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The Beasts of Success
In this dog-eat-dog world, three friends find themselves getting nowhere in their careers despite their education and work skills. They decide to make their own rules to the game of life and play dirty to get ahead. Each of them concoct schemes to sabotage colleagues and clear the path for their swift advancement.
Through a journey of deception and personal discovery, they find that life at the top isn’t what they imagined it would be. All the while, they’re not aware that they’re part of a much larger game being played by a world-controlling group that doesn’t have their best interests in mind. And with a physical manifestation of karma on the loose, their futures are uncertain.
In this fast-paced, entertaining ride, readers will confront a cache of arcane truth and thought-provoking situations by means of dark humor, satire, and zany humor. The Beasts of Success lifts the veil on a hidden world of which few are aware. How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?
*
Through a journey of deception and personal discovery, they find that life at the top isn’t what they imagined it would be. All the while, they’re not aware that they’re part of a much larger game being played by a world-controlling group that doesn’t have their best interests in mind. And with a physical manifestation of karma on the loose, their futures are uncertain.
In this fast-paced, entertaining ride, readers will confront a cache of arcane truth and thought-provoking situations by means of dark humor, satire, and zany humor. The Beasts of Success lifts the veil on a hidden world of which few are aware. How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?
*
445 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 11, 2020
312 people are currently reading
1736 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 27, 2025
The genre for this book is not humor as stated on this page - major error. Its genres are in this order: Literary Fiction, Satire, Dark Humor, which is listed in the book and on Amazon. The genre humor means a book's main purpose is to be humorous. This book is far from that; its purpose is to explain and show through examples and analogies the most important messages, wisdom, and truths that have the power to change lives and make people aware of reality. If you pay attention and read slowly (and between the lines), this book has the power to change your life. I would even add these sub-genres to this book: spirituality, philosophy, horror, and analogues, if analogous was a genre, because almost every chapter contains an analogy that gets to the root of our civilization's faults. And later in the book it's even explained how these faults came about and why.
I have never read a fictional book that was more meaningful and important, so to label it humor is a gross error, and even an attack. Even the "must read" books everyone talks about like 1984 and Brave New World are nothing compared to this book. I wondered why this error was made, until I read the author's page and it because very clear to me: it is a premeditated manipulation to make people think this book is just humor, doesn't have meaning in it, and to stop people from reading it, as most people aren't interested in reading meaningless humor books.
Is this book humorous and entertaining? Yes, very much so. But it only uses humor and entertainment in order to explain and deliver a message to readers. This book should be required reading. I say that about very few fictional books.
I have never read a fictional book that was more meaningful and important, so to label it humor is a gross error, and even an attack. Even the "must read" books everyone talks about like 1984 and Brave New World are nothing compared to this book. I wondered why this error was made, until I read the author's page and it because very clear to me: it is a premeditated manipulation to make people think this book is just humor, doesn't have meaning in it, and to stop people from reading it, as most people aren't interested in reading meaningless humor books.
Is this book humorous and entertaining? Yes, very much so. But it only uses humor and entertainment in order to explain and deliver a message to readers. This book should be required reading. I say that about very few fictional books.
January 17, 2021
Fast read
An interesting and humorous book. The plot is intriguing enough to keep you engaged. All was good until the vomit part. Over all , this book is highly recommended . I won’t be surprised if I, in the future, watch it on the big screen.
An interesting and humorous book. The plot is intriguing enough to keep you engaged. All was good until the vomit part. Over all , this book is highly recommended . I won’t be surprised if I, in the future, watch it on the big screen.
February 6, 2025
This book is crazy. Crazy good ... and enthralling. It's not often that I read a book that's so enveloping that I forget about the real world and get sucked into the story. Within the satire and dark humor, Ether loves to use craziness and exaggeration to get his points across - to explain the messages more fully. When exaggeration isn't being used, the story is quite real and the characters are so fleshed out that they could jump out of the book.
The writing is to the point and paints a vivid picture of what's going on so I could easily imagine the scenes in my head as I read. The sentence structure is usually so on point and vivid that you feel like you're there - like sitting in a theater watching a movie. Man, this would make a great movie, or a series like "American Gods." But I think if adapted into a movie, it would be a cross between "The Wolf of Wall Street", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "The Big Lebowski", "The Matrix", and "Eyes Wide Shut." That is an array of different types of movies because The Beasts of Success is a ravaging genre-bender that can't be compared to a single piece of work; just like I can't really recall any books or authors to really compare it to either.
Ether uses characters' dreams to relay analogies to the reader. Since anything can happen in dreams, the book temporarily dips into fantasy and sometimes reminded me of Clive Barker's "Weaveworld" for these parts. Here are two quotes from my favorite dream in the book:
***
Dale sat, puffed on a cigar he was given, drank several whiskey tumblers, played riding the gravy train with the sharks, and became delightfully intoxicated.
They rode that gravy train all the way into the city. As drunk as lords they belted out guffaws and verses from songs the whole ride. The train reached the city and the end of the rail at the last station, but instead of stopping, the train ran full steam off the tracks and chewed up the pavement as it barreled through the city, running over countless people before stopping at a hidden station.
One of the sharks said, “In order to get to the heart of the city, you must ride over many people. It is the gravy train, after all.”
They threw the remains of their cigars in their unfinished whiskey tumblers and stood to button up their suit jackets while laughing and patting each other on the back.
A shark told Dale, “Now we’re going to play the second part of The Gravy Train. This part is called The Middleman. See all the people running around?” With a regal flare he swooped an arm around, gesturing to the people. “You tranquilize them and put them in cages. Once they’re in your cage, they work for you. It doesn’t matter if they’re the people giving off negative or positive energy, it’s all the same. Remember, you tranquilize them, don’t kill them. If you want someone killed, or a whole town for that matter, you must cage the correct people so they’ll do your bidding. Murderers will silence an adversary or your competition. Mercenaries are the best for large-scale killings. This way you don’t have to get your own hands dirty. Not unless you want to that is. If you want a bill passed or rejected, cage a politician. If you want to fulfill your sexual desires, cage any woman, girl, boy—whatever’s your fancy. If you want to make a lot of money, cage musicians, inventors, writers—creative types. As a Middleman, you’ll reap almost all the benefits from their creativity. They’ll even thank you for it as they walk away with their miniscule percentage of the royalties. Musicians, writers, and actors can’t bring their art to the populace unless they’re in your cage, so they’re the easiest to cage, as they’ll walk right into your cage without being tranquilized. In fact, they’ll beg you to allow them to crawl into your cage.”
***
This last quote is from that same dream. It nicely sums up what Dale and the other psychopaths think about other people:
***
Dale said, “Couldn’t you just make more money by caging a banker?”
The shark smiled. “No, you can’t cage a banker. They have vicious teeth and will chew their way out of your cage in no time. No cage can hold a tenacious banker. Besides, bankers will help you quadruple your earnings. It’s better to work with bankers after you’ve made money from your caged workers. Bankers are your allies, don’t cage them.” He pointed to a group of bankers devouring a family. Their long, sharp teeth were dripping with blood and kept ripping into flesh. The shark grinned at the sight. “Look at those snappers. What beautiful creatures.”
After eyeballing and enjoying the bankers feasting for a bit, the shark gave his attention back to Dale. “The point is, people are just numbers to be used in your math equations. They’re not important. It doesn’t matter if they live or die, or how they live and die. Their worth is only a collective effort in the equation, and if you’ve placed them in the right spots in your equations, they’ll always equal whatever you want them to equal and your agendas will be fulfilled. They’re like batteries. They’re simply automatons to be used for your bidding, or even solely for your entertainment.”
***
Perhaps chapters 4 and 5 could've been shortened in order to get the main story moving a little more quickly, but even still I never got bored. There's no filler and every chapter has something enticing and interesting. The story gets faster and faster as the book moves along, and is speeding down the highway after about midway through. This would've happened sooner if said chapters were a little shorter. I highly recommend this book ... unless you hate profanity so much that you'd rather not learn about the important things evil people are doing in the world - hey, bad people tend to swear; if they're talking about something very meaningful that you should know, are you going to plug your ears and not listen to them just because they're swearing as they talk about it? Ha. This book is like 1984 but with satirical humor; 1984 isn't an enjoyable book to read (but it is well written), but you do it anyway because it's a must read. Well, this book is more of a must read than 1984. That may sound like a large statement, but you'll understand what I mean when you've read the book.
The writing is to the point and paints a vivid picture of what's going on so I could easily imagine the scenes in my head as I read. The sentence structure is usually so on point and vivid that you feel like you're there - like sitting in a theater watching a movie. Man, this would make a great movie, or a series like "American Gods." But I think if adapted into a movie, it would be a cross between "The Wolf of Wall Street", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "The Big Lebowski", "The Matrix", and "Eyes Wide Shut." That is an array of different types of movies because The Beasts of Success is a ravaging genre-bender that can't be compared to a single piece of work; just like I can't really recall any books or authors to really compare it to either.
Ether uses characters' dreams to relay analogies to the reader. Since anything can happen in dreams, the book temporarily dips into fantasy and sometimes reminded me of Clive Barker's "Weaveworld" for these parts. Here are two quotes from my favorite dream in the book:
***
Dale sat, puffed on a cigar he was given, drank several whiskey tumblers, played riding the gravy train with the sharks, and became delightfully intoxicated.
They rode that gravy train all the way into the city. As drunk as lords they belted out guffaws and verses from songs the whole ride. The train reached the city and the end of the rail at the last station, but instead of stopping, the train ran full steam off the tracks and chewed up the pavement as it barreled through the city, running over countless people before stopping at a hidden station.
One of the sharks said, “In order to get to the heart of the city, you must ride over many people. It is the gravy train, after all.”
They threw the remains of their cigars in their unfinished whiskey tumblers and stood to button up their suit jackets while laughing and patting each other on the back.
