quite masterfully in a wonderful synergy between the setting and Serna’s prose; both are savage, merciless and yet at the same time shot through with a poetic beauty that is both evocative and strangely optimistic. What I particularly love about Serna’s writing (and it’s something he shares with other great world builders like William Gibson and Tade Thomspon) is the confidence he has to throw you in at the deep end of the unrecognisable world he’s created and just let you sink or swim. I was absolutely pulled into his bizarre setting and yeah, I found it difficult to keep up at times, but for me this just means that Serna has succeeded in imagining and creating a world so far beyond our current idea of humanity that it’s inherently difficult to wrap your head around. And he’s done it masterfully.
Snow Over Utopia is a book that starkly highlights the importance of small presses. I mean never say never, but I can’t see a Big Five publisher ever willing to take a risk on a book like this. It’s simply not mainstream enough. Not conventional enough. Not marketable enough. And yet we need books like this. Props to Apex for putting out books like Snow Over Utopia and for being such important engines of experimental and unconventional storytelling.
Originally reviewed at Parsecs & Parchment