Usurper

by D. Harlan Wilson

In the sequel to the critically acclaimed Outré, a novel that explores the future of cinema through the unlikely vehicle of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, D. Harlan Wilson turns to James Joyce’s Ulysses as a source of inspiration, entertainment, and social commentary. Outré tells the story of an aging movie star battling the tyranny of filmmaker Donovan Ogg and an antagonistic, seemingly omnipotent Studio. Set in an irreal dystopia, Usurper focuses on Donovan’s prodigal son, Caliban Ogg, who cannot crawl out from under the shadow of his father’s massive legacy as he struggles to adapt the so-called “Doomsday Edition” of Ulysses for the big screen. But this tale is ultimately a point of departure for a broader study of our benighted culture.

Multifaceted and interdisciplinary, Usurper transcends storytelling to expose and analyze the relationship between commercialism, art, and identity. Wilson’s crushing grip on the text collapses science fiction into psychohistory, film studies into gonzo journalism, memoir into manifesto, and theories of truth into myths of the future. With as many intellectual and artistic layers as any connoisseur of modern literature could desire, Usurper’s dominant quality may be the darkly playful humor that drives home the thesis of Wilson’s entire oeuvre: Reality is shaped by the forces that destroy it.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

172 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2026

About the author

D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning American novelist, literary critic, editor, playwright, and college professor. He is the author of over thirty book-length works of fiction and nonfiction, and hundreds of his stories, plays, essays, and reviews have been published across the world in more than ten languages. Wilson also serves as reviews editor for Extrapolation and editor-in-chief of Anti-Oedipus Press.

Reviews

[Ben Arzate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full Review

Usurper is hilarious and entertaining as well as being an entertaining work of schizoanalytic criticism. D. Harlan Wilson continues to prove himself as a one of the most unique and funniest authors working today. For anyone looking for a read that’s both intelligent and completely absurd, I highly recommend this.

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

It should be noted that I was a big fan of the surrealist absurdist work for a full decade before David became a part of the Dickheads podcast. I have often said that Dr. Identity is one of the most hilarious reading experiences I have ever had. DHW’s fiction embodies a unique blend of speculative, genre commentary, satirical, fiercely intelligent, and intentionally absurd elements. This sequel to Outre’ is veers deeper into the commentary than I remember the last book being.

A product of his most recent obsessions Outre felt influenced by J.G. Ballard, while Usuper feels very affected by the experience of writing Strangelove country. Caliban Ogg the character at the center of this experimental narrative. A prodigal son who can’t escape his father’s shadow. He is in the process of making a movie in this weird future dystopia, a time described in the novel as after reality.
The novel constantly plays with art and identity, but Wilson’s commentary on science fiction, film studies and history’s greatest weirdos bleeds into the text. Schizflow…a term for Wilson’s fiction that he coined sure fits, and theory fiction also fits.

Here is the thing: if you have the right sense of humor. “Look at leap. Everybody knows that Victor Bleep is fabulous at walking down hallways. Nobody can beat him. Not even me. He is, for all intents and purposes, the best. We watch in awe as he ambles forward, carefully but resolutely, with signs of neither reluctance or ambiguity, like a funambulist on a high wire in the heavens of a circus tent. There is no high wire, no heavens, and no tent and no funambulist; he is who he purports to be: himself. Look at Bleep through this eyepiece. In the sepia-toned firelight of history, his body hangs in the balance as his limbs oscillate at equal distance intervals from the telltale walls that flank him. The measure of these intervals reflects the space between his skull to all the ceilings that have ever passed over him, allowing him to indulge in unruly geometries.”

Keep in mind that on page 58, the author word-for-word tells you that he “wants to fuck with the reader and get them to go to the gym.”

This absurdist novel takes place in a universe where reality has been lost, and D.Harlan Wilson speaks to himself and the reader about genre and art. In a way, it becomes a more honest commentary on film, science fiction, and D.Harlan Wilson than any essay could.

