Rating: 
Summary: "Weird as tits on a bishop"
Review: The above summary of my review is actualy a quote from the book said by the character Saul Goodman. If you think the very idea of tits on a bishop is funny then you have not seen anything until you have read this book. Eppy Wildeblood (a character in this book) reviews the Illuminatus: Trillogy as a character inside the book. It is obvious that Robert Anton Wilson and Shea knew how a big time book critic would review there book. So they beet them to it by randomly placing a big time critic in the novel to critque the novel when your only 238 pages into the book. Lets here what that big time critic has to say.-------------------------------------------------- "'It's a dreadfully long monster of a book,' Wildeblood says pettishly, 'and I certainly wont have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are uterly incompetent---no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulker and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex sceans, thrown in just to make it sell, Im sure, and the authors--whome I've never heard of--have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mismash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I wont waste time reading such rubbish, but I'll have a perfectly devastating review ready for you by tommorow noon." -------------------------------------------------- Its the little sceans like that, which are thrown into the middle of the already twisty plot, that gives critics like that no reason to jump up and down and yell rubish. There is a theory explained in this book called the "Tar Baby Principle." It basicaly says, "you are what you attack." Besides the critic actualy being a character in the book he is bashing, people who look at this book that way are exaclty what they hate. In an interview with Robert Anton Wilson and Conpiracy Digest, Wilson calls his style "Gorilla Onttology." How he means that exactly is unclear but whatever he wants to call his style its great. And not only that but his big time critic character is right. (exept the part about it being rubish) The book jumps all over the place. One paragraph could be in 1977 in a Gold Submarine and then the next paragraph could be 20 years and 30 miles north later. Or characters could suddenly slip into an LSD trip without informing the reader. These LSD trips look like mumble jumble to the untrained eye but if read carefully they have very important messages. -------------------------------------------------- This book must be read with pen in hand. Intresting lines, paragraphs or pages should be underlined and remembered. All the information throughout the book is important in order to fully understand the end when every thing gets put slowly together. There are no realy chapters so important ideas should be recorded and there page numbers written in the back of the book for easy reference (trust me your going to want to). The Authors also provided an 80 page Appendices (which are most instructive). They explain all the secrets of the Illuminati. To give you an example, there are passges explaining George Washingtons Hemp Crop, the Illuminati Ciphers, Codes, And Calenders, The Illuminati Theory Of History, Tactics in Magic, and extra information about the characters in the book. You could eather read it first to give you some idea whats going on or you could jump right in and read it as a final explanation. Either way you will be asking the question Saul Goodman asked when he started his case "Wait. Deduce me one more deduction, ok?" So if you ever wanted to know why you should never whistle wile your pissing, the real secrets of Atlantis, how the Illuminati is run, the Illuminati's structure or the real secrets about our secrets then I strongly recomend this book. It is the kind of book you must read at your own lesure. And you should not just read it as it is. It requires you to think. It requires you to think because the characters in the book think along with you. It is a journy well traveled. It is a book of the likes you have never read before but have always wanted to write. I once presented a small section of it to my creative writing class in school. And a smile streaked across my face when my English teacher called it rubbish. Nor was I supprised when 13 out of the 14 students agreed with her. I wonder what there reaction would be if my teacher said she loved it. None the less it makes a very intresting book report.
Rating:
Summary: Wild Fun Eye Opening and Great
Review: Jesus teaches the Disciples Bingo as part of the "secret teachings" (Luke! Don't write that down!), the Greek gods take drugs and have visions of Laurel & Hardy, a Cthulu monster resides in the Pentagon, the Republicans and the Black Panthers and the AAA are on the same spoke in the conspiracy wheel. With a very confused and barely recognizeable plot about a disappearing radical reporter and a submarine filled with anarchists (or are they?) Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea create one of the most hilarious books about religion, spirituality, society and politics. Most of the book echoes Robert Anton Wilson's obsessions with Eastern religoins, sex, James Joyce and Kabala but there is enough of Robert Shea's personality in the thing to keep it on an even keel. At 800 pages, you'll read the trilogy in a week and beg for more once you are done. Whether you are Christian, Buddhist, agnostic, Jewish, pagan, Discordian or Muslim, this book will shock, amaze and make you see the world in a whole new way.
Rating:
Summary: the tomes that aid the clarity of vision
Review: I have just disovered a book that shall accompany me together with the Wilson/Shea epic wherever I may go - "History: Fiction or Science?" by A. Fomenko, ISBN 2913921023. If "Illuminatus" was the book that made me sceptical about everything I knew about how human society functioned in general, this bombastic historical tractate focuses on exploding the collection of myths that we call human history nowadays. I simply cannot recommend both of them enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Half-baked, full of disorganized B.S.
