The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson

Comments

[dragoness_e]

Oh, this was a fun satire of every conspiracy theory in existence, with bonus swipes at "Atlas Shrugged" thrown in. Sadly, it fell apart in the last chapter, which ended the series rather like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", though I have been told that wasn't supposed to be the last chapter, and the real last chapter got lost in the mail or something. I don't know if someone was pulling leg or what?

[(Anonymous)]

Am I correct in thinking that Matt Ruff's "Sewer, Gas, Electric" must have been deeply influenced by this book?

[jsburbidge]

AFAIK, Ruff has said that the similarities are coincidental.

(Or, of course, there's a conspiracy and he'd say that anyway...)

[(Anonymous)]

Hm. Both could be independently influenced by Crying of Lot 49, I suppose.

[scott_sanford]

Also, the coincidences are synchronicity.

[redbird]

I have no idea who was pulling our legs and when, but Wilson once said (approximately) that 1/3 of the book was written by Shea, and the other 2/3 was either written by him or dictated to him by alien intelligences. So maybe the last chapter got lost somewhere; maybe each of them thought the other had agreed to write the ending; or maybe they ran out of time. (Having read some of each author's other work, I'd say Shea at least was capable of writing a reasonable ending for a novel.)