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Xiphactinus
Could embracing our darkest impulses be the ultimate path to authenticity?
Dun is a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose meteoric rise in tech—against all odds—has brought him wealth and notoriety. He’s been ruthless in business and it’s paid off, but a powerful demon gnaws at his conscience, and a mounting cascade of litigation threatens both his livelihood and his life.
In this moment of crisis, a monstrous voice counsels him, interpreting with a strange mixture of affection and disdain the events that have led him here. Recalling their dark kinship from Dun’s early years through his dysfunctional childhood and career, this unlikely mentor urges him menacingly toward a stark awareness of his true nature, and the inner predatory resources he might summon to set himself free…
Shot through with black humor and page-turning suspense, Xiphactinus is a boldly unorthodox work of startling originality that reads as psychological thriller, scientific meditation, and poetic excavation of the human condition.
Dun is a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose meteoric rise in tech—against all odds—has brought him wealth and notoriety. He’s been ruthless in business and it’s paid off, but a powerful demon gnaws at his conscience, and a mounting cascade of litigation threatens both his livelihood and his life.
In this moment of crisis, a monstrous voice counsels him, interpreting with a strange mixture of affection and disdain the events that have led him here. Recalling their dark kinship from Dun’s early years through his dysfunctional childhood and career, this unlikely mentor urges him menacingly toward a stark awareness of his true nature, and the inner predatory resources he might summon to set himself free…
Shot through with black humor and page-turning suspense, Xiphactinus is a boldly unorthodox work of startling originality that reads as psychological thriller, scientific meditation, and poetic excavation of the human condition.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 15, 2025
2 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Rich Shapero
23 books289 followersRich Shapero’s novels dare readers with giant metaphors, magnificent obsessions and potent ideas. His casts of idealistic lovers, laboring miners, and rebellious artists all rate ideas as paramount, more important than life itself. They traverse wild landscapes and visionary realms, imagining gods who in turn imagine them. Like the seekers themselves, readers grapple with revealing truths about human potential. All of his titles—Beneath Caaqi's Wings, Dissolve, Island Fruit Remedy, Balcony of Fog, Rin, Tongue and Dorner, Arms from the Sea, The Hope We Seek, Too Far and Wild Animus—are available in hardcover and as ebooks. They also combine music, visual art, animation and video in the TooFar Media app. Shapero spins provocative stories for the eyes, ears, and imagination.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 7, 2026
Stupid and boring
This was the LOOOOOOOONGEST 250 pages I've ever read...and I've read MJ Sewall!!
Dumb, boring plot, boring plot elements, boring back story, uninteresting EVERYTHING - all told to you -happily - from the third person perspective of a fossilized fish in the most boring way.
I'm going to spoil the ending so you don't have to read it. Ever. You'll thank me later.
The only interesting thing to happen in the book was when the main character boringly approaches his wayward business partner - who is suing him, by the way - and shoots him the heart and eye with an arrow.
Then the story ends. Like- WHAT??!!
The divorce is unresolved, the lawsuit on his business is unresolved, the death of his mother is unresolved, and Petra being an accomplice to murder and having an immediate "oh sh*t" moment immediately after it happens - ALL unresolved.
And the STUPID STUPID paragraph that ends the book "We are your nightmare", blah, blah, blah...
Dumbest way to end a book.
First of all who is this "we"? It's being told to you by ONE freaking fish, for crying out loud!
Then, if the incessant overuse of the word "ape" and "my boy" wasn't enough to make you want to throw this book into the closest fire, the inane story and plot certainly were.
Let me put it this way - if you're in a serious depression and thinking about offing yourself, read this book. It will certainly push you right over the edge.
If you're thinking about ripping out your eyeballs and need some inspiration, read this book.
OR....if you just want to know how bad a book can be, read this book.
Don't believe ANY glowing review of this book. I did.
That regret will last me a lifetime.
This was the LOOOOOOOONGEST 250 pages I've ever read...and I've read MJ Sewall!!
Dumb, boring plot, boring plot elements, boring back story, uninteresting EVERYTHING - all told to you -happily - from the third person perspective of a fossilized fish in the most boring way.
I'm going to spoil the ending so you don't have to read it. Ever. You'll thank me later.
The only interesting thing to happen in the book was when the main character boringly approaches his wayward business partner - who is suing him, by the way - and shoots him the heart and eye with an arrow.
Then the story ends. Like- WHAT??!!
The divorce is unresolved, the lawsuit on his business is unresolved, the death of his mother is unresolved, and Petra being an accomplice to murder and having an immediate "oh sh*t" moment immediately after it happens - ALL unresolved.
And the STUPID STUPID paragraph that ends the book "We are your nightmare", blah, blah, blah...
Dumbest way to end a book.
First of all who is this "we"? It's being told to you by ONE freaking fish, for crying out loud!
Then, if the incessant overuse of the word "ape" and "my boy" wasn't enough to make you want to throw this book into the closest fire, the inane story and plot certainly were.
Let me put it this way - if you're in a serious depression and thinking about offing yourself, read this book. It will certainly push you right over the edge.
If you're thinking about ripping out your eyeballs and need some inspiration, read this book.
OR....if you just want to know how bad a book can be, read this book.
Don't believe ANY glowing review of this book. I did.
That regret will last me a lifetime.
Displaying 1 of 1 review