Utopia 58

By: Daniel Arenson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

From one-million copy best-selling author Daniel Arenson comes Utopia 58, a dystopian novel as chilling as The Handmaid's Tale and Black Mirror.

Imagine a perfect society. A world with no racism, sexism, or ageism. A utopia.

In Utopia 58, everyone is equal. Everyone must be equal.

Too beautiful? A mask will hide that pretty face. Too tall? We'll saw your legs down to size. Too male or female? The surgeon's knife will fix that. Too smart? A buzzer in your skull will drown out all that pesky thinking. You will be equal. Like it or not.

Utopia 58, built atop the ruins of North America, created perfect harmony. A society with no race, gender, or age. Pure equality.

KB209 was born into this utopia. He has no true name. No past. No future. He is one among millions. The same.

One day, at a propaganda rally, KB209 glimpses an act of startling defiance. A citizen with painted toenails. A woman in a genderless society. Color in a black and white world.

When KB209 confronts her, he is drawn into an underground rebellion. A movement that dares to dream. That dares to say: "We are unique. We are individuals. We will be free!"

©2019 Daniel Arenson (P)2019 Podium Publishing

A Disappointment

This book had a great premise but was sort of dull in the end. I didn't really care that much about any of the characters or what happened to them. I stuck wiith it to the bitter end because of Scott Brick's performance, which was excellent as usual.

Excellent listen

Excellent story. Excellent narrator. Amazing characters. Like a lot of books I never figured out what was coming next.

totally spellbinding

This book started slow - so slow that you think to yourself"what's got this book all the raves?". But then suddenly you begin to realize that you can't put it down. Listening as I do when I take out my dogs it about drove me crazy to have to stop periodically.. The narrative was good to make you feel this way.. The narrative and the storyline build to a high point them suddenly drops - but I won't say anymore about that. I will definitely recommend this book to others.

I concur with the consensus..amazing!

We have a winner here! Wow. This one is intense, violent, totally original and holds the listener captured until the very last line. Literally.
Brick is at his best here...not too forced, not too over the top as he sometimes is, and, of course, has great material to work with.
Arenson is off to an amazing career here. This is truly worth the credit, the investment of the listeners time, and the effort to think about the various themes and currents running through this offering.
Highly recommended. One of the best of the year!

Derivative but Entertaining

Utopia 58 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, if part of you has ever wished that Winston Smith from George Orwell's 1984 could have gotten his hands on a well-oiled machine gun and blasted down a few of those nasty thought police before he met his inevitable demise, then you may just enjoy this mad tale of betrayal, mayhem, and evasion; on the other hand, if you really are a fan of 1984, then it's very difficult for me to imagine that you will be anything but disappointed by what you find here—a mostly note-for-note retelling of that vastly superior work. Despite this major flaw, I still have no hesitation in betting that you will enjoy Scott Brick's masterful narration and that the audiobook will entertain you even as the story frustrates (and possibly annoys you).

Starts great, ends terribly

I loved the main premise of the book, almost Handmaid's Tale in some ways. The main character at the beginning of the book had great struggles and used clever ingenuity but somehow turns into Jason Borne by the end of the book. Speaking of the end of the book, let's just leave it as highly disappointing. It was a ridiculous ending to a ridiculous book that started really well.

The worlds most depressing story.

The narrator was excellent but this story droned along so much I was bored with being depressed. Not much change from beginning to end.

Decent conceit, disappointing execution

This is a short story spin on 1984 and should have stayed at that length.

SPOILERESQUE:
It starts off as a straight ripoff of 1984, then goes on a long journey rife with incongruities and plot holes, not to mention plot armour unjustified by the underlying concept.

No numbers are allowed except for 58.... and most character names. One character has had access to cultural elements that make no sense given the end of the story, made worse when the main character also suffers sudden bouts of modern culture... that apparently died 300 years ago.

The two possible endings are obvious halfway through, and getting there is an exercise in filler episode TV. The feeling of encroaching doom afforded by the actual story feels misspent, undermined by the constant rehashing of blah action, unnamed character deaths and inevitable main character survival.

The character dynamics start off natural, but remain one-dimensional and are resolved with laughable "you're my brother"/"we've gotta keep going" dialogue.

I absolutely accept that an allegorical story often will not be able to maintain its conceit, but this is a poor showing.