Dead but Not Ready

by Rich Shapero

Can the architecture of a dream withstand the collapse of the mind that built it?

Denlon is a D.C. architect whose visionary but unrealized “Temple in Lime” represents his life’s greatest ambition. When he receives a grave diagnosis, he finds himself lured to the limestone caves and coal mines of his Appalachian youth, where he’s forced to reckon with the ghosts that shaped him.

As malignancies disrupt his brain, spectral guides lead him through a labyrinth of memory and madness. The natural world turns predatory, and in a fever dream of mortality, he struggles to reconcile his life’s purpose with roots that refuse to let him go…

Dead but Not Ready plunges readers into a disintegrating mind caught between ambition and origins. It is at once a madcap dark comedy and a lyrical reflection on the dreams we carry and the earth that must ultimately reclaim us all.

131 pages, Hardcover

Published March 10, 2026

About the author

Rich 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—Dead but Not Ready, Xiphactinus, The Hornet's Spell, Hibiscus Mask, 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.

Reviews

[Howard Thompson]

While moving my daughter out of her college dorm, there was about 20 or 30 Rich Shapero books in the dump and run pile. So I take it he still has people handing them out by the handful on campuses to unsuspecting kids. I grabbed this one because why not. Wild Animus and Xiphactinus were terrible but it was something to read on the plane home.

Well, what I can say good about this one is it doesn't have any kinky animals or weird sex scenes, or weird sex scene involving kinky animals, which other books of his do. So that was a bit of a relief. It is however basically one long acid trip. The dialog is as cringy and the action as self indulgent as anyone who has read Shapero before would expect. So not his worst, but certainly not very good. But you sort of know what you are getting with this guy.

[Jetta]

Lured back to the limestone caves and coal mines of his Appalachian childhood, the main character, Denlon, is forced to ask whether a life's work can survive the collapse of the mind that built it.

Shapero’s prose in Dead but Not Ready is hallucinatory without being indulgent, and his black humor lands genuinely. Comedy and grief sit right next to each other, and somehow that makes both hit harder. Highly recommended, especially if you like your existential crises with a streak of dark wit.

[Jordan Douglass]

So, this is a weird book..... The whole book seems like the main character Denlon is hallucinating. Nearly the whole book. About the woods and shrubbery attacking. This is not at all what I was expecting when i read the summary of the book. #GoodreadsGiveaway

[Brooke Crist]

Okay so, that was crazy.

I received this as an ARC read, and It definitely kept my attention, I was invested, and finished in just a couple hours.

This book was definitely a fever dream.

[Barb]

Thanks to TOOFAR media for a copy of Dead but not ready. I ready it in one sitting. It is of an architect with a brain tumor and wanting to complete his dream stucture before he dies. I'm not sure what is real and what is hallucination in this story. He has conversations with the ghosts of his childhood. He visits places and events of long ago. I had a difficult time following the characters and story line.

[Kelsie M.]

This was an entertaining and thought-provoking read. The novella’s fast-paced plot kept me engaged from start to finish, making it easy to read in a short amount of time. Beyond the action and adventure, the story explores existential questions about life, death, and what it means to truly be ready for either. While brief, the book left me thinking about ideas long after I finished, making it a memorable and worthwhile read.
#GoodreadsGiveaway

[nikitadude]

What a read…
I don’t even know what to say about it. The message is unclear to me. But, man… I don’t know what I expected of this book, but it wasn’t that.

Is it that dreams can haunt us? That they can become a nightmare? That his dream pulled him away from people he loved? That there is redemption in those who’ve failed us? Did he lose his mind and the whole time all that crazy shit was happening, he was dying, like in Black Mirror’s “Playtest”?

I need answers.

[Catherine Hall]

Um, what did I just read? This book read like an acid trip gone wrong. It felt like I was reading through a schizophrenic's hallucinations. It's kind of creepy and just not very entertaining. Sorry.

I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you for the opportunity.