With Death Our Dream: A Metaphysical Mayem ***SPOILER FILLED*** Review

 

“Ship Of Theseus: A Novel”

Is no longer available for sale via self-publishing platforms. Instead, I have re-illustrated the book, rebranded it as “With Death Our Dream: A Metaphysical Mayhem,” and have begun the work of seeking an agent for professional publication. It is the fans of the book that spurred this decision on and finally made me pull the trigger, with messages like this extremely detailed analysis/review my good friend (a bit of a luddite) from West Virginia emailed me today. Thank you so much, Brucie-Boy!

The review:

There are books that tell a story, and then there are books that build a universe. With Death Our Dream: A Metaphysical Mayhem  is a stunning achievement of the latter order, a work of such audacious complexity and profound emotional honesty that it feels less like a novel and more like a newly discovered sacred text. It is a book that begins as a harrowing, psychedelic journey into the underworld of grief soaked existential dread and emerges as a sprawling, metaphysical superhero epic, arguing with unshakeable sincerity that the two are one and the same. It is a novel that operates on the principle of a fractal, where every element, from its audacious two-part structure to the deepest recesses of its mythology, reflects and refracts every other. This is not just a story; it is a living, breathing system of thought, a fractal masterpiece that proves the most complex philosophical ideas are not incompatible with thrilling, accessible storytelling; a testament to the power of imagination to heal, create, and literally birth new worlds.

The novel’s genius is immediately apparent in its audacious two-part structure. Part 1, "When We Are Inhuman," is a masterwork of literary horror set in a haunted apartment that is, in reality, a three-story representation of the afterlife. The first floor is hell, a "Hive" of vampires; the second is purgatory; and the third is heaven, where the Goddess Dorothy resides. Wayne Bird, is trapped in heaven inside the terrifying hellscape of his own mind, haunted by the ghosts of the apartment, his past, and the crushing weight of his grief, repeating unhealthy patterns and struggling to defeat the (villain) Berserker level in his “Tales Of the Skyrat” video game (a representation of Wayne’s inability to move past his grief). The novel’s central act of creation occurs in the bathroom of Chapter 2. In a moment of self-love, Wayne directs his sexual energy at the nude portrait of Dorothy, the Goddess. As he climaxes, the bathroom faucet turns on; the Goddess orgasming in tandem. He has, as the novel so brilliantly puts it, "impregnated timespace." This is not a moment of profanity but of profound, mystical creation. 

The plot’s true inciting incident is his decision to take psychedelic mushrooms. This choice shatters the narrative, and the resulting third chapter is a literary simulation of a bad trip, forcing the reader to experience Wayne’s ego-death alongside him. When his savior, the Christ-like Bruce, arrives, he is a midwife, ushering Wayne from the womb of his own creation into the universe he has fathered with the Goddess.

That universe is Green City, the setting of Part 2. What follows is a superhero epic, but one that constantly serves the deeper metaphysical themes. Skyrat, the flawed teenage hero, a young man of loving kindness because Wayne created him to be the best expression of humanity, his own personal Superman. The plot is a mirror of Wayne’s journey, with Skyrat’s fight against the monstrous Berserker a physical manifestation of Wayne’s battle with his own grief. The novel’s central philosophical metaphor, the Ship of Theseus, is the law of this new universe, and when Skyrat "fractalizes" into a spectrum of selves to save people, he is a living embodiment of that principle.

Yet for all its layers of philosophy, mysticism, and structural ambition, the novel remains relentlessly accessible. The plot is driven by visceral, human stakes: a mother trying to guide her son, a boy mourning his best friend, a city tearing itself apart. The prose is a chameleon, shifting from the fragmented, poetic horror of Part 1 to the kinetic, cinematic action of Part 2, ensuring the reader is always grounded in the immediate experience of the characters. The complex ideas are woven into the fabric of a thrilling story, never feeling like a lecture. You don't need to understand the Grand Unifying Theory to be moved by Scott’s sacrifice, but the theory gives that sacrifice a cosmic weight.

This brings us to the novel's most important and culturally vital decision: the character of Skyrat. The hero of this universe is not an alien from another planet or a god from on high. He is an African American teenage man in a hoodie and a t-shirt. In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, this choice transforms the novel from a brilliant piece of speculative fiction into a necessary act of cultural reclamation. The hoodie, a symbol of racial profiling and the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin, is reclaimed as the uniform of a savior. This is a direct confrontation with a narrative of prejudice, a declaration that the body most likely to be judged and feared by society is the one most capable of embodying loving kindness. Skyrat’s heroism is an act of defiance. His loving kindness is his superpower, and it is a power he wields in a world that has historically denied his humanity. He is the hero our world needs right now.

This cultural relevance is what elevates With Death Our Dream to the level of a masterpiece. It is a story that argues for the importance of empathy in a fractured world. It is a book that memorializes Trayvon Martin not as a victim, but as the inspiration for its greatest hero. It is a novel that understands the most pressing issues of our time; racial injustice, systemic violence, the search for meaning, and filters them through a lens of genre fiction that makes them feel both epic and intensely personal. It is a challenging, unpredictable, and deeply moving work that will rewire your brain and leave you seeing the intricate, interconnected geometry of the world in a whole new light. It will break your heart, leaving you with the unshakeable conviction that in a world of chaos, the most radical and heroic thing we can do is choose to love and protect one another. This is a book for right now, and it is a book for the ages.