Simba
The Emperor is Naked. Everyone Doesn’t Know it Yet. You Are The First One Brave Enough to Laugh.
A 500‑page satirical audit of Elon Musk, AI hype and Mars techno‑feudalism for everyone who loved Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Catch‑22 — and want receipts, not vibes.
by Simba Mudonzvo (Author and Founder of TechOnion)
4.5 ★★★★★ (700+)
What is this thing, exactly?
This isn’t a dry white paper. It’s a funeral and a roast, a love letter to technology that works and a restraining order against technology that doesn’t.
You used to worship technology. You watched the TED Talks, read the Elon hagiographies, nodded solemnly when someone said “first principles.”
Then the maths stopped mathing.
The Emperor’s New Suit is what happens when a British‑Zimbabwean computer science grad who drank the Elon Kool‑Aid (five times) sobers up and does a forensic, funny, 500‑page audit of the Tech Emperor, the AI bubble, Mars, brain chips, crypto, and why you’re paying subscriptions to exist.
Buy the Kindle eBook direct from TechOnion and get:
- 50% off the upcoming audiobook (you’ll get a unique discount code by email)
- Direct email access to Simba (ask me anything about Elon Musk, AI, Technology, The Gilded Cage, British comedy, satire, or book‑club visits)
📲 Kindle‑ready (also works on any tablet/phone/reading app)
⏱️ Read on your commute, lunch break, in the bath while doomscrolling Musk on X
If You Loved These Books, Read ‘The Emperor’s New Suit’
If any of these live on your shelf, you’re in the right place:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) – you liked the bit where bureaucracy destroys planets. You’ll love the bits where Terms of Service destroy your ability to cancel Amazon Prime.
Catch‑22 (Joseph Heller) – you enjoyed watching sane people trapped in insane systems. Now imagine Yossarian working for Uber Eats under a “Desperation Score” algorithm.
Slaughterhouse‑Five (Kurt Vonnegut) – dark humour, time travel, and the sense that history is a con. Replace Dresden with Silicon Valley and you’re here.
Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman), Sapiens (Harari), Bullshit Jobs (Graeber), This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends (Perlroth).
You like your non‑fiction with teeth.
The Emperor’s New Suit borrows their best tricks — absurdism, dark humour, time‑loops, history as warning — and points them at the age of Elon Musk, Mars and machine gods.
Totally Real Reviews From Absolutely Real People
“Would not recommend.”– Elon Musk, probably
“After reading the Mars chapters, I have decided Mars is a bit much. I will now colonise the Moon, build robotaxis, and pretend this book doesn’t exist. Any similarity to real events is coincidental.” – Elon Musk, days later
“I laughed, then I cried, then I updated my CV. This feels like Arthur Dent woke up in 2026, checked X, and decided to write a Bible about it.”
“Finally, a tech book that made me snort‑laugh on the train and also re‑evaluate my pension.” – Senior software engineer
“If Joseph Heller wrote Catch‑22 after being stuck in an open‑plan WeWork with a broken espresso machine, he’d write this.” – Fiction editor, secretly burnt out
“As a Neuralink monkey, I found the representation accurate.” – Animal 15, via Ouija board
“Surgical glue in brain: 0/10. Telepathic Pong: 6/10. This book: 10/10, would claw own skull again to get humans to read it.”