A shark told Dale, “Now we’re going to play the second part of The Gravy Train. This part is called The Middleman. See all the people running around?” With a regal flare he swooped an arm around, gesturing to the people. “You tranquilize them and put them in cages. Once they’re in your cage, they work for you. It doesn’t matter if they’re the people giving off negative or positive energy, it’s all the same. Remember, you tranquilize them, don’t kill them. If you want someone killed, or a whole town for that matter, you must cage the correct people so they’ll do your bidding. Murderers will silence an adversary or your competition. Mercenaries are the best for large-scale killings. This way you don’t have to get your own hands dirty. Not unless you want to that is. If you want a bill passed or rejected, cage a politician. If you want to fulfill your sexual desires, cage any woman, girl, boy—whatever’s your fancy. If you want to make a lot of money, cage musicians, inventors, writers—creative types. As a Middleman, you’ll reap almost all the benefits from their creativity. They’ll even thank you for it as they walk away with their miniscule percentage of the royalties. Musicians, writers, and actors can’t bring their art to the populace unless they’re in your cage, so they’re the easiest to cage, as they’ll walk right into your cage without being tranquilized. In fact, they’ll beg you to allow them to crawl into your cage.”
***
This last quote is from that same dream. It nicely sums up what Dale and the other psychopaths think about other people:
***
Dale said, “Couldn’t you just make more money by caging a banker?”
The shark smiled. “No, you can’t cage a banker. They have vicious teeth and will chew their way out of your cage in no time. No cage can hold a tenacious banker. Besides, bankers will help you quadruple your earnings. It’s better to work with bankers after you’ve made money from your caged workers. Bankers are your allies, don’t cage them.” He pointed to a group of bankers devouring a family. Their long, sharp teeth were dripping with blood and kept ripping into flesh. The shark grinned at the sight. “Look at those snappers. What beautiful creatures.”
After eyeballing and enjoying the bankers feasting for a bit, the shark gave his attention back to Dale. “The point is, people are just numbers to be used in your math equations. They’re not important. It doesn’t matter if they live or die, or how they live and die. Their worth is only a collective effort in the equation, and if you’ve placed them in the right spots in your equations, they’ll always equal whatever you want them to equal and your agendas will be fulfilled. They’re like batteries. They’re simply automatons to be used for your bidding, or even solely for your entertainment.”
***
Perhaps chapters 4 and 5 could've been shortened in order to get the main story moving a little more quickly, but even still I never got bored. There's no filler and every chapter has something enticing and interesting. The story gets faster and faster as the book moves along, and is speeding down the highway after about midway through. This would've happened sooner if said chapters were a little shorter. I highly recommend this book ... unless you hate profanity so much that you'd rather not learn about the important things evil people are doing in the world - hey, bad people tend to swear; if they're talking about something very meaningful that you should know, are you going to plug your ears and not listen to them just because they're swearing as they talk about it? Ha. This book is like 1984 but with satirical humor; 1984 isn't an enjoyable book to read (but it is well written), but you do it anyway because it's a must read. Well, this book is more of a must read than 1984. That may sound like a large statement, but you'll understand what I mean when you've read the book.
April 3, 2025
This book hooked me right from the first page and never let up. At first I was completely engaged in the entertaining aspects of the book, which would have been great enough, but then meaningful/philosophical/psychological/wisdom messages were given in the scenarios/actions/dialogue, and they kept building more and more as the book went along, until they were the sole focus of the book near the end. But at the same time, the book never stops being entertaining or engaging. I can't recall the last time I read a book that was mixed so well with entertainment value and meaningful value - well, I've definitely never read a book that had these two elements and did it so breathtakingly well - weaving characters lives into the very examples that the ending speaks of. It's structured and crafted in a big-picture way and is quite multi-layered. I've read award-winning fictional books and books that have sold more than 5 millions copies that aren't even half as good as this book. So why so little ratings and no recognition? Well, I figured that out firsthand.
I was first drawn to this book from the many glowing reviews on Goodreads, some of which pointed out that this book is being manipulated against to silence it so people won't know about it, and these reviews pointed out that over 50 tags from the quotes posted in this book were being shadow-banned and that you could go check and see for yourself. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't checked myself and saw that indeed the mentioned tags were completely shadow-banned, not showing up in searches for those quote tags. (When I checked it three weeks later, many people were talking about the hidden quotes and saying they saw it firsthand too, and that they weren't hidden anymore because so many people had seen the evidence and were pointing it out, so whoever was responsible stopped hiding the quotes to erase the evidence. They show up in the tag searches now.) I went to the author's website because I was curious to learn more. There I found a whole page where the author took a long time in accounting only some of the numerous actions that have been made to silence this book - attacks, manipulations, shadow-banning, shills, and more. It all sounded very true as an author wouldn't have gone through such a lengthy process to account for it and address it if it wasn't true, that and the fact that I saw firsthand a few of the manipulations he spoke about: the quotes not showing up in searches, and the big one for me was that when I came back to review this book, all the glowing reviews that I had read on Goodreads that initially made me want to read the book were ALL GONE - deleted, along with all the comments under their reviews where people corroborated that they too saw firsthand the manipulations against this book. The fact that there are over 250 written reviews on Amazon for this book and under 20 written reviews on Goodreads as I write this review is a dead giveaway that reviews and ratings are being deleted on Goodreads. This is astounding! The book is powerful enough as it is, but to have the corroborating evidence of the attacks against it - and being that the book is about those same attackers, elites who don't want the information in this book to get out - it all makes this book that much more of a MUST READ. The book even spoke of how the book would be shadow-banned and attacked, as if the author already knew it would happen. This blows my mind. All the 1 & 2 star reviews I encountered when I first saw this book weren't deleted like the positive reviews. They are still there, and there are more 1 & 2 star ratings that are obviously fake. Two of the most notable 1 & 2 star written reviews must be written by shills (people paid to give false reviews) because what they say isn't even true: it's exactly the opposite of what they say. This isn't my opinion - if you read the book you'll simply know they're untrue. The book isn't racist; in fact it's the opposite and speaks out against the elite's racism, especially towards blacks. The book isn't sexist at all as they state. The very, very few parts where characters are saying bad things and treating woman poorly - and are doing the same to males, so gender doesn't matter here of couse - is done by the obviously bad/evil characters, which shows that only bad people act this way, and if you want to be a positive person, don't treat woman - or anyone for that matter - poorly. Everything those two reviewers say is fake and obviously an attack to get people, especially women, to not read the book. This I wouldn't have known if I hadn't read the book.
Not only is there information in this book that everyone should read and ponder, but it's extremely engaging on an entertaining base level alone. That's not even adding the meaningful parts! Read the quotes for this book to get a glimpse of what I speak of: satire, thought-provoking, wisdom, and meaningful dark humor. You can't go wrong with this book. It is a MUST READ!
P.S. to top it off, when I went to save/post this review, it didn't post it and instead kicked me off Goodreads and gave me a 403 ERROR. Luckily I saved the review before trying to post it or I would've had to retype it all again. Goodreads also wouldn't allow me to follow the author and was forever loading the reviews and never showing them. I had to log off and re-log back on for these two issues to go away. Oh my god, they are full-on attacking this book!
I was first drawn to this book from the many glowing reviews on Goodreads, some of which pointed out that this book is being manipulated against to silence it so people won't know about it, and these reviews pointed out that over 50 tags from the quotes posted in this book were being shadow-banned and that you could go check and see for yourself. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't checked myself and saw that indeed the mentioned tags were completely shadow-banned, not showing up in searches for those quote tags. (When I checked it three weeks later, many people were talking about the hidden quotes and saying they saw it firsthand too, and that they weren't hidden anymore because so many people had seen the evidence and were pointing it out, so whoever was responsible stopped hiding the quotes to erase the evidence. They show up in the tag searches now.) I went to the author's website because I was curious to learn more. There I found a whole page where the author took a long time in accounting only some of the numerous actions that have been made to silence this book - attacks, manipulations, shadow-banning, shills, and more. It all sounded very true as an author wouldn't have gone through such a lengthy process to account for it and address it if it wasn't true, that and the fact that I saw firsthand a few of the manipulations he spoke about: the quotes not showing up in searches, and the big one for me was that when I came back to review this book, all the glowing reviews that I had read on Goodreads that initially made me want to read the book were ALL GONE - deleted, along with all the comments under their reviews where people corroborated that they too saw firsthand the manipulations against this book. The fact that there are over 250 written reviews on Amazon for this book and under 20 written reviews on Goodreads as I write this review is a dead giveaway that reviews and ratings are being deleted on Goodreads. This is astounding! The book is powerful enough as it is, but to have the corroborating evidence of the attacks against it - and being that the book is about those same attackers, elites who don't want the information in this book to get out - it all makes this book that much more of a MUST READ. The book even spoke of how the book would be shadow-banned and attacked, as if the author already knew it would happen. This blows my mind. All the 1 & 2 star reviews I encountered when I first saw this book weren't deleted like the positive reviews. They are still there, and there are more 1 & 2 star ratings that are obviously fake. Two of the most notable 1 & 2 star written reviews must be written by shills (people paid to give false reviews) because what they say isn't even true: it's exactly the opposite of what they say. This isn't my opinion - if you read the book you'll simply know they're untrue. The book isn't racist; in fact it's the opposite and speaks out against the elite's racism, especially towards blacks. The book isn't sexist at all as they state. The very, very few parts where characters are saying bad things and treating woman poorly - and are doing the same to males, so gender doesn't matter here of couse - is done by the obviously bad/evil characters, which shows that only bad people act this way, and if you want to be a positive person, don't treat woman - or anyone for that matter - poorly. Everything those two reviewers say is fake and obviously an attack to get people, especially women, to not read the book. This I wouldn't have known if I hadn't read the book.
Not only is there information in this book that everyone should read and ponder, but it's extremely engaging on an entertaining base level alone. That's not even adding the meaningful parts! Read the quotes for this book to get a glimpse of what I speak of: satire, thought-provoking, wisdom, and meaningful dark humor. You can't go wrong with this book. It is a MUST READ!