“Good evening. First, I would like to thank myself, who was instrumental in bringing this shitty picture to bear. I really can't thank myself enough. Myself is a good man and we all love him despite my flaws, which aren't that bad, it turns out, right? Everybody kills somebody if you live long enough, you know. Additionally, belief is not only the end of reason but the beginning of evil period, that's a quote from D. Harlan Wilson, my favorite dead writer despite his flaws, which are legion, both as a dead writer and as a dead human being. Nonetheless, historical documents corroborate that he was always working on himself to be a better man and a superior author, even as he destroyed life after life and strophe after strophe with his written truths. I say written truths, which are different than spoken truths. Spoken truths evaporate the moment they leave your maw. Written truths, on the contrary, live forever, and D. wrote down a lot of things about a lot of fucking dingbats.”

I laughed out loud constantly while reading this. I learned a few things and thought about other things. Mostly, I had a fun experience. Fans of weird fiction, aburdist SF, and D.Harlan Wilson will love this.

[Donald Armfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilson returns with a sequel to Outrè and his heuristic schizflow swimming with film criticism, an overshadowed prodigious son; trying to swallow his father’s legacy and only adapt in this created gonzo-dystopian universe. You could probably call this the blubber of storytelling: a crucial piece that experiences tragedy into technical theories, studies of loss fiction and a future that may need more treadmills, and less death in reality… it’s killing fiction!

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and RDS Publishing- Guide Dog Books for an advance copy of this novel set told in a series of essays set in the future, that deals with the creation of a film in a time where people can be saved from death, from a director with father issues, based on an old screen play that is a telling of a lost James Joyce tale.

I was taking a train to the great city of Chicago to help a friend settle in to her new environment. I had a list of book and record stores and a fully loaded list of podcasts to listen to on the ride. One of these was a random one that had come up, and and featured a writer, professor, and science fiction historian, D. Harlan Wilson. Wilson made for a good companion on the train trip, the disastrous move and what followed. I left town quickly, but not before finding two Wilson books, his study on J.D. Ballard, and another book, which I read on the train ride back. I was blown away. Two books one a study, one a fictional biography, maybe. Both took time to read, and were worth the time I gave them. Wilson is not a person one reads at the beach, unless the beach is in Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and one can concentrate on a book over the strong smell of decay and seafloors. Usurper: Essays on the Death of Reality is a novel, a work of embedded journalism, a meditation on creativity and the crushing weight of realty on artists, the reality to both make something new, and something familiar, and even worse have it make sense. Maybe. Your mileage might vary.

Wilson is a writer with a lot of thoughts, a lot of ideas, a lot of influences, and a writer who wants to exercise the least used muscle in our body. Not the Auricular muscles, responsible for ear wiggling, but the brain. The book is set in the future, far from now where death is held off, movies are still being made, and stunt teams take things to extremes. An actor is working on a filming of James Joyce's Ulysses, but called the Doomsday, after a film treatment discovered years after Joyce's death. The first director has been killed, maybe, by his son, Caliban Ogg, the corpse so atomized that there is no hope for resurrection. Caliban is over his head, not sure of the material, how to make a film, nor what his place in life is. Throughout the book famous people both fictional and nonfictional, along with the thoughts of that daring writer responsible for the death of Tom Cruise during the filming of his book Outré, D. Harlan Wilson.

Nothing in what I wrote is clear or coherent, and yet I loved this book. This book did something that happens rarely to myself while reading. I literally had no idea what was going on, nor why, but I wanted more of it. Wilson does not make it easy, dropping statements, ideas enough for entire books in a line, and letting the reader make up there mind. There are phrases that carry impact, some really sad, and some that make a person go wha.. The book is a mind-making-love kind of book. One that readers will know immediately if it is for them. A mix of Mark Leyner, Philip K. Dick, Barry Malzberg, Thomas Disch, I could keep naming authors. Dazzling, and different. A book that one will be looking things up and wondering what this and that means, what is true, and what is just from a troubled mind.

I liked this a lot, but I know its not for everyone. I've probably written more copies of this review than anything else in trying to capture what this meant to me. I blame myself for lacking the skill to do so. Give this a try, it is a sequel, but one doesn't need to have read the first book. And prepare to be amazed. And get ready for a good muscle burn between the ears, or a really bad cramp.