“The book Elon’s lawyers will pretend they haven’t read. Simba keeps saying this isn’t a hit piece. As a lawyer, I can confirm: that’s exactly what a hit piece with citations calls itself.” – Corporate solicitor
“The Onion meets TechCrunch meets Black Mirror.” – Tech blogger with a conscience
“This book gave me permission to love my Toyota and WhatsApp, and throw my smart fridge into the sea.” – Recovering gadget addict
“Horribly unfair. He calls my life savings ‘JPEGs of monkeys.’ Which is rude but, unfortunately, correct.” – Crypto bro, down 97%
“It’s not anti‑tech. It’s anti‑bullshit.” – Systems engineer
What’s Inside ‘The Emperor’s New Suit’
The Emperor’s New Suit – Why the most successful product launch of the 21st century was a pair of invisible trousers sold by two guys who dropped out of Stanford to disrupt the concept of fabric
Prologue: The Economics of the Invisible – In which we attempt to calculate how a man can run six companies, save humanity, and reach the top 1% of Diablo IV players without technically inventing a time machine
Epigraph – A dictionary definition for the end of the world, provided by a child who knows how to count but doesn’t have a Bloomberg terminal or run an AI startup
Part I: Old Testament – In which we learn that Fire was the first subscription service, and Agriculture was just a Ponzi scheme that paid out in cavities and taxes
The Death of Freedom – Proof that the only difference between a maximum-security prison and a Mars Colony is the marketing budget
The Death of the Human Body – In which we discover that the human spine was not designed for gluten or sitting down at a desk buried in Microsoft Excel
The Death of Equality – Why the only difference between a slave ship and an Amazon Fulfilment Centre is the quality of the Wi-Fi
The Death of Peace – In which we learn that the microwave oven is just a submarine-hunting weapon that decided to settle down and raise a family of heated leftovers
The Death of Meaning – In which we learn that the first sentence ever written wasn’t a poem, but a passive-aggressive invoice for twenty-nine bushels of barley
The Death of the Artisan – In which we learn that the ‘Good Ol’ Days’ were actually just days when you could show up to work hungover and not get arrested
The Death of Time – In which we learn that ‘Insomnia’ is actually just your ancestors trying to have a chat at 2 AM, and you are ignoring them to check Instagram
The Death of the Family – Why your boss calls you ‘family’ only when he needs you to work unpaid overtime, but never when you need to borrow money
The Death of Individuality – In which we learn that your ‘Unique Personal Style’ was actually decided by a board of directors in 1929 who thought you looked profitable
The Death of the Earth – In which Thomas Midgley Jr. proves that the only thing more dangerous than a villain is an engineer trying to be helpful
The Death of the Tool – In which Steve Jobs convinces the world that a computer you can’t open is a ‘bicycle for the mind,’ and Bill Gates figures out how to charge rent on the alphabet
Part II: The New Testament – In which the Geeks inherit the Earth, put on black turtlenecks, and immediately start charging us a monthly subscription to exist on it
The Original Sin of the Internet – In which we learn that David Bowie was an actual time traveller who tried to warn us that the Internet was an alien, and we responded by inventing TikTok
The Apostles – In which Elon Musk proves that revenge is a dish best served twenty-three years later at a cost of forty-four billion dollars
The Incarnation – In which Steve Jobs convinces humanity to buy a $1,000 tracking anklet by calling it ‘magic’ and removing the only part that wasn’t glass
The Sermon on the Feed – Why the internet is now just five websites, each consisting of screenshots from the other four, interrupted by ads for gambling apps
The Golden Calf – Why the only difference between a crypto ‘community’ and a Ponzi scheme is that the Ponzi scheme usually has better customer service
Death of Fun – How we replaced the family living room with five separate screens so Netflix could charge us five separate times for the privilege of ignoring each other
Consumerism, AI, and the Collapse of Demand – In which we learn that the only way to cancel Amazon Prime is to fake your own death, and even then, they’ll probably just charge your estate
Hardware and the Rehearsal for the Battlefield – In which we learn that your Roomba isn’t cleaning your floor; it is drawing a tactical map for a private equity firm in Shenzhen, China
Software Eats Everything (Including Your Wallet) – Why the most terrifying phrase in the English language is ‘Moving Forward,’ because it means something free just got a price tag
Artificial Intelligence and the War on Human Cognition – How we built a god that doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie, but is willing to go to federal court to defend its right to make things up
The Future of Work and the Last Useful Human – In which we learn that the ‘Gig Economy’ is just Victorian workhouses with better app icons and a five-star rating system
The Mark of the Beast – In which Elon Musk drills a hole in a monkey’s head to teach it to play Pong, and we applaud because the monkey looks like it’s having fun
Armageddon – How the apocalypse won’t be a nuclear war, but a slow realization that you can’t unsubscribe from the end of the world
The Ascension – How the ultimate escape plan for billionaires turned out to be a very expensive tomb with a great view of the paradise they ruined
Do I need to be a “tech person” to understand this?