Review: While this book is at times entertaining, and I think written in the spirit of fun, what's unfortunate is that there are people who find this book insightful or enlightening. It is neither; rather, by making myriad half-cocked references to crypto-historical sources (Freemasons, secret societies...) or pretentious yet vapid name-dropping nods to actual cultural heavyweights (Joyce, Vico...) it attempts to (re)create a secret history of the world. The trouble is the authors always fail to deliver on this interesting premise, instead using the "let's throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" method. The resulting lack of narrative is meant to be read as a "postmodern" pastiche, or some such idiocy. "Wow, man, the sense of time is, like, all over the place." What's also all over the place is woman-as-object sexism, which suits the comic-book level of this work rather nicely; as, to be fair, there are no real characters other than one or two personality quirks inhabiting the same names on some consistent basis. It's like a roomful of stoners who get this "great idea," then actually have the gumption to write it all down. Trouble is, in the morning it all looks like stoned mish mash, a 60's counterculture "what-if" fantasy which starts from a decent half-baked notion and goes downhill from there. I feel bad for the folks who find food for thought in this specious smorgasborg.
Rating:
Summary: Huge encyclopedic genre-hopping novel about conciousness.
Review: A novel that may one day be viewed as a classic of the historical era immediately prior to the Personal Computer/Internet revolution, Illuminatus is part Detective novel, part political thriller, part conspiracy literature, part metaphysical treatise, part science fiction epic, part psychological popularization, part social commentary, part 60's nostalgia and part social history with a bit of anthropology, fringe science and physics for some variety. It is all very entertaining if at times a little demanding. The plot deals with characters confronted by what may be the final world-ending plot of what may be the Illuminatus who may be the secret powers behind what may be history and culminates in a multi-day rock festival which must be saved from-- resurrected Nazi soldiers with tanks?! Oh and along the way the reader hears a dolphin recite poetry as characters cruise along in a Yellow Submarine. Funny, witty and often insightful this is one you'll read more than once.
Rating:
Summary: the tomes that aid the clarity of vision
Review: I have just disovered a book that shall accompany me together with the Wilson/Shea epic wherever I may go - "History: Fiction or Science?" by A. Fomenko, ISBN 2913921023. If "Illuminatus" was the book that made me sceptical about everything I knew about how human society functioned in general, this bombastic historical tractate focuses on exploding the collection of myths that we call human history nowadays. I simply cannot recommend both of them enough.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: As soon as I read the last word in this book, I turned right back to the first page and started again. It was that good. It was actually better the second time. Some things are quite confusing the first time. Just be sure you can think VERY clearly before you start reading.....
Rating: 
Summary: Trying a little too hard (make that a lot too hard)
Review: 3 STARS ONLY BECAUSE I LIKE THE SUBJECT MATTER. Otherwise, 2 stars. This book tries too hard to be mindblowing and, unfortunately, the only way it aspires to this end is by confusion. There are several groups of characters in this trilogy who have different beliefs. Each group is presented a little bit at a time contrasted with the others, making it difficult to keep track of which group believes what. The narrative jumps back and forth in time, dreams, 1st person, 3rd person, fantasies, hallucinations, tricks of pereception, etc. I see the reason for this. It's really pretty obvious, especially when you're talking about RAWilson. What's real, what's belief and what's the importance of either? Yes, yes, great point. But, please. 700 pages or so of this nonsense is a bit much. Dude, my mind is blown. Not from this, though. The book would have made a MUCH better read if the ideas and the plot were developed clearly. In fact, it probably would have been more mindblowing when reality shifts occur. When the whole book is a mess, it reads very much like a William Burroughs' cut-up book like The Ticket That Exploded (you might read 3 entire pages with a wandering mind and not even bother to go back and reread it to be sure of what you read because it's most likely not very important). Loaded with disjointed conversations which also serve to completely bore the heck out of the reader. Down-to-earth fictional conversations of important historical figures occur frequently -- for what? To show their fictional 60s-era humanity? Boring.
