I'm not really sure if I liked this book or not; I read it a month ago and still haven't made up my mind. As with most books, there are good and bad points to it. An excellent point was the worldbuilding. Here we have a dystopian far-future after a cataclysmic event. The world is recognisable as earth but only just (it really could have been anyway). We start in the deserted prairies but visit desert cities and trash forests. It is really expansive in scope and wonderfully brought to life. The politics and social strata are scary but not particularly unlikely and read a bit like a metaphysical version of 1984. There has been a lot of thought and hard work put into the background of this novel and it shows.

The plot, in the main, works well. The idea of the Restart fluid and it's use is innovative and I liked how it was used as plot devise. As stated on the tin, this is a metaphysical dystopian and I do think there were parts that went over my head. I got the main gist but I think there were definitely nuances that I missed. This is mainly my fault in continually requesting metaphysical works and then wondering why I don't understand what is going on. But what I did understand, I liked enough. The pacing was ok, although there were sections that I felt dragged a bit.

My main issue is the characters, especially the main POV Eddie and Izzie. I had very little sympathy or compassion for them, especially Izzie. However, I don't think they are supposed to be sympathetic characters. I think they are supposed to be a bit spiky and a bit difficult, especially with certain revelations later in the book (which is hard to discuss without dropping some major spoilers). In this case, they are extremely well-written and it actually makes them more real-to-life. But I did find it hard to care for characters I didn't personally like. It all made sense and I don't think the plot would have worked any other way but.... the connection wasn't there. Izzie, I would have liked to throttle on a good day. I can't really recall a character that wasn't in it for anything other than themselves but in a dystopian future, that's survival I guess.

This is a fascinating book with a strong storyline. There are aspects that are thought-provoking, especially around the ideas of how much memories form a person, This might do very well in a book club, as I think it would lend itself to being discussed with others. I probably would have got more out of it this way. A well-written dystopian with some stunning worldbuilding, an intriguing plot and believable characters that left a bad taste in my mouth.

An interesting science fiction novel about satellites and a world gone wrong with them. How can it be fixed and where did the problem immergé in the first place?

2/5 Stars

TL;DR - A sprawling story of love, loss, and what it means to remember - or to forget. As much a biopunk dystopian nightmare as it is a Western and a trippy metaphysical journey, this book defies genres and takes you on a wild ride. Chock full of expansive and rich world-building that has a lot to say about humanity and its effects on the Earth and on itself, it’s (over)full of a lot of really cool ideas, but unfortunately suffers from an overall weak and meandering plot and needlessly high word count. It’s long, it’s lush, but overall, it’s only just north of mediocre.

Big thanks to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for providing the ARC for this book in exchange for an honest review!

***Trigger warnings for ableism, intravenous drug use, drug addiction, and implied rape.***

‘The Smell of Satellites’ by D. H. Stegall is an ambitious debut that spans many genres - dystopian, cyberpunk, biopunk, ecofiction, western, metaphysical, philosophy, and more - making it one of the most unique books I’ve read in recent years. It’s told from two POVs, one from Edward “Eddie” Ingram, a no-nonsense cowboy type who loves horses and hates technology, and Isabella “Izzy” Ingram, who loves technology and dreams of a future away from the prison-school where they both grew up. A strange, tattooed man shows up just as they’re about to earn their freedom, and they’re thrust out into the wider world of the post-apocalyptic Midwest to search for their futures, and, though they don’t know it, their pasts.

First and foremost, I need to talk about the trigger warnings.

In this version of the not-too-distant future, birth defects and physical deformities are commonplace, thanks to pollution and chemical warfare. Eddie is EXTREMELY ableist, and uses extremely ableist language when referring to these people, from calling them “cr*pples” repeatedly in his inner dialog to calling them “defectives” out loud (this is implied to be a commonly-used term, but I only recall him using it), up to the point of having (eugenicist) thoughts that these people should be unalived at birth. And we find out in the wider world that these people, in parts of the country, are not allowed to be physically intimate with each other for fear that they’ll reproduce, and when they do, children born with defects are often unalived at birth (Izzy participates in this, and though she says it makes her sick, she still complies). I found no rebuking commentary, or really any commentary at all, on this aspect of the worldbuilding, and as such, it’s just horrific to read through as a disabled person myself. I found this all extremely harmful and disgusting personally, and I urge anyone within the disabled community to exercise extreme caution if you choose to read this book.

A major running theme of this book is the use of intravenous drugs, and it happens multiple times in explicit detail on-page. A majority of characters in this book are highly addicted to these drugs, and it’s mentioned so prolifically that I feel I need to warn anyone who struggles with any kind of substance addiction that this is probably not the book for you.

And, towards the end, there’s an implied rape. It’s not per se explicitly described, but the character is drugged/high/hallucinating and she ends up, uh, in a family way after (gross, hate it). So, bear that in mind.

