Book Review: Snow Over Utopia by Rudolfo A. Serna

Snow Over Utopia by Rudolfo A. Serna

Paperback, 176 pages

Published July 2019 by Apex Book Company

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...