Filed under: Exquisite Reviews | Tags: 01 Publishing, Alasdair Stuart, Cyberpunk, Josh Finney, Kat Rocha, Raymond Carver, Utopiates
Written by Josh Finney
Art by Josh Finney and Kat Rocha
Published by 01 Publishing
The best drug on the market is the human soul. Utopiates allow you to become someone else; their mind, their memories, their confidence. The high is amazing, the comedown is horrific. Four people are about to discover just what they’ll do to feel like someone else.
Finney and Rocha are two of the best creators working today and this book shows exactly why. This is a unique twist on cyberpunk that echoes everything from Raymond Carver to Antiviral and creates something, appropriately, that feels completely different to all of them. The idea of the Utopiates by themselves is fascinating and horrific enough. What Finney and Rocha do is show what people will do with the drugs, as well as for them.
All four stories orbit a female dealer who brings utopiates to the streets. A striking, gothic figure who likes quoting Faust we never find out much about her but never really need to. She’s the one with the power and with that power comes control and the subtlest drug of all; the gradual erosion of ethics. The final line here is one of the most beautifully crafted pieces of linguistic cruelty I’ve ever encountered and it tells you everything you need to know about her.
With her as it’s center, the rest of the book focuses on three people; one of her customers, one of her thugs and one of her killers. All of them have blood on their hands and only some of that is because of her but all of them are ultimately sympathetic. The customer just wants to feel better about himself, the thug is looking for any war he can get and the enforcer is smart enough to know that what she’s done may make her irredeemable. Scattered through their stories are bright, shining ideas that help flesh this world out. Non Enforcement Zones where the police don’t go, private security as the front line of a war and a take on the Utopiates concept so chillingly plausible it will bring you up short. None of them are happy, few of them end well but all of them are smart enough to know just why they’re there. Rats who can see the maze walls but can’t quite get to the centre.
This is classic cyberpunk in both senses of the word. It’s crammed with ideas, presented with clinical precision through Finney and Rocha’s excellent art and is entirely concerned with how societal evolution tends to be the thing that happens when no one’s looking. Cold, brutal, humane and whip smart it’s one of the best SF books I’ve read this year.
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