P.S. to top it off, when I went to save/post this review, it didn't post it and instead kicked me off Goodreads and gave me a 403 ERROR. Luckily I saved the review before trying to post it or I would've had to retype it all again. Goodreads also wouldn't allow me to follow the author and was forever loading the reviews and never showing them. I had to log off and re-log back on for these two issues to go away. Oh my god, they are full-on attacking this book!
April 1, 2020
I was very excited to read this book. It had so much potential in the summary, I thought. After reading the prologue, I was still feeling great! It was punchy and I loved it.
I very quickly lost my excitement in the first chapter. As I read, I left that the point of view (POV) was confused. Whenever there was a POV, the narrator didn't have a clear voice and was often unreliable, contradicting themselves within a single chapter. And I never really did care for the characters, just became more and more irritated with them.
The book was also very difficult to read. The sentences felt overly complicated for no reason. Often descriptions and thoughts broke the "show don't tell" rule, and I felt like most of the thick dialogue wasn't even needed for the story. Overall, the book had a habit of reading like some blend of an economics and sociology textbook.
Finally, I wasn't okay with all the offensive language and topics in the book. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate some of it if there is a reason. But I couldn't find one here. We just kept getting slammed with it. Unnecessary violence, crude language, sexual references, and appropriating culture. The most notable moment to me was a dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Everything from the description of the waitress, how the author wrote her dialogue, and the topics she discussed was a gross misrepresentation of the Chinese waitress, and it frankly disgusted me.
Maybe this book just wasn't for me, I couldn't say. If you are fine with crude language, dense text, and plot moving at only a click up from stationary, then maybe this is the book for you. It did have a lot of potential for the plot to be interesting.
I very quickly lost my excitement in the first chapter. As I read, I left that the point of view (POV) was confused. Whenever there was a POV, the narrator didn't have a clear voice and was often unreliable, contradicting themselves within a single chapter. And I never really did care for the characters, just became more and more irritated with them.
The book was also very difficult to read. The sentences felt overly complicated for no reason. Often descriptions and thoughts broke the "show don't tell" rule, and I felt like most of the thick dialogue wasn't even needed for the story. Overall, the book had a habit of reading like some blend of an economics and sociology textbook.
Finally, I wasn't okay with all the offensive language and topics in the book. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate some of it if there is a reason. But I couldn't find one here. We just kept getting slammed with it. Unnecessary violence, crude language, sexual references, and appropriating culture. The most notable moment to me was a dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Everything from the description of the waitress, how the author wrote her dialogue, and the topics she discussed was a gross misrepresentation of the Chinese waitress, and it frankly disgusted me.
Maybe this book just wasn't for me, I couldn't say. If you are fine with crude language, dense text, and plot moving at only a click up from stationary, then maybe this is the book for you. It did have a lot of potential for the plot to be interesting.
June 26, 2025
I read it, and I think I could read it several more times and get more out of it each time. There are so many layers to this book. It came very close to being preachy but never crossed over or annoyed me. It was very entertaining the whole time, dark but bizarre enough to make me smile. I loved it.
August 11, 2022
*I received a free ARC of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
This feels like two books in one. The first is a gory, gross-out shocker, courting controversy and edged with dark humour, like a Farrelly brothers’ film set in the world of business and dirty dealings. The second is a moralistic, ‘mass awakening’, ‘do your own research, sheeple!’, conspiracy theory tome. Unfortunately, neither of this is really my cup of tea, and I suspect that I am simply not an edgy enough audience.
The book starts with three disenfranchised, disillusioned outsider men – Dale, Jeremy and Tim – who decide to try to get ahead in their chosen careers by playing a series of career-ending pranks on their colleagues. Then follows the progress of their pranks, involving lots of drugs and bodily fluids (and solids), loads of profanity and some shameful treatment of women, the overweight and ‘foreigners’. There is not one likable character here, by the author’s design, which is by no means a deal-breaker, but can make it hard to engage with the characters’ journeys.
The plot is interspersed with rants about government control, alien control, corporate evil, obesity and junk food, brainwashing, subjugation of the masses via economics, the poisoning of the water supply, GM foods, vaccinations, and so on and so on. (Wake up, sheeple!) It is pretty hard to tell which, if any, views are endorsed by the author as all come from highly immoral or amoral sources, and there are some interesting ethical pointers found in the main character’s dreams, as their subconscious minds attempt to steer them away from the damaging courses they are on.
There is a moral shift towards the end of the book, for some of the main characters, but it is a little hard to buy into their ‘enlightenment’, as they only change when it suits them to do so, and it is hardly redemptive when they showed zero empathy for others throughout and, in fact, took great pleasure in cruelty and in ruining the lives of others.
I can definitely see this being a fun and/or interesting read for those who believe in a malevolent global agenda and enjoy gross-out dark humour tinged with horror, but this one just wasn’t for me.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
This feels like two books in one. The first is a gory, gross-out shocker, courting controversy and edged with dark humour, like a Farrelly brothers’ film set in the world of business and dirty dealings. The second is a moralistic, ‘mass awakening’, ‘do your own research, sheeple!’, conspiracy theory tome. Unfortunately, neither of this is really my cup of tea, and I suspect that I am simply not an edgy enough audience.
The book starts with three disenfranchised, disillusioned outsider men – Dale, Jeremy and Tim – who decide to try to get ahead in their chosen careers by playing a series of career-ending pranks on their colleagues. Then follows the progress of their pranks, involving lots of drugs and bodily fluids (and solids), loads of profanity and some shameful treatment of women, the overweight and ‘foreigners’. There is not one likable character here, by the author’s design, which is by no means a deal-breaker, but can make it hard to engage with the characters’ journeys.
The plot is interspersed with rants about government control, alien control, corporate evil, obesity and junk food, brainwashing, subjugation of the masses via economics, the poisoning of the water supply, GM foods, vaccinations, and so on and so on. (Wake up, sheeple!) It is pretty hard to tell which, if any, views are endorsed by the author as all come from highly immoral or amoral sources, and there are some interesting ethical pointers found in the main character’s dreams, as their subconscious minds attempt to steer them away from the damaging courses they are on.
There is a moral shift towards the end of the book, for some of the main characters, but it is a little hard to buy into their ‘enlightenment’, as they only change when it suits them to do so, and it is hardly redemptive when they showed zero empathy for others throughout and, in fact, took great pleasure in cruelty and in ruining the lives of others.
I can definitely see this being a fun and/or interesting read for those who believe in a malevolent global agenda and enjoy gross-out dark humour tinged with horror, but this one just wasn’t for me.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
Want to read
August 25, 2021 I received an advanced digital copy of this book, courtesy of the author and publisher, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
RTC
RTC
February 1, 2025
If you enjoy shady characters for the dark humor, satire, and amusement they offer, this book is definitely for you. Of the three main characters in the book, Dale Dickerson is the most shady. He's starts out shady and pretty much ends up evil by the end of the book. There are many hints that point toward this so I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying this.
Ken Karver may go down as one of the best villains ever after this book gets discovered. A book this good can't stay hidden forever. But I want to focus on Dale Dickerson because he's an interesting character that starts out gray and ends up black as night. He was my favorite character in the book because he was the most interesting to me; probably because I love dark humor. Instead of propping up the prose of Ether and his writing style, saying he's a talented writer I've rarely seen before, I'm going to use quotes from the book to let them speak for themselves. Why use praising words when I can just let the book shine by itself. I've read SO MANY reviews where the reviewers praise the author so much that they sound like a genius or a writing god, and then I read the book and find the author being just okay or actually quite a bad writer. I absolutely loved Ether's unique and crafty sentence structure and prose, but I'll give you many quotes and let you decide for yourself.
All three of the main characters are narrators in the chapters they reside in. Dale Dickerson is the one that is a unreliable narrator. Almost everything he says, the truth is the opposite. However, Ether did flesh him out well, so like most real people, he's not just good or evil, so he does say some reliable narrator things sometimes, but most of the time he can be relied upon to tell that the truth is the opposite of what he says or thinks.
After we already get a good idea of Dale's character, he's introduced more in this quote in chapter 1.
Dale is clever and reminded me of Ulysses in Homer's story of "The Odyssey", except Dale isn't diplomatic and usually just comes off as a complete jerk, but he's clever and crafty like Ulysses, using psychology to distort the facts and persuade others to his line of thinking. Here's a quote below in chapter 1 when he's attempting to stray the other two main characters, Jeremy and Tim, to the darker gray side of life:
In chapter 6, Dale goes to a New Age-like café in order to meet up with an online date. He really looks down on the clientele and another reference to his suits are brought up:
In that same café, we find Dale up against an old hippy. It's apparent that Dale's and hippy's lifestyles mix like oil and water:
There are two favorite handles that Dale uses to describe people. He calls them an "asshat" if they are smart and/or mean, much like himself. And he uses "dipshit" for people who are dumb. Here's a case of this when Dale's mad about people wanting tips for nothing:
I'll share one last quote from the New Age café chapter that shows how often Dale looks down upon pretty much anyone he meets:
This next quote happens right before Dale gets the idea for his second scheme. He's at a colleagues house, another unscrupulous stock broker like himself, at a soiree of sorts:
Dale is as cunning and clever like a despised, ultra-rich 1-percenter. He holds to their mentality in these four quotes below:
Here's a run-in Dale has with a taxi driver he dislikes. We get a taste of Dale's vicious verbiage:
Dale is a capitalist through and through because it allows him to become ultra-rich and separates himself from "the peasants", the salt-of-the-earth people that actually make the world function. It's a quote that really shows Dale's an unreliable narrator. We know this because Ether uses other characters - like Jeremy, 1 of the 3 main characters - to argue in favor of the complete opposite of opinions. Dale uses a secret and exclusive app to climb the ladder of society. It's an app that only unethical people like himself are accepted into:
These next two quotes are what comes of Dale using this app. This is toward the end of the book where Dale finds himself really rising high within the ridiculously hidden wealthy families. He starts to become a major player:
There's even a little action in the book when Dale is racing around the city in his luxury sports car, breaking every law possible. It reminded me of Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho":
Dale ends up moving from Seattle, where most of the book takes place, to New York, where he takes up residence in a skyscraper on Billionaires’ Row. It's in New York where he really separates himself from "the peasants":
And that's only some of the quotes that articulate Dale Dickerson's thoughts, actions, antics, and dialogue. I tried to cut it down to only the best, but it was hard because there's so many good ones. And remember, Dale is only one of the three main characters in the book. But it's safe to say that if you enjoyed these quotes, you'll love the book. If you didn't, the book isn't your cup of tea and I've just saved you the time and money to find that out.
