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Utopian Circus
Through the charred wreckage of one man’s philosophy, an adventure into conscious delusion and dark dystopian fantasy begins as the survivors of The Nest find themselves on three paths where each will endeavor to rein their conscious minds to grasp the philosophy of existence and abate the shackles of conscious Famine as they march onwards towards New Utopia.
On one path, Marcos, having woken naked and amnesic at the scorn of ancient women whose immortality derives from the wearing of young girl’s faces like decorative dresses; is chased through a dense wilderness for the face that he wears whilst drifting in and out of conscious Famine, giving a glimpse into The City that was, one of obligation and Infant Industries.
On the second path, in The Kingdom of the Hound, Ruff the dog is awoken to conscious debate, rationalizing and philosophizing with an ostentatious small Chihuahua called The Bitch Queen over the nature of unconditional love as he fights to save the lives of his human friends from being gamed by savage hounds and monolithic boars.
While on a third path, The Woman will unravel, through conscious delusion, the true extent of her repressions and her loveless abandon as a young girl; Safrine, through childish rhyme, is challenged by a creepy old man into a game of coloured cubes to save her two companions from the effect of The Famine.
City: A Literary Concerto Overview:
What sacrifice, to conceive a dream; when all you leave behind, is all you’ll ever be?
The City Concerto; through literary prose, answers one question: To what lengths would a father go and what horrible wrongs would he do, to teach a god how to love again?
The trilogy illustrates the human emancipation from three states of love; Eros, Philos and Agape as each is torn apart under the guise of well intention as humanity; now void of identity in the wake of a century of dehumanizing dependence and necessity upon industry and digital technology; has separated itself from the labour of its existence, aborting empathy and setting in place the death of mother nature. Yet, on the verge of extinction; mankind presses on; towards salvation; towards the city of light and sound; towards New Utopia
The City Trilogy approaches the concept of industrialized dehumanization by exploring current polemic states such as man’s empathetic and obsessive link to digital technology, branding, plastic surgery, social networking and a fear of nature which emulates in the current global controversy in the rise of unnecessary Caesarean births by production line hospitals. The story paints the ‘what ifs’ in the effect that such industrial dependence would play on the human genome; purporting life as an efficient production as opposed to a natural creation; that when nature is removed from the equation, what would happen if the industry stopped?
Who would mother humanity?
On one path, Marcos, having woken naked and amnesic at the scorn of ancient women whose immortality derives from the wearing of young girl’s faces like decorative dresses; is chased through a dense wilderness for the face that he wears whilst drifting in and out of conscious Famine, giving a glimpse into The City that was, one of obligation and Infant Industries.
On the second path, in The Kingdom of the Hound, Ruff the dog is awoken to conscious debate, rationalizing and philosophizing with an ostentatious small Chihuahua called The Bitch Queen over the nature of unconditional love as he fights to save the lives of his human friends from being gamed by savage hounds and monolithic boars.
While on a third path, The Woman will unravel, through conscious delusion, the true extent of her repressions and her loveless abandon as a young girl; Safrine, through childish rhyme, is challenged by a creepy old man into a game of coloured cubes to save her two companions from the effect of The Famine.
City: A Literary Concerto Overview:
What sacrifice, to conceive a dream; when all you leave behind, is all you’ll ever be?
The City Concerto; through literary prose, answers one question: To what lengths would a father go and what horrible wrongs would he do, to teach a god how to love again?
The trilogy illustrates the human emancipation from three states of love; Eros, Philos and Agape as each is torn apart under the guise of well intention as humanity; now void of identity in the wake of a century of dehumanizing dependence and necessity upon industry and digital technology; has separated itself from the labour of its existence, aborting empathy and setting in place the death of mother nature. Yet, on the verge of extinction; mankind presses on; towards salvation; towards the city of light and sound; towards New Utopia
The City Trilogy approaches the concept of industrialized dehumanization by exploring current polemic states such as man’s empathetic and obsessive link to digital technology, branding, plastic surgery, social networking and a fear of nature which emulates in the current global controversy in the rise of unnecessary Caesarean births by production line hospitals. The story paints the ‘what ifs’ in the effect that such industrial dependence would play on the human genome; purporting life as an efficient production as opposed to a natural creation; that when nature is removed from the equation, what would happen if the industry stopped?