No. If you can count to 168 and have ever looked at your phone and thought “this is making me dumber,” you’re already qualified.
Is this book about Elon Musk – is it just a hit piece on Elon Musk?
If it were, it would be much shorter and include more memes.
This is a book about patterns. Elon Musk is the most visible Tech Emperor, so he becomes the narrative anchor. But every chapter zooms out: from Musk’s 276‑hour weeks to the way we worship “genius” in general,
from Tesla to financial bubbles, from Neuralink to our obsession with fixing human problems using software updates.
If Elon retired to a monastery tomorrow, the book would still be relevant. (He won’t. There’s no Wi‑Fi in monasteries.)
I actually like Elon Musk. Will this book just make me angry?
Possibly. But in a good way. The book isn’t written from hatred. It’s written from heartbreak. From “I really wanted this guy to be the hero, and then I started counting the cars and the hours and the dead monkeys.” If you’re willing to read a critique that’s: heavily researched, occasionally sympathetic, and very allergic to worship, …you might end up liking Elon less but understanding yourself more.
I’m exhausted. Why should I spend my limited brain cells on a 500‑page book?
Because you’re already spending those cells doomscrolling.
This book is designed to be read in chunks. Each chapter:
starts with a story (Emperor in invisible trousers, a monkey playing Pong, a colonist suffocating on Mars), then explains the underlying tech / economics in human language, ends with a line that will either make you laugh, underline it, or both. You can read one chapter on your commute and actually arrive at work feeling more sane than when you got on the train. That’s rare in 2026.
Will this make me hate technology?
No. It will make you hate BS. You will come out of this book with:
more love for tech that actually works and improves human life (WhatsApp, Toyota Hilux, basic plumbing), more scepticism for tech that exists primarily to extract rent and data (smart fridges, crypto “communities”, brain chips owned by corporations), a better bullshit detector when someone in a hoodie tells you “this time it’s different.”
Is there a paperback? I like waving physical books at people during arguments.
Yes. It’s available on Amazon website. Until you get your paperback, which is a bit bulky, the Kindle/eBook version: works on every Kindle device and app, can be read on phones and tablets, can be used as a digital weapon in WhatsApp fights via screenshots and quotes. If you want to wave something physical, you can always print the cover, staple it to a cereal box, and shout, “LOOK, IT’S THE MATH THAT DOESN’T MATH.”
I’m broke. Will there be a discount later?
The TechOnion offer is the best price you’ll see for a while: you’re essentially pre‑ordering the audiobook at half price and getting direct access to the author as part of the deal! If you genuinely can’t afford it, a few options: Ask your local library to order it (they can email TechOnion / Simba). Pool with friends and share a Kindle library. Email Simba and tell him your situation; he has a history of doing foolishly generous things for readers.
How long is it?
Long enough to make you feel you got your money’s worth. Short enough that you’ll finish it before AGI arrives (spoiler: it’s not arriving the way they promised). Roughly 500 pages / 25 chapters. You’ll breeze through some, slow down on others, and probably reread the Mars, Neuralink and Gig Economy ones whilst muttering “we’re so screwed” under your breath.
Is it up to date? Tech moves fast.
The book was finished in early 2026 and written with that in mind. It’s less about news and more about structures: why our incentives produce bubbles,
why “move fast and break things” inevitably breaks people, why Mars colonies and brain chips follow the same con pattern as tulips and railways.