Ken Karver may go down as one of the best villains ever after this book gets discovered. A book this good can't stay hidden forever. But I want to focus on Dale Dickerson because he's an interesting character that starts out gray and ends up black as night. He was my favorite character in the book because he was the most interesting to me; probably because I love dark humor. Instead of propping up the prose of Ether and his writing style, saying he's a talented writer I've rarely seen before, I'm going to use quotes from the book to let them speak for themselves. Why use praising words when I can just let the book shine by itself. I've read SO MANY reviews where the reviewers praise the author so much that they sound like a genius or a writing god, and then I read the book and find the author being just okay or actually quite a bad writer. I absolutely loved Ether's unique and crafty sentence structure and prose, but I'll give you many quotes and let you decide for yourself.
All three of the main characters are narrators in the chapters they reside in. Dale Dickerson is the one that is a unreliable narrator. Almost everything he says, the truth is the opposite. However, Ether did flesh him out well, so like most real people, he's not just good or evil, so he does say some reliable narrator things sometimes, but most of the time he can be relied upon to tell that the truth is the opposite of what he says or thinks.
After we already get a good idea of Dale's character, he's introduced more in this quote in chapter 1.
Dale was a stockbroker at Stryker & Marshall, one of the biggest brokerage firms in America. He always wore a suit when he went out in public, even when he wasn’t working, because there was always that odd chance he might cross paths with a client, or a possible future client. But regardless of clients, it assisted in reinforcing his pompous mentality that he was superior to others. He flaunted his suits and wore them like they were a piece of himself, an outer shell that created a buffer zone between his vainglorious identity and the peasants that made up most of the population.
Dale is clever and reminded me of Ulysses in Homer's story of "The Odyssey", except Dale isn't diplomatic and usually just comes off as a complete jerk, but he's clever and crafty like Ulysses, using psychology to distort the facts and persuade others to his line of thinking. Here's a quote below in chapter 1 when he's attempting to stray the other two main characters, Jeremy and Tim, to the darker gray side of life:
Knowing Tim was a sucker for logical deduction and facts, he would pursue that avenue to entice Tim to step into the realm of blurred ethical lines where right and wrong weren’t as apparent and defined, or didn’t even matter. Dale also knew that if he could convince Tim before he alighted at the subway’s terminus of his argument, Jeremy would assimilate to his ideology somewhere along the journey without any direct effort on his part.
In chapter 6, Dale goes to a New Age-like café in order to meet up with an online date. He really looks down on the clientele and another reference to his suits are brought up:
The title of the café suggested its New Age influence, but he had no idea the place would be littered with spiritual knickknacks and completely brimming with wishy-washy clientele sporting tie-dye shirts and earthy-colored, grungy pants. Dale gritted his teeth and painfully examined the place, taking in all its awfulness. The atmosphere alone felt like it was soiling his impeccable suit.
In that same café, we find Dale up against an old hippy. It's apparent that Dale's and hippy's lifestyles mix like oil and water:
Dale turned back to slander the bitter hippie who was wearing a tie-dye shirt with colorful text that read ACID BATH. "Looks like someone forgot to take their micro-dose of acid today, or maybe you mistakenly consumed too much gluten for breakfast. Or perhaps you’re resentful for having woken up today realizing the world revolves around money instead of love and sexually transmitted diseases.”
An eccentric expression crept onto the hippie’s face while he half-lifted his arms in surrender. “Hey man, crimson and clover, over and over.”
Dale hadn’t the slightest idea what the man was talking about, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about colors and flowers. Or was clover a weed? Well, if he spotted these hippies in his backyard, he’d definitely remove them like weeds, even if their tie-dye shirts were colorful enough to deceitfully pass as flowers. Getting up close to them to smell their pungent odor, instead of a flower’s fragrance, would most surely be enough evidence to classify them as weeds. Stubborn weeds that attempted to buck the system by creeping up between logically placed cemented sidewalks that paved the way to buildings of high finance. He had crushed many of their kind under his polished shoes as he made his way toward the office. They were the dying remnants of a generation who thought pervasive love could spark a peaceful revolution. What they weren’t aware of was that love wasn’t more powerful than fucking. The honorable elite factions who hold the reins of an ordered society continually raped the hippie’s love movement until it was nothing more than acid flashbacks and bad hygiene, which conveyed the power of fucking over love.
There are two favorite handles that Dale uses to describe people. He calls them an "asshat" if they are smart and/or mean, much like himself. And he uses "dipshit" for people who are dumb. Here's a case of this when Dale's mad about people wanting tips for nothing:
Dale was tempted to rip the electronic pad from its stand and shove it up the barista’s ass while shouting, “Here’s your goddamn tip, you inflated asshat. You’re no different than a bum on the street holding out a cup.” Instead, he merely pressed the NO TIP box and collected the receipt that spat out of the machine. He knew that once the barista was privy to his selection she would hand him his drink with eyes drenched in disdain as if she just found out he was the Unabomber or something.
I'll share one last quote from the New Age café chapter that shows how often Dale looks down upon pretty much anyone he meets:
Dale noticed a good amount of café patrons venomously staring at him as he returned to his table after the verbal altercation. He could care less about other people’s judgments, and most of these people weren’t even people. They were sub-people with sub-par ideologies, and he was willing to bet half of them didn’t even think that spectacle at the counter was reality, being that they were currently frying, stoned, blazed, tripping, or in some other way mentally incapacitated. Cocaine was the only drug Dale honored because it allowed him to retain his focus, didn’t cloud the mind with distortions, was expensive, and went hand in hand with any successful Wall Street executive.
This next quote happens right before Dale gets the idea for his second scheme. He's at a colleagues house, another unscrupulous stock broker like himself, at a soiree of sorts:
Basements had always intrigued Dale. He thought a man could be summed up by what was kept in his basement. He descended the stairs with a mischievous smile, imagining what he’d find. Maybe some dead bodies in a large freezer, or a neighbor decomposing in a bathtub full of lye. He gleefully rubbed his palms together in anticipation as he continued to step down the stairs.
Dale is as cunning and clever like a despised, ultra-rich 1-percenter. He holds to their mentality in these four quotes below:
The end justified the means, he told himself. The deceitful deeds left along the path leading to a clever man's wealth were like a trail of bread crumbs. The crumbs would be quickly consumed by naïve birds and vermin, leaving the trail spotless, akin to a man grabbing abandoned, dirty money left on the street.
He now realized why wolves ran in packs—to more easily round up the large population of sheep and devour them. He also acknowledged that he could only climb the corporate ladder so high and so fast by solely using schemes. Joining a fierce and powerful pack was also essential.
The more time he spent out of the office and in the public, the more he had to deal with asshats and dipshits. Dale wished the general public would take up hobbies that would benefit him, like walking off cliffs, pressing themselves into meat grinders, diving into wood chippers, or anything that kept them at home so he wouldn’t have to deal with them.
Even though Dale had surpassed his aspirations of success, he was never satisfied with his current level of wealth or power. He always figured the next victory would provide him with an overall sense of accomplishment where he could relax in complacency and soak up his attainment. But every triumph was shortly celebrated as the next pinnacle stared down at him from above. Like the loss of enthusiasm shortly after a product was purchased, he casted aside his sense of accomplishment and hungered for the next greater and better conquest. He knew he would be fulfilled when his true aspiration had been procured. It would come soon, he could feel it. It was just around the corner.
Dale had been warned by a colleague years back that his hunger would never cease no matter how much money he accumulated, power he gained, or lofty status he obtained. He was told that the greedy train ride he’d boarded would never reach a suitable destination he’d want to disembark at. The next stop would always be imagined as grander and better. This advice had come from a colleague who ended up getting let go because he couldn’t pull his weight in the numbers-accumulating game. This had proven to Dale that the colleague was a failure, and therefore his advice was bogus. It had simply been vocalized jealously. Dale knew his train ride would soon come to the destination he desired.
Here's a run-in Dale has with a taxi driver he dislikes. We get a taste of Dale's vicious verbiage:
Dale eyeballed the greasy, robust man and lambasted him before exiting the taxi. “You’re a foul greaseball lodged firmly within a shit-box that possesses a palpable odor amalgamation of permanent stains and gutter sludge. Go grease your slimy trail to your next regret before I pour salt on you, asshat."
Dale is a capitalist through and through because it allows him to become ultra-rich and separates himself from "the peasants", the salt-of-the-earth people that actually make the world function. It's a quote that really shows Dale's an unreliable narrator. We know this because Ether uses other characters - like Jeremy, 1 of the 3 main characters - to argue in favor of the complete opposite of opinions. Dale uses a secret and exclusive app to climb the ladder of society. It's an app that only unethical people like himself are accepted into:
A psychological test had to be taken to ensure the applicant didn’t advocate the moral dispositions of the general populace. Any applicant who was shown to be too caring, emotionally triggered by certain phrases, or lacked conviction in gaining money or power was rejected with a false reason. The repeating short clip that made up the logo for the app was a suited man holding another man upside down while he shook all the coins loose from his pockets. After the coins stopped falling to the ground, the suited man brought the coinless man down on his knee, breaking his spine. The short clip summed up the Elite Shakers & Breakers members quite perfectly. Dale passed the tests and had become a member of the app a year ago.
These next two quotes are what comes of Dale using this app. This is toward the end of the book where Dale finds himself really rising high within the ridiculously hidden wealthy families. He starts to become a major player:
Their family tree had been part of the extremely few who had held the reins of civilization for centuries. So naturally Dale was champing at the bit when Aryana had requested a meeting with him. It was his chance to work himself into the main vein of power where ultra-wealthy individuals resided, the ones who were conveniently omitted from the annual wealth rankings made public by magazine publications and online lists. When a family held a certain amount of wealth and power for a long enough period of time, they slipped behind the curtain and out of the public’s eye. While behind the curtain, they pulled the strings attached to leaders of governments, companies, and organizations.
Before Aryana took another bite of her blood-soaked steak, she again leaned forward and whispered to Dale, “Your initiation will be held in the secret underground chambers of this club.”
Dale’s eyes went wide again. “I didn’t know there were underground chambers under the Maldekmars Club.”
Aryana displayed a devilish smile. “Well of course you didn’t know about it. It wouldn’t be a secret if just anyone knew about it. And that’s nothing compared to what will be revealed to you once you’ve shown your dedication and worth.”
Dale smiled, and while lifting his snifter to take a sip of cognac, he said, “If the sky is the limit, count me in.”
There's even a little action in the book when Dale is racing around the city in his luxury sports car, breaking every law possible. It reminded me of Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho":
He ran to his building to collect his Ferrari Roma, which he had to buy in Italy because it hadn’t been released in America yet. Ah, the pleasures that wealth and power provided.
He revved the engine and bolted out of the parking garage, nearly driving over a pedestrian within the garage’s concrete maze in the process. The Roma flew out of the garage and into the street. Dale avoided traffic areas shown on the Roma’s digital display and gunned the sleek automobile toward uptown, on route to the senior execute VP’s house, where the executive would’ve been lying like a large butchered piece of meat on the floor if the hired killer had done his job correctly.
Instead of stopping at a yellow light that was turning red, Dale laid a hand down on the horn and shot through the intersection. It was his way of letting everyone at the intersection know that he was above mere traffic rules, and the long honk he produced was an aggressive warning that stated: You’re in a world of hurt if you hit my luxury car while I’m ignoring this red light.
Dale ends up moving from Seattle, where most of the book takes place, to New York, where he takes up residence in a skyscraper on Billionaires’ Row. It's in New York where he really separates himself from "the peasants":
The longer Dale had lived in the upper echelon of society where a buffer separated his existence from the everyday man, the less he found himself caring about morals and ethics; not that he ever cared about them that much anyway, but now he was in a whole new ballpark. Those words—morals and ethics—didn’t exist in the high world of finance and business. Say either one of them to a one-percenter and they’d look at you like you just invented a word out of thin air and were dumber for having said it. Then you’d be blacklisted in their book.
Dale strolled over to the window, crossed his arms, and looked down at the specks of people going about their lives far below. “This view is my favorite thing about this condo. It reminds me how small and insignificant the general population is. I could drop a gold bar at this height and watch it flatten one of those bugs below. The surrounding bugs would strain their necks up into the sky and wonder what god decided to intervene in their little day. Once the surrounding bugs discovered it was gold that had fallen from the sky, they’d instantly forget about the dead bug and start fighting each other tooth and nail over who would possess the gold. Wouldn’t even matter if the bar was fake gold, it would happen all the same.
And that's only some of the quotes that articulate Dale Dickerson's thoughts, actions, antics, and dialogue. I tried to cut it down to only the best, but it was hard because there's so many good ones. And remember, Dale is only one of the three main characters in the book. But it's safe to say that if you enjoyed these quotes, you'll love the book. If you didn't, the book isn't your cup of tea and I've just saved you the time and money to find that out.
May 10, 2025
There is a battle going on now, which is not focused on America alone, this is a global battle. It isn't a conventional battle as we know it. It is going on now and has been going on for centuries, but it has ramped up extremely in the two decades, always happening behind the scenes, behind the public's eyes and awareness. This is what this book is about and wants to make the reader aware of. The two other main aspects of this book are 1. to show how an average person might become one of these evil globalists, if they aren't born into it that is. 2. To make the average person understand the mindset of one of these evil globalists. I feel this is important because the average person has a different mindset and usually can't or won't believe how or why someone (a globalist) could be so evil, and if you don't believe people could be that evil, you won't wake up to the reality you live in, or as Ether puts it "A person doesn’t try to obtain freedom if they think they’re already free."
There are numerous messages throughout the book, but they are all messages that support these main ideas. The spiritual main idea of this book may be that true success is not found in the direction of acquiring mass amounts of money and power, but this is actually one of the biggest messages that effects the ongoing battle; again, the true meaning of this book. I suspect most will finish this book and walk away thinking the message about true success is the main take away for this book, but that is simply because they didn't grasp the deeper meanings, which are mostly given in chapters 21, 24, 25, & 26. Here is a quote from chapter 25 that specifically states that the mindset of the controllers who program the population is the MAIN problem and money is their main tool in controlling the population. We don't need to blindly believe Ether, as we can see countless red flags throughout our world that point to this statement being correct:
"Almost all arguments are needless because the two ideas being fought over are both broken ideas that stem from a faulty system that’s poisoned by money and power. If you take away money from the equation, people would find that most of the broken ideas and labels they argue over would instantly evaporate. It would behoove humanity to focus on addressing the root issue to solve the myriad of problems stemming from it, and many a root’s problem is money. Money is the main problem that’s holding us back from advancing as a civilization. Well, if you want to be exact, the main problem is the mindset of those who govern, regulate, and influence this planet, which is mostly done with money. So humanity’s mindset is the main problem, and I say ‘humanity’s mindset’ instead of the elite’s mindset because those who govern and regulate the world disseminate their skewed mindset to the common man like an infection, so it also becomes the common man’s mindset. But money is the main problematic tool that those with the skewed mindset who govern and regulate the world utilize to fulfill their agendas."
This statement above by Shinjiro, who is a type of spiritual mentor to Jeremy, one of the 3 main characters, is one of the most powerful statements in the book, I think. It should be pondered on by all who read it.
Instead of this book coming right out to the point in the beginning, or even in the middle, Ether cleverly works up to the main message by using all the MANY examples, situations, and messages before we enter chapter 21. Why does he do it this way? As it's outlined in the book, the populace has been socially conditioned to ignore the main problem so that they'll be stuck in slavery forever, not knowing they are slaves, in a way. The only way to attempt to make the population/reader aware of the actual world - what's really happening - is to give them as many examples and situations as possible so that they can hopefully see it for themselves. Something so monumental can't be learned by most by merely telling them; you need to show them and they need to live it themselves for them to be able to understand it. Think of the wisdom your parents told you that you didn't know was true until you became an adult and went out into the world and experienced it for yourself. Only then did you look back at what your parents said and think, "Oh, they were right. I should've listened to their advice."
The book may come across as solely humorous to the reader who only takes the story for it's entertaining face value, which Ether does a great job at (maybe even too well, because it's so entertaining that people might only focus on it), but the reader who has eyes to see and ears to hear will understand that the literary satire and humor (mostly dark humor) are being used to address the biggest problem the world is facing. This is no exaggeration when I say this. It's a fictional book (but only the background story is fictional) that was written for the sole purpose of assisting humanity at raising their consciousness by becoming aware of the bottleneck applied by the globalists/"royal" families. This is not just some humorous book!!! The globalists/"royal" families would love you to think this is just a humor book and not attempt to take it seriously.
I don't say this lightly: This is the most important fictional book that you could possibly pick up and read because it's more nonfictional than it is fictional. I can't praise Ether enough for comprising it, and how he put it together. This book, as with Ether himself, can't force anyone to see the truth in order to start helping themselves, which is helping humanity at the same time, but the book does convey wisdom, truth, and knowledge, all of which is needed to arm the reader/population to free themselves and hopefully humanity. Nothing beneficial and spiritual can be delivered with force, even if it's the right/true thing because people have been given free will and are supposed to decide for themselves. Ether, and others like him, can only offer wisdom and hope the pupal will receive it and become more aware with it, but they can't force it. Force is only used by the "Dark Forces". Here is a good quote from the end of chapter 24 where this is expressed:
(The character, Jeremy, is contemplating these thoughts)
"Looking back on the years and what he experienced in life, despite his acquired “success,” it was obvious that society’s path to happiness couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, it was running headlong in the completely opposite direction of where contentment could be found. He made a mental note to keep this lesson in mind in order to avoid getting swept up in the raging energy and distractions that society created, and one day society would be made aware of its error and transform itself, either by choice, or forced to by the natural cyclical laws of the universe.
He couldn’t save the world outright, but he could aid it by living a life of integrity and contentment. If enough people did the same, the hundredth monkey effect would reshape the world, and in this way, he would be saving the world within a collective effort. Till then, he’d dive deeper and deeper into the calming depths of the sea, safe from the storms on the surface. And when he found himself coming up for air to interact with an unbalanced person who was stuck in the methodical illusion of the game, it would be his wealth of knowledge instead of his wealth of coin that would allow him to act like a cruise liner upon the surface of the sea, too immense for waves to agitate.
While at the surface, he’d view small boats being viciously aggravated by waves and seed them with the blueprints for their own cruise ships if the timing seemed right or if they asked for it. However, the boat captains had the right to own vessels that were the size of their liking; it was their free will to do so and he wasn’t going to force a blueprint upon anyone who hadn’t asked for it.
Free will not only determines the size of one’s vessel, but it proclaims that each spirit is in charge of how they operate their vessel and how pure they keep their vessel."
