Rotimi Fawole borrows from the Roman Empire and the popular Television series, Game of Thrones, in the making of this deliciously hilarious and educative pot of literary soup. 

The Chronicles of Chill: The Book of Gambrach is a humorous record of events in Jirriah, a fictional territory under the directionless rule of a listless (and largely mad) King Gambrach who rose to power after defeating the incumbent, King Gejoshaphat, in an election. After their initial euphoria, the people quickly find Gambrach to be an absentee/negligent landlord who prefers to speak and rule on matters of national importance by proxy through his scribes Gar Bar and FemCallamitus and his adviser, Ser Bakky Arii.

Jirriah is also blessed (or cursed) with a political class whose daily actions and pronouncements are asinine at best and borderline insane most of the time. The rival ruling houses of Padipalia and Apicuria are not that much different, unified as they were by their eternal thirst for the power to loot.  

Characters like Shiwajun, Abushola, Dinobetes Melitus, Yode son of Falasham, Mefilius – Head of the Iron Bank, and other notable gladiators constantly engage in titanic battles staged in the coliseums of Boo Jah and Ekonoos in their bid to further their personal agendas using the most ludicrous means without any consideration for the greater good. Consequently, Jirriah is always ‘turningoninown’ and her belabored citizens are forever in pursuit of chill, a universally desired but never available state of mind. 

The book is a highly recommended read as events in fictional Jirriah and our dear country are astonishingly similar. Note, however, that any resemblance between the two is merely coincidental.