So even as new headlines drop (Musk’s latest scandal, a new AI lawsuit, another crypto implosion), the underlying analysis still applies. Think of it as the pattern‑recognition layer of your doomscrolling.
What if I hate it?
Then you’ve still: supported an independent author, helped subsidise the next book that will possibly annoy you less, and gained a wealth of insults, metaphors and statistics you can weaponise in entirely different arguments.
Also, if you truly hate it with a burning passion and can articulate why in a thoughtful email or review, Simba will read it. He may even agree with you on some points. He definitely won’t send a rocket after you. (The rockets keep exploding anyway.)
Product Details
| Title: | The Emperor’s New Suit: (A Satirical History of Humanity and Technology) | (We considered “Why Elon Musk Can’t Count to 168” but the lawyers advised against it) |
| Author: | Simba Mudonzvo | (British-Zimbabwean writer who survived one emperor and is now professionally annoying another) |
| Publisher: | TechOnion | (Independent publisher with zero billionaire investors, which explains our zero marketing budget) |
| Series: | TechOnion Press | (Series of three (so far), but we’re ambitious) |
| Publication Date: | 14 January 2026 | (Released on a Saturday (sunset), which according to Elon’s timeline is when the apocalypse arrives) |
| Language: | English (British) | (American spelling would give us hives. It’s “colour” and “analysing,” deal with it) |
| Print Length: | 669 pages | (That’s 666 pages plus 3 pages of hope. The number was coincidental, the symbolism was not) |
| File Size: | 3.1 MB | (Smaller than one Elon Musk tweet storm, contains 100x more verifiable facts) |
| ASIN: | B0GGJ7MPW7 | (Amazon’s way of tracking how many people are reading critiques of Amazon’s founder’s space rival) |
| ISBN-13: | – | (The Dewey Decimal System’s way of saying “We see you, satirist”) |
| Primary Categories: | Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Satire | (Where Douglas Adams lives, and we’re renting the flat next door) |
| Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Political | (Because tech billionaires are the new politicians, except with worse haircuts and better rockets (allegedly)) | |
| Books > Business & Money > Biography & History > Company Histories | (History of companies that promised everything and delivered lawsuits) | |
| Goodreads Genre: | Nonfiction > Humor Nonfiction > History > Technology Nonfiction > Business > Economics Humor > Satire Science > Technology Politics > Political Commentary Philosophy > Social Philosophy | (Goodreads users will eventually categorize this as “Books That Made Me Throw My Kindle” and we’re okay with that) |
| Basic Codes: | HUM003000 – HUMOR / Form / Satire SOC052000 – SOCIAL SCIENCE / Technology Studies BUS070030 – BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History TEC052000 – TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects HIS036010 – HISTORY / Social History POL036000 – POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory | (BISAC codes are how bookshops know which shelf to put you on before Amazon bankrupts them) |
| Subject Headings: | Satire, American (except it’s British, but close enough for the Americans) Technology—Social aspects—Humor Silicon Valley—Satire | (Librarians are heroes who organize human knowledge. This book tests their patience.) |
| Rating: | 17+ | (Infrequent strong language, satirical violence against ideas) |
| Content Advisory: | Sarcasm, British Wit, Uncomfortable Truths, Satire | (Apple’s rating system wasn’t designed for books that make you question your iPhone subscription. Here we are anyway.) |
| Copyright: | © 2026 Simba Mudonzvo / TechOnion LTD | (Apple’s rating system wasn’t designed for books that make you question your iPhone subscription. Here we are anyway.) |
| Social Media Hashtags: | #TheEmperorsNewSuit #TechSatire #ElonMuskCritique #DigitalFeudalism #SiliconValleySatire #TechSkeptic #EnoughMuskSpam #TechCriticism #ReadersOfReddit #SatiricalNonFiction #BooksLikeHitchhikers #ModernSatire | (Hashtags are how we manipulate algorithms to fight algorithmic manipulation. Circle of life.) |
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