Those aired, I’ll start with the good.

The absolute strongest point of this book is the world itself. It warms my little Midwestern heart to know we were the center of the end of the world, and I did enjoy reading about familiar places and how they fared after the apocalypse. It might be a niche reference, but the world and the warring theologies really reminded me of a matured, hulked-up version of the world in the video game “My Time At Portia” - but make no mistake, it’s not cute or whimsical or charming, it’s straight up brutal, and I loved it. Everything is meticulously thought out, down to the smallest details of what’s left after the end, how that end came, and how the “old world” became the new. Because everything is so well-crafted, the world really feels alive, and honestly, plausible. What’s left is horrible and backwards and completely believable, and the barren, trash-filled world where the rain is hot poison and trees grow up rotting through mountains of garbage offer a really poignant commentary on the state of the modern world if we don’t make drastic changes soon. I was viscerally uncomfortable at all times - mutant ticks? no running water? trash everywhere? my literal worst nightmares - but I think it really lent itself well to both the atmosphere and the underlying ecological message.

The writing itself is clean and easy to read. I can’t call it concise because there’s just so much of it (more on that later), but it says what it means to and that’s hard to find in self-pub books, so kudos for that. I’m in the habit of highlighting passages that strike me as profound or beautiful, but I only collected a handful over the course of this book. I wouldn’t call the prose especially beautiful or thought-provoking, but rather utilitarian and unfeeling. Not personally my preference, but I imagine it might appeal to more die-hard sci-fi fans.

There are a lot of puns and clever wordplay that I really appreciated and enjoyed. For example, the acronym for money is literally "SHTCOIN". Cackling.

All that said, there are a few factors that really brought down my enjoyment (and the rating) of this book.

First, there are some hella problematic elements besides the rampant ableism mentioned above. First and foremost, the ten thousand uses of the slur “g*psy/g*psies"…to describe nomadic, drug-addicted, child-abusing folk who are led by a violent, lying conman. The biggest ick. No thank you, I hate it, fuck’s sake, why? Second, as mentioned above, calling disabled folks “cr*pples” - again, I hate it, no reason for this. And third, though it’s only used once, using the word “r*tarded”. Then there’s the smaller instances of racist language being used to describe the only 3 explicitly-stated BIPOC characters - “almond-eyed”, “witch doctor”, referring to one of only 2 black characters as having literal, lowercase “black skin” or an “old black face”, or using the dreaded food analogies when talking about her grandson. That, and the only Asian character literally wears robes, a rice hat, and has a - I wish I was kidding - full-on dangly fu manchu mustache. Listen, I’m willing to afford the benefit of the doubt to the author - shit like this is still (somehow) prevalent in media, it takes a lot of work and research and conscious effort to unlearn all of this stuff, you don’t know what you don’t know…but it’s 2023, and Google exists. The Writing With Color tumblr exists. Literal BIPOC people exist and speak out about this kind of stuff all the time. Authors, please, do better.

I really feel like this book could have benefited from a developmental editor. There is so much going on, and so little of it contributes to the overall plot. This beast is 549 pages long, which is all well and good if it has a consistent, engaging plot, but it doesn’t, and I think it could have been easily cut down by at least 150 pages, if not more. I really feel like this book suffers from Too Many Ideas Syndrome, and therefore wanders all over the place (literally and metaphorically) with only little plot points stuck in there every 50 pages or so. In retrospect, I struggle to even come up with some semblance of a plot summary because so much happens, and it never really adheres to a traditional plot structure. If you’re just here for the vibes, I’m sure you’ll love it because I do consider this a “no plot, just vibes” book, but if you’re here for plot, you’ll be left wanting more.

The characters are unlikable at worst, flat at best. I didn’t like Eddie at all and I didn’t enjoy being in his head while he thought all of those disgusting ableist things. He’s also overly-paternalistic of Izzy and often completely disregards her wishes and feelings in favor of what he thinks is best for her. Yucky. Izzy seemed interesting at first, but she just fell flat for me as I got to know her better. In the end, I didn’t really care about anyone I met in this story (except for the horses, poor babies!), and I didn’t find a single character I connected with or even remotely liked. Maybe that’s the whole point, the end of the world makes jerks of us all, but it was nevertheless not a fun ride for me.

Final Thoughts:

Man, I really wanted to like this. The cover is gorgeous, the world is so intriguing and well thought out, there’s so much potential for a great story, but it gets crushed under the weight of needless bloat and a paper-thin plot.

I don’t know anything about the author besides he’s a fellow Midwesterner (ope!), but after all of the super icky problematic elements in this book, I won’t be continuing the series, and I won’t be shelling out for a physical copy.

I read what I could of this file…. I don’t know if the file has been corrupted or what’s going on but half of it is gibberish or a different language and the other half is English. What I did read of it, I did like so if the file is fixed then I will gladly reread it. The rating is because I couldn’t read anything but about half the book