Who would mother humanity?
Paperback
First published January 20, 2013
About the author
C. Sean McGee
48 books17 followers"I write weird books."
Dark existential fiction that is just as rich in philosophy as it is strange and unsettling.
From the reclusive mind of Irish-Australian writer, C.SeanMcGee, weird and wonderful stories that delve into the perverse and ever lurking shadow of humanity.
Everything written is fiction.
Eire - Australia - Brasil
*My books are free everywhere except Amazon. Get them anywhere but Amazon, please.
Stalker Windows:
Official Website: www.cseanmcgee.com
(bookstore, photography, poetry, news, more)
Goodreads - https://bit.ly/3roCtPZ
iTunes - https://apple.co/3tDaomZ
Kobo - https://bit.ly/3FwKaEP
Scribd - https://bit.ly/3Kkmy9Z
Medium - https://medium.com/@c.sean.mcgee
Buy Paperbacks (paperweights, kindling, and doorstoppers) from Amazon
Amazon - https://amzn.to/48uAoCI
Take Risk and Take Care,
C. Sean McGee
-art is messy-
Dark existential fiction that is just as rich in philosophy as it is strange and unsettling.
From the reclusive mind of Irish-Australian writer, C.SeanMcGee, weird and wonderful stories that delve into the perverse and ever lurking shadow of humanity.
Everything written is fiction.
Eire - Australia - Brasil
*My books are free everywhere except Amazon. Get them anywhere but Amazon, please.
Stalker Windows:
Official Website: www.cseanmcgee.com
(bookstore, photography, poetry, news, more)
Goodreads - https://bit.ly/3roCtPZ
iTunes - https://apple.co/3tDaomZ
Kobo - https://bit.ly/3FwKaEP
Scribd - https://bit.ly/3Kkmy9Z
Medium - https://medium.com/@c.sean.mcgee
Buy Paperbacks (paperweights, kindling, and doorstoppers) from Amazon
Amazon - https://amzn.to/48uAoCI
Take Risk and Take Care,
C. Sean McGee
-art is messy-
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 28, 2016
Like the first episode this is a tough one, containing a lot of philosophical musings. But, the things that episode 1 was building up to are now set in motion; finally things start to happen. I particularly like the flashbacks to the time of the Industry, as they show us how humans have lost their empathy and also their knowledge about Nature's working. I'm not sure what to think about the Elements and the realm of the Hounds, but I'm still hoping things will fall into place in the third episode. I can't wait!
February 8, 2024
This book was easier to follow than part 1 although it jumped past and present in a sometimes confusing way. I rather enjoyed it though. I need book 3!
January 13, 2014
This and more reviews, interviews etc are on Dark Matter Zine, an online magazine. http://www.darkmatterzine.com. This review was written by Evie Kendal for Dark Matter Zine.
Utopian Circus is the second installment of the series CITY: a literary concerto by self-published author, C. Sean McGee. Like McGee’s other texts, this one is free to download on his website, with print copies available for sale. For a self-published book the quality of the binding, cover and paper is quite good and the font size and line spacing used makes the text easy to read. As such, it is worth purchasing the physical book. (I will confess that although I love the flexibility that e-reading affords, I still believe a hard copy book has a certain aura that an e-book can never duplicate…even a mass market paperback!)
Utopian Circus begins with two old ladies – and old here means very old – who are preparing to skin the body of a naked young man they discovered floating downstream in a river. When they cut open the black bag the body has been sealed in they are shocked to discover not only that the body is so young – “Less than a hundred?” – but also that the man is still alive. While this state of affairs does not change their goal of skinning him and wearing his “skin dress” it does make it rather difficult to achieve when he gets up and runs away into the bushes, taking their prized scalpel with him. At this point the ladies voice their concerns that “the gods” will be angry with them, as the necessity of “changing faces” is one of their rules. They believe such a perfect skin as this young man’s, one not ravaged by the “famine” which is attacking the minds and bodies of the populace, must have been a gift or a message from the gods. Afraid of the ramifications of their failure, the women pursue the escaped young man.
