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He will never know who I am.
Olympus or Oblivion tells the story of fictional sexual encounters with fifteen different Hollywood icons. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Like most people, I have favourite movie stars. One actor in particular, Clancy Brown, has lived rent-free in my head for forty years. I realised one day that my limerence for him (although compelling and chemically indistinguishable from love) was essentially the adoration of a stranger. He will never know who I am.
That led me to think more deeply about the one-sided relationships we build with these people. Why do we place them on pedestals? Do they really deserve a status approaching demigods?
I wanted to place them into ridiculously implausible but very human situations – not to expose them, but to expose us. And, if I’m honest, writing about me getting jiggy with a selection of A-list movie stars was also a gloriously stupid comedic premise and an escape from the mundane.
I wanted readers to laugh, wince, and occasionally stop and think. It would be disingenuous to ignore that there’s erotica in there as well, which may… entertain. Ultimately, it had to feel like the inside of my own head splattered onto the keyboard. The icons get an affectionate roasting by me and my judgmental, sentient house fern, Della. I take their godhood, and their clothes, stripping them down to what matters – their character.
Get your minds out of the gutter. That’s my territory.
We live in a world that moves quickly and often skims the surface of what’s real and meaningful underneath. We celebrate fame as though it were the highest achievement, while quietly overlooking those who make a tangible difference – surgeons, scientists, people who change lives in ways that don’t trend on social media.
What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of writing satire? The most rewarding?
To have a broad appeal yet remain 100% true to myself. That’s it. I’ve no intellectual answer to that. I am largely unfiltered, so my challenges are few.
But that’s also the reward. The inside of my head is a delicious, chaotic, entertaining mess. Readers should relax and enjoy the ride. Lean into the cringe and try not to snigger on the train.
The power of my comedy lies in discomfort; the horror of the cringe, sharp snarking, and weaponised sarcasm. I don’t have much interest in formula or convention. Creative writing, to me, should actually feel creative. Writing courses, degrees, process…nah. Not for me. Watch as I open my flip-top head and let the crazy out for a walk.
If it ever ends up in a library, I quite like the idea of someone having a mild crisis about which shelf it belongs on.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
That fame does not equal legacy.
Striving to be known is deeply human – we all like to think we’ll be remembered. But fame without substance collapses under its own weight. Legacy, on the other hand, is built quietly, through actions and impact, whether people are watching or not.
The people who leave the deepest mark are often not the ones chasing recognition, but the ones who earn it without asking.
Can we look forward to seeing more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
You surely will.
I’m currently working on another comedy – Olympus or Urbana. It’s a sequel, of sorts. Kind of. It’s a mythological whodunnit with romantic elements, swearing, and multiple story arcs, set across Olympus and its surrounding realms.
There are two co-protagonists, Vox and Hera Minor, both mortals, tasked by Zeus with solving a mystery – helped and hindered in equal measure by a cast of interfering gods. It features riddles, Latin dialogue (with translation), exotic creatures, strange places, and more than a few familiar faces in unexpected roles.
There’s a realm built entirely for hedonism, a god desperate for more adoration than he currently receives, arguments about shades of green, endless feasting, lizard-wrestling, swearing lessons, and Henry Cavill boring everyone to death as Olympus shakes to the collective roar of, “Shut up, Cavill!”
Now, if you don’t mind, I’m off to take my imagination for a long walk along the banks of the Acheron.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook
Part satirical memoir, part erotic odyssey, part divine smackdown—it asks one burning question: If you could sleep with fifteen of the world’s most iconic men, would you risk it all to see who truly deserves godhood?
From Henry Cavill’s heroic inability to navigate basic female anatomy, to Josh Holloway’s hypnotic Route to Ruin; from Chris Pine’s tragic squeaking to Clancy Brown’s gaze hot enough to fuse steel; from Hugh Jackman’s oceanic allure and suspicious interest in tropical fish, to Tom Cruise’s relentless habit of stealing everything that isn’t nailed down—each trial is a riot of emotional chaos, sexual physics, and the occasional pigeon.
Some men rise to Olympus.
Some fall into Oblivion.
All are judged.
Set in the Scottish Central Belt and narrated by a mortal woman with a snark cannon and zero tolerance for mediocrity, this is a filthy, funny, and fiercely honest celebration of desire. Forget perfect abs—these are complex, broken, brilliant men facing one final test. And they’d better pass.
Yes, there’s sex—scorching, poetic, absurd, occasionally athletic enough to dislocate something—but beneath the thrusting runs a deep vein of honesty. It’s about longing, disappointment, body image, female desire, and being seen after a lifetime of invisibility.
Featuring:
15 celebrity “gods” in entirely fictionalised encounters
A judgmental houseplant named Asphodela
Hysterical Latin names for every trialist
Obscene metaphors unfit for church
No male gaze—just squinting female scrutiny
Full-frontal mythology with a chance of redemption
This is not fanfiction.
This is not romance.
This is Olympus or Oblivion.
And the gods are on trial.
Olympus or Oblivion
Reading Chrissy Dargue’s Olympus or Oblivion feels like being dropped into a wild, bawdy, self-aware pantheon where celebrity fantasy, personal philosophy, and unapologetic filth collide in the most chaotic way possible. The book introduces itself as an erotic satirical anthology, then immediately proves it can deliver on all three fronts. Each chapter follows a fictional sexual encounter with a different Hollywood icon, framed as both myth and judgment, and the voice that guides it is loud, human, furious, sentimental, and very funny. It moves fast, plays hard, and somehow manages to build a whole moral framework while describing sexually explicit escapades. The tone is intimate and irreverent and completely in control of its own madness.
As I read, I kept feeling a blend of admiration and “what the hell just happened” amazement. The writing is quick, chatty, and sharply observant. It has that feeling of sitting with a friend who tells a story so confidently that you follow, even when it plunges off a cliff into a disaster of sex toys, tree frog cigarettes, emotional vulnerability, or misplaced anatomy lessons. I loved the honesty here. The narrator is flawed and hilarious and often furious at the world, yet there is so much heart behind the jokes. The Henry Cavill chapter swings between worship, frustration, and affection with an almost musical rhythm. Depp’s chapter, on the other hand, crashes into surreal farce, tenderness, and genuine madness, and the contrast really shows off what the author can do. I laughed a lot. I winced a lot. More than once, I was slightly horrified, then impressed by how quickly the story made that horror feel warm. There is something bold about how the book refuses to hide the narrator’s desires or insecurities. It made the comedy sharper and the emotional punches landed harder.
What surprised me most was the philosophical streak running under the chaos. For all the sex and satire, the book is also a meditation on power, desire, loneliness, and the strange ways we try to judge the people we want. The Olympian framing is funny but also revealing. Every encounter becomes a test, not for the celebrity but for the narrator’s own values, boundaries, and hunger for connection. Even the absurd moments, like fainting from frog toxins or sketching a diagram of a vulva to keep a confused man on track, carry a sort of emotional grit. The narrator wants to understand people. She wants to be understood in return. I found myself weirdly moved between the jokes. Sometimes the writing gets messy on purpose. Sometimes it hits a poetic rhythm that blindsided me. The mix works because the voice stays genuine.
I’d recommend Olympus or Oblivion to readers who enjoy sharp humour, chaotic storytelling, sex-positive honesty, and big, unstoppable personality. If you like fearless writing, emotional whiplash, and stories that show both the ridiculous and the tender parts of being human, this book will hit the spot. It’s funny and vivid and unexpectedly sincere, and it left me feeling like I had just witnessed someone telling the truth in the most unhinged and heartfelt way possible.
Pages: 401 | ASIN : B0FLQL7VHN