Rating:
Summary: Were Living in R.A.W's world
Review: Live From Chapel Perilous We're living in Robert Anton Wilson's world Jesse Walker In 1973 Thomas Pynchon published an enormous experimental novel called Gravity's Rainbow. In 1975 Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson published an enormous experimental trilogy called Illuminatus! Both were written at about the same time, and both offered panoramic perspectives on history, liberty, and paranoia. Gravity's Rainbow won the National Book Award. Illuminatus! won no awards, save a science fiction prize issued a decade later. Gravity's Rainbow is often assigned in college classes. Illuminatus! might be required in some school somewhere, but such spots are surely few. Judging from anecdotal evidence, more people have started Gravity's Rainbow than Illuminatus! But far more people have finished Illuminatus! than Gravity's Rainbow. Robert Anton Wilson is the unacknowledged elephant in our cultural living room: a direct and indirect influence on popular books, movies, TV shows, music, games, comics, and commentary. (His late co-author has left less of a mark: Many of Wilson's books have cult followings, while the only Shea effort to make a big splash was the trilogy he wrote with Wilson.) Allusions to Wilson's work appear in places both classy and trashy: There's a Wilsonian stamp on films as diverse as Magnolia, The Mothman Prophecies, and Sex and Lucia, and it's because of Wilson and Shea that the Illuminati, a secret society that once lurked only in right-wing conspiracy tracts, became the villains of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Now Wilson's the star of a lively documentary, Maybe Logic, that's being screened at film festivals and distributed on DVD. Wilson is a primary source for the ironic style of conspiracism, a sensibility that treats alleged cabals not as intrigues to be exposed or lies to be debunked but as a bizarre mutant mythos to be mined for laughs, metaphors, and social insights. If you were an amused aficionado of conspiracy folklore in 1963, you were a lone hobbyist or specialist. By 1983, you could turn to a number of fanzines, comics, and weirdo institutions such as the Church of the SubGenius, a satiric cult founded by some Illuminatus! fans. By 1993, you were a target market for several half-joking mass-market conspiracy tomes; your sensibility was reflected regularly in magazines such as Mondo 2000 and The Nose; and two brand new pop juggernauts were about to enter your heart: The X-Files and the World Wide Web. And by 2003, this was all standard background noise. These days, choosing your politics is a matter of choosing who you're more afraid of, the Washington cabal that's openly trying to erase your freedoms or the various foreign cabals that are openly trying to kill you. Like it or not, we're living in Robert Anton Wilson's world. Illuminatus! did not invent this mental universe sui generis. But it was Illuminatus! that created the template, with its sprawling story that treated every interpretation of the world, paranoid or not, as equally plausible and equally ridiculous. And it was Wilson whose other novels and essays, from the historical fiction The Earth Will Shake to the autobiographical Cosmic Trigger, explored conspiracy theories not to expose "the truth" but to reveal the ways we construct strange stories out of the everyday truths we only hazily perceive. This wasn't a purely abstract intellectual pursuit. In the early '70s, experimenting heavily with psychedelics and other forms of "deliberately induced brain change," Wilson underwent a series of unusual...experiences. "Around 1973 I became convinced for a while that I was receiving messages from outer space," he informs us in Maybe Logic. "But then a psychic reader told me that I was actually channeling an ancient Chinese philosopher. And another psychic reader told me I was channeling a medieval Irish bard. And at that time I started reading neurology and I decided it was just my right brain talking to my left brain. And then I went to Ireland and discovered it was actually a six-foot-tall white rabbit -- they call it the pooka." A little later he comments, "I like the giant rabbit from County Kerry because there's no chance anyone will take that literally." Including yourself? asks the interviewer. Wilson agrees. Then he adds, "Well, not too literally." He glances over his shoulder. "Sorry about that, Harvey." If there's a central message to Wilson's work, the film tells us, it's the agnostic notion that you can't be completely certain about anything -- and that even when you're pretty sure an idea is baseless, it might be fun to entertain it for an evening. Somewhere between absolute belief and absolute incredulity, he tells us, the universe contains a maybe. To which anyone who follows the news these days can reply: No doubt. Associate Editor Jesse Walker is the author of Rebels on the Air (NYU Press).
Rating:
Summary: Enjoy the synchronicity!
Review: The first time I ran into this book was when I was browsing the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of my local book store, being interested in the whole notion of *Global Conspiracy* I immediately noticed the book, but opted to buy Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor," but made a mental note to go back and buy Illuminatus! I completely forgot about it, untill several weeks later when I got an E-mail from my ex girlfriend telling me to check out this book. The odd thing is, she now lives in Basel, Switzerland - for those of you who don't know, this is the birthplace of LSD. I went out, bought the book, and began to read it, and fell in love with it. The book is hard to get into, and I don't think anyone can be faulted with tossing it aside in frustration, but this is also the joy of the book. You are forced to adapt to the bizzare anachronistic piece of work, wheter it is jumping to different points of view, mid paragraph, run on sentances that never end, concepts and ideas that are *zany* to say the least, by the end of the book, you are no longer reading a book, but looking, through a window, into another universe all together. Welcome to a universe where magic, mysticism, conspiracy, and great drugs all blend together to create a psychadelic trip into everything and nothing all at the same time. If you are the kind of person who takes everything seriously, this book might not be for you, and thats not a knock on anyone, its not a matter of being *open minded* or *conservative* or whatever meaningless buzz word you attach to people, but merely a matter of being able to look in the mirror and get a good belly laugh. Its hard to really criticize a book that refuses to take itself seriously, going beyond sarcasm, satire, and farce, Illuminatus frequently breaks the 4th wall, and reads like the longest inside joke since the bible. Illuminatus is definitely the poster child for the *Anti Anti-Novel* and definitely is not for everyone. So sit back with a beer and a spliff, unplug your phone, and get ready for one of the most interesting trips you've ever had. Not to mention, for months afterwards, you'll still be having flashbacks.
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