Where the North Ends, Hugo Moreno, AUG2025 LTER
Talk Reviews of Early Reviewers Books
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1LyndaInOregon
I surrender, people. This is an unreviewable work.
It’s a matryoshka doll of dreams within dreams within astral travel wrapped in what is probably an acid trip embedded in a deep psychosis. Uriel Moreno, the protagonist, is known as Diego through most of it, as he wanders from being a college student in contemporary New York state, plagued by the death of his beloved wife Alma, to a reluctant Franciscan brother in 17th-century New Mexico, charged with converting indigenous peoples to a Christianity that he, as a lapsed 21st-century Catholic, no longer believes in. This is an internal conflict which will eventually land him in prison, awaiting Inquisition justice, until he is rescued by his brother, who was killed a few pages back, in a 21st-century gang hit.
Confused yet?
For over 300 pages, Uriel/Diego wanders through dreams or hallucinations or divine visitations, talking with equal sincerity to a mule, an Apache mentor, a psychotherapist, various of the Old Ones from ancient Asian, European, and North American pantheons, and an occasional owl. Sometimes he’s trying to write a novel, despite the fact that his earlier attempt, drawing (without permission) from his wife’s private diaries, so distressed her that she committed suicide. Or perhaps she died of an overdose while cruising around the American southwest with a Hell’s Angel’s biker. It depends on the dream of the moment.
And when this all comes to an abrupt halt – there is nothing like a climax or resolution to be found – there is an “Editor’s Note”, which may be part of the novel or which may be a nonfiction message from Hugo Moreno, the credited author. It’s kind of hard to tell, and by this point (actually, 200 or so pages prior to this point), Faithful Reader has stopped caring about any of it.
Now, there may be readers out there who will find this all very deep and symbolic and just chock full of Important Insights into The Nature of Man and The Essence of Reality. This reviewer is not one of them.
It’s a matryoshka doll of dreams within dreams within astral travel wrapped in what is probably an acid trip embedded in a deep psychosis. Uriel Moreno, the protagonist, is known as Diego through most of it, as he wanders from being a college student in contemporary New York state, plagued by the death of his beloved wife Alma, to a reluctant Franciscan brother in 17th-century New Mexico, charged with converting indigenous peoples to a Christianity that he, as a lapsed 21st-century Catholic, no longer believes in. This is an internal conflict which will eventually land him in prison, awaiting Inquisition justice, until he is rescued by his brother, who was killed a few pages back, in a 21st-century gang hit.
Confused yet?
For over 300 pages, Uriel/Diego wanders through dreams or hallucinations or divine visitations, talking with equal sincerity to a mule, an Apache mentor, a psychotherapist, various of the Old Ones from ancient Asian, European, and North American pantheons, and an occasional owl. Sometimes he’s trying to write a novel, despite the fact that his earlier attempt, drawing (without permission) from his wife’s private diaries, so distressed her that she committed suicide. Or perhaps she died of an overdose while cruising around the American southwest with a Hell’s Angel’s biker. It depends on the dream of the moment.
And when this all comes to an abrupt halt – there is nothing like a climax or resolution to be found – there is an “Editor’s Note”, which may be part of the novel or which may be a nonfiction message from Hugo Moreno, the credited author. It’s kind of hard to tell, and by this point (actually, 200 or so pages prior to this point), Faithful Reader has stopped caring about any of it.
Now, there may be readers out there who will find this all very deep and symbolic and just chock full of Important Insights into The Nature of Man and The Essence of Reality. This reviewer is not one of them.