After reading this book, I'm against labeling things, but if I was forced to label this book, I'd call it a masterpiece because it makes you aware of the "methodical illusion" we live in and explains it fully in quite a methodical way. Brilliantly thought out and written literary fiction that will no doubt be labeled a classic one day.
There are numerous messages throughout the book, but they are all messages that support these main ideas. The spiritual main idea of this book may be that true success is not found in the direction of acquiring mass amounts of money and power, but this is actually one of the biggest messages that effects the ongoing battle; again, the true meaning of this book. I suspect most will finish this book and walk away thinking the message about true success is the main take away for this book, but that is simply because they didn't grasp the deeper meanings, which are mostly given in chapters 21, 24, 25, & 26. Here is a quote from chapter 25 that specifically states that the mindset of the controllers who program the population is the MAIN problem and money is their main tool in controlling the population. We don't need to blindly believe Ether, as we can see countless red flags throughout our world that point to this statement being correct:
"Almost all arguments are needless because the two ideas being fought over are both broken ideas that stem from a faulty system that’s poisoned by money and power. If you take away money from the equation, people would find that most of the broken ideas and labels they argue over would instantly evaporate. It would behoove humanity to focus on addressing the root issue to solve the myriad of problems stemming from it, and many a root’s problem is money. Money is the main problem that’s holding us back from advancing as a civilization. Well, if you want to be exact, the main problem is the mindset of those who govern, regulate, and influence this planet, which is mostly done with money. So humanity’s mindset is the main problem, and I say ‘humanity’s mindset’ instead of the elite’s mindset because those who govern and regulate the world disseminate their skewed mindset to the common man like an infection, so it also becomes the common man’s mindset. But money is the main problematic tool that those with the skewed mindset who govern and regulate the world utilize to fulfill their agendas."
This statement above by Shinjiro, who is a type of spiritual mentor to Jeremy, one of the 3 main characters, is one of the most powerful statements in the book, I think. It should be pondered on by all who read it.
Instead of this book coming right out to the point in the beginning, or even in the middle, Ether cleverly works up to the main message by using all the MANY examples, situations, and messages before we enter chapter 21. Why does he do it this way? As it's outlined in the book, the populace has been socially conditioned to ignore the main problem so that they'll be stuck in slavery forever, not knowing they are slaves, in a way. The only way to attempt to make the population/reader aware of the actual world - what's really happening - is to give them as many examples and situations as possible so that they can hopefully see it for themselves. Something so monumental can't be learned by most by merely telling them; you need to show them and they need to live it themselves for them to be able to understand it. Think of the wisdom your parents told you that you didn't know was true until you became an adult and went out into the world and experienced it for yourself. Only then did you look back at what your parents said and think, "Oh, they were right. I should've listened to their advice."
The book may come across as solely humorous to the reader who only takes the story for it's entertaining face value, which Ether does a great job at (maybe even too well, because it's so entertaining that people might only focus on it), but the reader who has eyes to see and ears to hear will understand that the literary satire and humor (mostly dark humor) are being used to address the biggest problem the world is facing. This is no exaggeration when I say this. It's a fictional book (but only the background story is fictional) that was written for the sole purpose of assisting humanity at raising their consciousness by becoming aware of the bottleneck applied by the globalists/"royal" families. This is not just some humorous book!!! The globalists/"royal" families would love you to think this is just a humor book and not attempt to take it seriously.
I don't say this lightly: This is the most important fictional book that you could possibly pick up and read because it's more nonfictional than it is fictional. I can't praise Ether enough for comprising it, and how he put it together. This book, as with Ether himself, can't force anyone to see the truth in order to start helping themselves, which is helping humanity at the same time, but the book does convey wisdom, truth, and knowledge, all of which is needed to arm the reader/population to free themselves and hopefully humanity. Nothing beneficial and spiritual can be delivered with force, even if it's the right/true thing because people have been given free will and are supposed to decide for themselves. Ether, and others like him, can only offer wisdom and hope the pupal will receive it and become more aware with it, but they can't force it. Force is only used by the "Dark Forces". Here is a good quote from the end of chapter 24 where this is expressed:
(The character, Jeremy, is contemplating these thoughts)
"Looking back on the years and what he experienced in life, despite his acquired “success,” it was obvious that society’s path to happiness couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, it was running headlong in the completely opposite direction of where contentment could be found. He made a mental note to keep this lesson in mind in order to avoid getting swept up in the raging energy and distractions that society created, and one day society would be made aware of its error and transform itself, either by choice, or forced to by the natural cyclical laws of the universe.
He couldn’t save the world outright, but he could aid it by living a life of integrity and contentment. If enough people did the same, the hundredth monkey effect would reshape the world, and in this way, he would be saving the world within a collective effort. Till then, he’d dive deeper and deeper into the calming depths of the sea, safe from the storms on the surface. And when he found himself coming up for air to interact with an unbalanced person who was stuck in the methodical illusion of the game, it would be his wealth of knowledge instead of his wealth of coin that would allow him to act like a cruise liner upon the surface of the sea, too immense for waves to agitate.
While at the surface, he’d view small boats being viciously aggravated by waves and seed them with the blueprints for their own cruise ships if the timing seemed right or if they asked for it. However, the boat captains had the right to own vessels that were the size of their liking; it was their free will to do so and he wasn’t going to force a blueprint upon anyone who hadn’t asked for it.
Free will not only determines the size of one’s vessel, but it proclaims that each spirit is in charge of how they operate their vessel and how pure they keep their vessel."
After reading this book, I'm against labeling things, but if I was forced to label this book, I'd call it a masterpiece because it makes you aware of the "methodical illusion" we live in and explains it fully in quite a methodical way. Brilliantly thought out and written literary fiction that will no doubt be labeled a classic one day.
February 1, 2025
This book seems like it falls mostly under literary humor and satire for the first half of the book. Then other genre elements start to pop up with the dark humor - horror, psychological, even some spirituality and philosophy - making the book lean more toward serious allegories and examples in life that paint a picture and describe issues and deep-seated problems in our civilization, not just pertaining to America, but global issues. There's a lot of material available for Ether to use because the world is quite messed up, to put it lightly.
This is literary a layered book. I've heard reviews say books are layered before, but they never get into explaining the layers. Maybe because those books aren't really layered at all. This book is unmistakably layered. So much so that I want to spend some time talking about the layers.
-layer 1: An entertaining and funny story that most will enjoy if you don't get grossed out easily, don't hate profanity, and don't hate nefarious characters. This layer runs almost throughout the whole book, minus the prologue and a few of the last chapters. I believe this is Ether's way of using a humorous and engaging story to grip most readers so he can wade them into the second layer without them being aware. The second layer is what the book is all about. The point of the book being written in the first place.
-layer 2: Deeper ideas, philosophy, psychology, thought-provoking situations and elements. We see this layer pop up throughout the first half of the book, sometimes seldom sometimes often. It's not until the second half of the book that this layer really starts to become very evident. There are a few chapters toward the end that completely give up the humor part of the book and go full-on into layer 2. You'll notice these chapters easily when you reach them because they have weighty material that will make you think for sure.
-layer 3: The same as layer 2 except the allegories are hidden - you need to read between the lines. I imagine most readers won't even catch that Ether is using analogies and comparing the fictional situations in the story to real life material. Word play is sometimes used to help beckon the reader to these hidden alleyways, but I'm sure few will follow.
-layer 4: cryptic code, messages, like Easter eggs for only the adept to understand. Every once in a while you'll come across a sentence or two that doesn't really seem to fit in with the story. Most readers will gloss over it and think it was just a failed attempt with prose. The only reason I recognized some of these Easter eggs is because I'm interested in "arcane truth" (that's how Ether puts it in the synopsis). Let me give three examples of Easter eggs:
Easter Egg 1:
"JFK must’ve been trying to help the population immensely, because they assassinated him. Every president who actually tried to do their job either got assassinated or had assassination attempts. But Jerome had a sixth-sense feeling that the main man behind the JFK assassination plot had recently been fried in the electric chair after being found guilty in a secret but legal military tribunal. Read my lips, fried chicken has been served up for justice. The vacuum cleaner had been put away in the closet long before the old dog was put down."
The last two sentences are the Easter egg. Some are aware that the CIA had a hand in JFK's assassination because JFK wanted to disband the CIA. J. Edgar Hoover was the founder and head of the CIA at the time. "The vacuum cleaner had been put away in the closet" vacuum cleaner refers to a well-known vacuum cleaner brand, Hoover, and Hoover was homosexual, so the closet reference is used. Then there's George Bush Sr., a high up man in the CIA at the time, later the head of the CIA, and later a president. He is famous for saying "read my lips" during speeches, especially in the bold speech where he mentions a New World Order, which is referenced again later on in the book. "The old dog was put down" refers to Bush Sr. again. Those close enough to him in politics sometimes referred to him as the "old dog" later in his years. Ether is saying that Hoover may have already been died long ago, but Bush Sr. was the other main conspirator in the JFK plot and was actually found guilty in a secret military tribunal and was found guilty and put to death in the electric chair. Bush Sr. gave up information and worked with the court so that his honor and reputation would stay in tact and so they gave the public a false account of how he died, naturally.
Easter Egg 2:
"The jar owners would make a little change like putting a black man or a woman in the white house instead of the typical old white male scumbag and everyone would think it was going to be different this time. Well, the woman they tried to put in … that one hadn’t worked out as planned. The yellow cube had misdirected them."
The last two lines are the Easter egg. The first part being fairly straightforward, as Ether is talking about Hillary Clinton. The "yellow cube" is something I only know about because I remember having seen a Project Camelot video where Kerry Cassidy was talking to a whistleblower who was talking about a device that was retrieved from the famous crashed UFO in Roswell (No, it wasn't a weather balloon, ha-ha-ha). The man talked about a device that had several names, one of them being "the yellow cube" or box that when held could show the holder glimpses into possible future timelines. Somehow Hillary had access to it and used it to see herself winning the presidential election. Well, that timeline didn't end up happening. I know this all sounds odd and most people won't believe it, and that's precisely why Ether only uses a cryptic Easter egg to talk about it. To talk about such an "arcane truth" that seems science fiction and very unbelievable would discredit Ether, so he chose to Easter egg it instead of say it. However, there are other "arcane truths" parts in the book that Ether isn't cryptic about and just says it flat out. Probably because he knows the readers will just think it's science fiction and part of the fictional book.