The idea of skinning people and wearing their faces appears very briefly at the end of Book 1 of the series, AR1S1NGFALL, and information from this previous book is assumed knowledge in Utopian Circus. Both books open with unusual scenes that do not completely make sense at the start of the novel, but which come to be explained through a gradual revealing of the elements of the dystopian fictional world. The sense of mystery was perhaps a little more intense at the beginning of AR1S1NGFALL, however it is reasonable to expect that a sequel will not be quite so alienating for the reader (or “cognitively estranging” as Darko Suvin would have it) as a first novel. Nevertheless, there is plenty to keep the reader guessing and there are only a few instances in the text where exposition is excessive.
Alongside the story of the immortal “Elemental Ladies” (or “Facers”) the narrative picks up from where AR1S1NGFALL left off and follows several characters from The Nest, the indoctrination facility that served as the setting for Book 1. However, there is a significant difference in flavour between these installments, with AR1S1NGFALL having a 1940’s classic science fiction dystopia feel, while Utopian Circus reads very much like a Grimm’s fairy tale (complete with evil queens and disturbing violence). Comparing the technical elements of both books, while there are fewer typographical errors and better overall presentation in Utopian Circus, grammar and punctuation are still an issue.
Due to the presence of various adult themes, Utopian Circus is obviously unsuitable for children, however it is also unlikely to appeal to squeamish adults. It is most likely to find its audience amongst fans of dystopian science fiction and fantasy. Utopian Circus is also not an entry-level book into the CITY series, so readers intending to pick it up will need to commit to reading the previous novel first.
Utopian Circus is the second installment of the series CITY: a literary concerto by self-published author, C. Sean McGee. Like McGee’s other texts, this one is free to download on his website, with print copies available for sale. For a self-published book the quality of the binding, cover and paper is quite good and the font size and line spacing used makes the text easy to read. As such, it is worth purchasing the physical book. (I will confess that although I love the flexibility that e-reading affords, I still believe a hard copy book has a certain aura that an e-book can never duplicate…even a mass market paperback!)
Utopian Circus begins with two old ladies – and old here means very old – who are preparing to skin the body of a naked young man they discovered floating downstream in a river. When they cut open the black bag the body has been sealed in they are shocked to discover not only that the body is so young – “Less than a hundred?” – but also that the man is still alive. While this state of affairs does not change their goal of skinning him and wearing his “skin dress” it does make it rather difficult to achieve when he gets up and runs away into the bushes, taking their prized scalpel with him. At this point the ladies voice their concerns that “the gods” will be angry with them, as the necessity of “changing faces” is one of their rules. They believe such a perfect skin as this young man’s, one not ravaged by the “famine” which is attacking the minds and bodies of the populace, must have been a gift or a message from the gods. Afraid of the ramifications of their failure, the women pursue the escaped young man.
The idea of skinning people and wearing their faces appears very briefly at the end of Book 1 of the series, AR1S1NGFALL, and information from this previous book is assumed knowledge in Utopian Circus. Both books open with unusual scenes that do not completely make sense at the start of the novel, but which come to be explained through a gradual revealing of the elements of the dystopian fictional world. The sense of mystery was perhaps a little more intense at the beginning of AR1S1NGFALL, however it is reasonable to expect that a sequel will not be quite so alienating for the reader (or “cognitively estranging” as Darko Suvin would have it) as a first novel. Nevertheless, there is plenty to keep the reader guessing and there are only a few instances in the text where exposition is excessive.
Alongside the story of the immortal “Elemental Ladies” (or “Facers”) the narrative picks up from where AR1S1NGFALL left off and follows several characters from The Nest, the indoctrination facility that served as the setting for Book 1. However, there is a significant difference in flavour between these installments, with AR1S1NGFALL having a 1940’s classic science fiction dystopia feel, while Utopian Circus reads very much like a Grimm’s fairy tale (complete with evil queens and disturbing violence). Comparing the technical elements of both books, while there are fewer typographical errors and better overall presentation in Utopian Circus, grammar and punctuation are still an issue.
Due to the presence of various adult themes, Utopian Circus is obviously unsuitable for children, however it is also unlikely to appeal to squeamish adults. It is most likely to find its audience amongst fans of dystopian science fiction and fantasy. Utopian Circus is also not an entry-level book into the CITY series, so readers intending to pick it up will need to commit to reading the previous novel first.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews