The Usurper King

3.5 Stars

First up I want to say thank you to the author for providing me with a PDF copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Going into this book I didn't know anything about it besides what I read from the synopsis of it. I definitely thought this book was going to be a little out of my comfort zone but it sounded intriguing so I decided to give it a try. I was really into the story and wanted to know how things were going to play out. It was weird be it had me hooked. I had a few issues with it though. First was the use of a certain word that I absolutely hate and I hate it when people just throw it around like it's nothing. Next was “extispicy” which is the practice of predicting the future by reading the entails of sacrificed animals and apparently used to actually be a real thing. While those parts weren't graphic I still had a hard time accepting that animals were being sacrificed that just isn't for me at all. Like I said I did enjoy reading this but it wasn't something that I absolutely loved but I also didn't hate it. It was more of an ok read for me.

God damn. I fucking LOVED this book.

It's not often that a book comes around that completely reinvigorates your love of reading, recontextualizes what a book can be/do, and reminds you why you love the hobby so much in the first place.

This book is one of those books for me.

Halfway through, I dropped my bookmark in, put the book aside, and went online to order every other book Zeb has written. I am enchanted.

There's a thing this book does that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. A specific framing of satire that might already exist but is very new for me.

So like, typically with satire, a concept is reframed in a sort of allegorical way that changes the factual basis to point out or examine some sort of inherent absurdity/idiocy right?

The trick Zeb pulls in this book is a thing I'd want to call like, Gonzo Satire? Hyper-Satire? The satire isn't used to examine an idiotic situation, because the thing being satirized is already clearly fucking insane. The satire is over the top and super hyperbolic and used instead as a way to reflect on and observe the internal feelings of the author/reader.

It's really really clever and I felt a lot of camaraderie in rage with Zeb while reading. Weirdly cathartic.

Most authors would just stop there though. I know I would. But fuck no says Zeb.

There's also tremendously cool and meaningful worldbuilding. A heartrending through-line about alcoholism that hits a biiiiit too close to home. And a small treatise on solipsism and death and the lies we tell ourselves that came out of fucking nowhere, disarmed me, and stabbed me right in the chest before whirling away.

So much more too. Like how myths and ancient thoughts infect and spread and corrupt through eras, the horrors of weaponized technology, the existential angst of feeling internally youthful as your desiccated meatsuit decomposes around you. And tons of other stuff I forgot/didn't catch.

Oh, and also the book is funny and written well? Like come on dude. Leave some fucking talent for the rest of us.