Easter Egg 3:
"Round after round punctured Oversized Marge’s blubbery membrane, producing hot air that whistled as it rushed out. When the holes were numerous and Oversized Marge started deflating, she took to the wind and whistled her way to Antarctica. Her body separated into three alien mother ships that would someday be revealed as scientists uncovered them from under the ice."
The last sentence and the last word of the sentence before it are the Easter egg. I remember a leaked photo of a discovery in Antarctica where scientists found a huge alien mothership below the ice. After an earthquake or something, a rip in the snow and ice had revealed it. Of course it was kept secret because They keep all their UFO crash site accounts secret. So much is kept secret and it makes the "real world" not really real at all, or a "methodical illusion" as Ether puts it. I saw the leaked photo of the alien mothership and it looked quite real, not faked at all. I remember a lot of scientists and politicians making trips to Antarctica at that time. They had been chosen to see it for some reason. Of course the news said they went to Antarctica for some untrue reason. Does Ether know that there are in fact three of them there and not just one? A lot of strange stuff has happened in Antarctica. Even the Nazis had a base there. That factoid isn't so secret, but still most people don't even know that.
"The truth is stranger than fiction" Ether relays on his website when referring to this book. These Easter eggs are definitely stranger than fiction. I'll have to reread the book again some time and see if I can spot more Easter eggs. I have already uncovered more than the three I spoke off. This would be a great GR discussion. I'm sure it will be in the future and I'd love to discuss further there with the few other people who research things and know things that most average people would laugh at.
I was going to talk about other elements of this book, but this review ended up being too long as it is, so I guess I'll just leave it here. Overall, The Beasts of Success, is not your run-of-the-mill novel. It's quite entertaining, but it's the serious parts (layers 2 & 3) in the book that really make it a must read.
This is literary a layered book. I've heard reviews say books are layered before, but they never get into explaining the layers. Maybe because those books aren't really layered at all. This book is unmistakably layered. So much so that I want to spend some time talking about the layers.
-layer 1: An entertaining and funny story that most will enjoy if you don't get grossed out easily, don't hate profanity, and don't hate nefarious characters. This layer runs almost throughout the whole book, minus the prologue and a few of the last chapters. I believe this is Ether's way of using a humorous and engaging story to grip most readers so he can wade them into the second layer without them being aware. The second layer is what the book is all about. The point of the book being written in the first place.
-layer 2: Deeper ideas, philosophy, psychology, thought-provoking situations and elements. We see this layer pop up throughout the first half of the book, sometimes seldom sometimes often. It's not until the second half of the book that this layer really starts to become very evident. There are a few chapters toward the end that completely give up the humor part of the book and go full-on into layer 2. You'll notice these chapters easily when you reach them because they have weighty material that will make you think for sure.
-layer 3: The same as layer 2 except the allegories are hidden - you need to read between the lines. I imagine most readers won't even catch that Ether is using analogies and comparing the fictional situations in the story to real life material. Word play is sometimes used to help beckon the reader to these hidden alleyways, but I'm sure few will follow.
-layer 4: cryptic code, messages, like Easter eggs for only the adept to understand. Every once in a while you'll come across a sentence or two that doesn't really seem to fit in with the story. Most readers will gloss over it and think it was just a failed attempt with prose. The only reason I recognized some of these Easter eggs is because I'm interested in "arcane truth" (that's how Ether puts it in the synopsis). Let me give three examples of Easter eggs:
Easter Egg 1:
"JFK must’ve been trying to help the population immensely, because they assassinated him. Every president who actually tried to do their job either got assassinated or had assassination attempts. But Jerome had a sixth-sense feeling that the main man behind the JFK assassination plot had recently been fried in the electric chair after being found guilty in a secret but legal military tribunal. Read my lips, fried chicken has been served up for justice. The vacuum cleaner had been put away in the closet long before the old dog was put down."
The last two sentences are the Easter egg. Some are aware that the CIA had a hand in JFK's assassination because JFK wanted to disband the CIA. J. Edgar Hoover was the founder and head of the CIA at the time. "The vacuum cleaner had been put away in the closet" vacuum cleaner refers to a well-known vacuum cleaner brand, Hoover, and Hoover was homosexual, so the closet reference is used. Then there's George Bush Sr., a high up man in the CIA at the time, later the head of the CIA, and later a president. He is famous for saying "read my lips" during speeches, especially in the bold speech where he mentions a New World Order, which is referenced again later on in the book. "The old dog was put down" refers to Bush Sr. again. Those close enough to him in politics sometimes referred to him as the "old dog" later in his years. Ether is saying that Hoover may have already been died long ago, but Bush Sr. was the other main conspirator in the JFK plot and was actually found guilty in a secret military tribunal and was found guilty and put to death in the electric chair. Bush Sr. gave up information and worked with the court so that his honor and reputation would stay in tact and so they gave the public a false account of how he died, naturally.
Easter Egg 2:
"The jar owners would make a little change like putting a black man or a woman in the white house instead of the typical old white male scumbag and everyone would think it was going to be different this time. Well, the woman they tried to put in … that one hadn’t worked out as planned. The yellow cube had misdirected them."
The last two lines are the Easter egg. The first part being fairly straightforward, as Ether is talking about Hillary Clinton. The "yellow cube" is something I only know about because I remember having seen a Project Camelot video where Kerry Cassidy was talking to a whistleblower who was talking about a device that was retrieved from the famous crashed UFO in Roswell (No, it wasn't a weather balloon, ha-ha-ha). The man talked about a device that had several names, one of them being "the yellow cube" or box that when held could show the holder glimpses into possible future timelines. Somehow Hillary had access to it and used it to see herself winning the presidential election. Well, that timeline didn't end up happening. I know this all sounds odd and most people won't believe it, and that's precisely why Ether only uses a cryptic Easter egg to talk about it. To talk about such an "arcane truth" that seems science fiction and very unbelievable would discredit Ether, so he chose to Easter egg it instead of say it. However, there are other "arcane truths" parts in the book that Ether isn't cryptic about and just says it flat out. Probably because he knows the readers will just think it's science fiction and part of the fictional book.
Easter Egg 3:
"Round after round punctured Oversized Marge’s blubbery membrane, producing hot air that whistled as it rushed out. When the holes were numerous and Oversized Marge started deflating, she took to the wind and whistled her way to Antarctica. Her body separated into three alien mother ships that would someday be revealed as scientists uncovered them from under the ice."
The last sentence and the last word of the sentence before it are the Easter egg. I remember a leaked photo of a discovery in Antarctica where scientists found a huge alien mothership below the ice. After an earthquake or something, a rip in the snow and ice had revealed it. Of course it was kept secret because They keep all their UFO crash site accounts secret. So much is kept secret and it makes the "real world" not really real at all, or a "methodical illusion" as Ether puts it. I saw the leaked photo of the alien mothership and it looked quite real, not faked at all. I remember a lot of scientists and politicians making trips to Antarctica at that time. They had been chosen to see it for some reason. Of course the news said they went to Antarctica for some untrue reason. Does Ether know that there are in fact three of them there and not just one? A lot of strange stuff has happened in Antarctica. Even the Nazis had a base there. That factoid isn't so secret, but still most people don't even know that.
"The truth is stranger than fiction" Ether relays on his website when referring to this book. These Easter eggs are definitely stranger than fiction. I'll have to reread the book again some time and see if I can spot more Easter eggs. I have already uncovered more than the three I spoke off. This would be a great GR discussion. I'm sure it will be in the future and I'd love to discuss further there with the few other people who research things and know things that most average people would laugh at.
I was going to talk about other elements of this book, but this review ended up being too long as it is, so I guess I'll just leave it here. Overall, The Beasts of Success, is not your run-of-the-mill novel. It's quite entertaining, but it's the serious parts (layers 2 & 3) in the book that really make it a must read.
October 5, 2020
This was a good book, and I desperately wanted to give it five stars. I’m not all hung up on whether characters are “likable” or not, I just want them to be real. And these characters were definitely real. The premise of the book was good and it had specific twists and turns that made you want to know what was coming next. The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five was because of some of the absolutely preposterous scenes that, in my humble opinion, did not contribute to the story at all.
I won’t do spoilers, but the scene in the Chinese restaurant, and the scene where the two Mormon boys knock on the door, for instance: they were just outlandishly silly and unbelievable. No one would act that way unless they were on drugs. There was also a particularly revolting scene that would make anyone retch and added nothing to the story. It was almost like the book veered off into weird, absurd scenes for the sake of veering off into weird, absurd scenes. I’m not sure how they contributed to the book other than making readers think that the characters were having temporary bouts of insanity throughout.
So for me, it was like reading this really good, engaging story that was rolling along with believable characters and an interesting plot and then suddenly all the characters are in some kind of a drug-induced, psychedelic dream or something. I found myself constantly having to slog through these foolish, unrealistic scenes to get back to the main story and it was very distracting. If not for those weird parts that continuously interrupted a great plot, this would be a five+ for me. Maybe someday the author would consider editing out some of those bizarre and disgusting sections and just stick with this really great story. If so, I would certainly read it again.
I won’t do spoilers, but the scene in the Chinese restaurant, and the scene where the two Mormon boys knock on the door, for instance: they were just outlandishly silly and unbelievable. No one would act that way unless they were on drugs. There was also a particularly revolting scene that would make anyone retch and added nothing to the story. It was almost like the book veered off into weird, absurd scenes for the sake of veering off into weird, absurd scenes. I’m not sure how they contributed to the book other than making readers think that the characters were having temporary bouts of insanity throughout.
