Snow Over Utopia by Rudolfo A. Serna

A series of dreadful and dark images fraught with the greed of rulers who have brainwashed their subjects into total compliance… until one special girl with rare blue eyes escapes. Yet, those eyes are taken from her and Eden has them in a jar hoping to get her sight back someday…

As if a spark has been lit, Miner (no names allowed in the ranks) breaks free from the bonds holding him in captivity and puts his axehead into several overseers’ heads. He is shot in his escape and finds himself nursed back to health in the same far-off tent that Eden had found. The same witch counsels them to find Utopia. Against all odds, the two set off over the mountains to find this land with a purpose that will only be revealed in small doses…

Themes of rebirth, control, and dystopia reign this short novel. The scenes are loosely tied together by these two enigmatic characters who have caught that rebellious streak and will not let go.

I see the miners controlled by the noxious fumes of sedation gases and the Baron mainlining a syrup of potions to try to see the higher power and find bliss. I see Eden with blood-soaked bandages around her head crawling over slick rocks… and the Miner reaching out to help her through the darkness.

There’s elements of scifi, mystical realities, and an earth advanced past any sense of our familiarity. Serna’s writing is a whisper of the truth with hints of stark imaginations that combine to form a world in which humankind has turned robot into ruler and mutants into other powerful races. I enjoyed my time with this book and eagerly fought page by page to understand it all. There is a joy in this challenge, and in the end, I wasn’t totally sure about the payoff, the lessons learned, but I was pushed and I liked that.

4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Apex Publishing and the author for an advanced copy for review.