So for me, it was like reading this really good, engaging story that was rolling along with believable characters and an interesting plot and then suddenly all the characters are in some kind of a drug-induced, psychedelic dream or something. I found myself constantly having to slog through these foolish, unrealistic scenes to get back to the main story and it was very distracting. If not for those weird parts that continuously interrupted a great plot, this would be a five+ for me. Maybe someday the author would consider editing out some of those bizarre and disgusting sections and just stick with this really great story. If so, I would certainly read it again.
February 1, 2025
This is a multi-faceted novel. The many working parts of this crazy story come into play in a genre-bender way. It has something of all genres in it - except romance - but satire is the main backbone of the story. Humor is utilized greatly in the form of satire, dark humor, silly humor, and absurdist humor - whatever gets the job done at relaying the message to the reader, Ether uses, for better or for worse; I say this because some gross parts are used to get points across. There are some chapters toward the end that surprisingly abandon humor all together. I imagine this is done because the information in those chapters are important and Ether wanted to make that known. It isn't hard to know when you enter those short chapters because there's no humor and the book turns to philosophy and spirituality. This is where Jeremy, one of the main three characters, relays what he's learned about the world and how it operates. Some of the chapters that seemed like pure humor toward the beginning of the book now become more clearly expressed and meaningful.
After the prologue and most of chapter 1, I thought the story was going to continue being deep-rooted in humor and satire with serious parts popping up out of and within the humor along the way, but the story began to morph away from more light-hearted humor, slowly descending into more dark satirical humor as the story progressed. As this happens, the chapters get shorter and shorter and more fast-paced as the chapters go by. This makes the story start to feel like a roller coaster ride. I'd say this begun about midway into the story if I'm remembering correctly.
When the roller coaster ride begins and the pace picks up, the intensity starts to ratchet up and the story gets crazier and crazier. The characters definitely change along the way in a story that looks like it spans about 8 - 10 years of their lives. Without giving anything away, I'll just say the three main characters lives change greatly and they are in very different places by the end of the story, both physically and mentally speaking.
Regardless of whether I fully understood some of the messages, the story stayed completely entertaining and engrossing. This is a book that sucks you in and you don't want to put it down. It can be crazy and horrifically interesting, like a car accident you can't help stare at as you drive by. There were aspects in the story that reminded me of Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut's novels. But I think it's hard to really compare any other author to Jasun Ether, as this book is so ... different.
Overall, the book starts out with a touch of seriousness, delves into humor - mostly satirical - and slowly ramps up back to being serious, hitting certain messages home. These aren't cliché messages. I read a lot and have never come across some of these messages, or the method in their delivery. Ether has a way of using situations, allegories, metaphors, and dialogue to eloquently explain important issues, some of these issues are ones that you never knew existed, yet they're paramount. He does it in a way that makes you wonder why you never realized it before. It makes so much sense when I finished the second to last chapter. The last chapter was different to say the least, and seemed to be either science fiction or nonfictional in a way and actually raised a lot of questions for me rather than explaining things. Ether wants you to think for yourself, and he definitely succeeds in doing that.
After the prologue and most of chapter 1, I thought the story was going to continue being deep-rooted in humor and satire with serious parts popping up out of and within the humor along the way, but the story began to morph away from more light-hearted humor, slowly descending into more dark satirical humor as the story progressed. As this happens, the chapters get shorter and shorter and more fast-paced as the chapters go by. This makes the story start to feel like a roller coaster ride. I'd say this begun about midway into the story if I'm remembering correctly.
When the roller coaster ride begins and the pace picks up, the intensity starts to ratchet up and the story gets crazier and crazier. The characters definitely change along the way in a story that looks like it spans about 8 - 10 years of their lives. Without giving anything away, I'll just say the three main characters lives change greatly and they are in very different places by the end of the story, both physically and mentally speaking.
Regardless of whether I fully understood some of the messages, the story stayed completely entertaining and engrossing. This is a book that sucks you in and you don't want to put it down. It can be crazy and horrifically interesting, like a car accident you can't help stare at as you drive by. There were aspects in the story that reminded me of Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut's novels. But I think it's hard to really compare any other author to Jasun Ether, as this book is so ... different.
Overall, the book starts out with a touch of seriousness, delves into humor - mostly satirical - and slowly ramps up back to being serious, hitting certain messages home. These aren't cliché messages. I read a lot and have never come across some of these messages, or the method in their delivery. Ether has a way of using situations, allegories, metaphors, and dialogue to eloquently explain important issues, some of these issues are ones that you never knew existed, yet they're paramount. He does it in a way that makes you wonder why you never realized it before. It makes so much sense when I finished the second to last chapter. The last chapter was different to say the least, and seemed to be either science fiction or nonfictional in a way and actually raised a lot of questions for me rather than explaining things. Ether wants you to think for yourself, and he definitely succeeds in doing that.
January 26, 2025
This is the ONLY fictional book that I've read that holds magickal wisdom. Ether obviously has tapped into the art of magick through chakra work; he's definitely studied immensely. I'm sure 99% of readers will just take this book as merely fiction. At least it will plant the seed for possible future sprouting of knowledge and awareness. Unfortunately, I don't think that seed will sprout in most since the world has been so completely toxified and controlled in the last twenty years or so.
Let me explain a bit more. I typically only review nonfictional books about spirituality, the occult, or magick, as you can see on my profile. I'm reviewing this book because it holds so much nonfictional, important information even though it's weaved into a fictional book, an extremely entertaining and humorous fictional story at that. Be aware that even though some wisdom is sprinkled and hidden in the first half of the book (especially the truth on all religions in chapter 3), it's not until a little beyond the halfway marker in the book where Ether really starts throwing arcane truth and wisdom at you. This needs to be mentioned because if you pick up the book to solely read said deep truths and wisdom, you'll be reading the first half of the book thinking it's just humor and what was she talking about!
You'll find at the end of the synopsis for this book:
"The Beasts of Success lifts the veil on a hidden world of which few are ware. Welcome to the methodical illusion."
This is not a lie! I've never come across so much secret information - of the manifested and unmanifested world - in a fictional book. There is arcane information from the past, truths about the present, and even glimpses into possible future timelines given in the last chapter. Almost every chapter has something secretly or nicely weaved into the story that one could learn from mysticism, Freemasonry, spirituality, or even sacred Hermes knowledge. In order to have obtained some of this information that Ether shares, you would have to be in a secret order or be highly dedicated in your own studies and observations of the world.
Let me explain a bit more. I typically only review nonfictional books about spirituality, the occult, or magick, as you can see on my profile. I'm reviewing this book because it holds so much nonfictional, important information even though it's weaved into a fictional book, an extremely entertaining and humorous fictional story at that. Be aware that even though some wisdom is sprinkled and hidden in the first half of the book (especially the truth on all religions in chapter 3), it's not until a little beyond the halfway marker in the book where Ether really starts throwing arcane truth and wisdom at you. This needs to be mentioned because if you pick up the book to solely read said deep truths and wisdom, you'll be reading the first half of the book thinking it's just humor and what was she talking about!
You'll find at the end of the synopsis for this book:
"The Beasts of Success lifts the veil on a hidden world of which few are ware. Welcome to the methodical illusion."
This is not a lie! I've never come across so much secret information - of the manifested and unmanifested world - in a fictional book. There is arcane information from the past, truths about the present, and even glimpses into possible future timelines given in the last chapter. Almost every chapter has something secretly or nicely weaved into the story that one could learn from mysticism, Freemasonry, spirituality, or even sacred Hermes knowledge. In order to have obtained some of this information that Ether shares, you would have to be in a secret order or be highly dedicated in your own studies and observations of the world.
June 15, 2020
The pace started out moderately as the Ether developed the characters and created a world all too familiar for those who have not been invited to the "big boys' table. Jeremy, Dale & Tim, who met in college, were tired of being the underdogs. The story progressed using some pretty descriptive language to describe the lengths each would go to in order to come out on top. There were times as I read that the language choices felt a bit off to me and that women were simply a tool to be used.
I'll be the first to say that the author's writing style was new to me and while I think some of the humor or satire may have gone over my head, I can appreciate the fact that those who are fans of dark humor will thoroughly enjoy this tale.
I'll be the first to say that the author's writing style was new to me and while I think some of the humor or satire may have gone over my head, I can appreciate the fact that those who are fans of dark humor will thoroughly enjoy this tale.
August 11, 2025
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December 4, 2024
The guy can't write, the book doesn't reveal any profound secret about our world and the story about being shadow-banned and an underdog is bullsh*t (see the overinflated rating here on Goodreads).
I feel stupid to have spent 12 bucks on this dud. Don't fall for the scam of this charlatan.
I feel stupid to have spent 12 bucks on this dud. Don't fall for the scam of this charlatan.
January 26, 2025
This has to be the funniest book I've ever read. I have never laughed so often reading a book before. I don't mean having sniggers in my head while I'm reading, I mean actually laughing out loud. The whole book has funny parts, but the second half of the book has much meaning instead of just humor.
July 5, 2025
I got through 60% and couldn’t take anymore. The characters do nothing but complain. There were a few times I giggled. Love the Mormon scene. But in all of that was nothing but irritated people bitching about their crappy lives. Too long winded and no real substance.
June 18, 2025
Read it, gift it to friends and continue down the rabbit hole.
December 19, 2024
I am pretty good at finishing books, but this book was absolute dog shit. I didn't care about what happened to the characters and the book I think was suppose to make me laugh but it didn't.
I got up to the point where one of the characters was making "crank calls" from his work colleague's basement (I think this scene was suppose to be funny ... wasn't even funny accidentally)
I could honestly write a better book than this.
Avoid!
I got up to the point where one of the characters was making "crank calls" from his work colleague's basement (I think this scene was suppose to be funny ... wasn't even funny accidentally)
I could honestly write a better book than this.
Avoid!
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews