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Summary: It makes you think about the world differently.
Review: It is a fantastic book. It's hard to say what's true and what's not, but it makes for very intellectually stimulating reading. I loved it.
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Summary: Meta-meta
Review: Nudge nudge, wink wink, folks. Welcome to the shaggy dog tale of the late 20th century. Anyone who takes this book seriously is missing the point. Anyone who dismisses this book as pure fiction is missing the point. Get it? There's nothing to get. This is pure entertainment, a metacritical diatribe on our metaculture, self-consciously self-absorbed and self-referential. Drug induced, yes; occult fetishistic, definitely. So what? You'll never look at a dollar bill the same way. Telemachus Sneezed = Atlas Shrugged. George Washington was not the first president of the U.S. (actually, it was John Hanson, but that's another story altogether). Reality is what you can get away with, and Wilson and Shea have pulled the literary equivalent of the crime of the century. (Does this review seem disjointed and poorly written? All Hail Eris, Goddess of Discord!)
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Summary: The Best Book in 20 years!
Review: This is the best book i have read in the 20 years since i first learned to read, which have been spent reading everything i could get my hands on. This book will stimulate your mind, and make you wonder about everything. Thank you Mr. Wilson for writing, and thank you bri for recomending :)
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Summary: Entertaining, Philosophical, and Pointless
Review: I suggest this book for a good waste of time. It's entertaining, yes, and it DOES have great information on philosophical questions of "what is reality". But if someone is interested in those things, I suggest a more academic book. The concept of "what is real" is embedded in science, much to R.A.Wilson's misunderstanding. Just because other people who are *in* science also misunderstand that doesn't mean science is bad, as so many of Wilson's books suggest. What we know about drugs, what we know about submarines, what we know about most of what he writes about comes from science. Basically, he likes to use science to bash science, an illogical proposal.Anthroplogy has long understood the way people create reality in their mind--this is called culture, in a sense. Yet, not ALL of reality is subjective and relative. Something this book seems to be saying. Again, I enjoyed it from a frivolous perspective, but I didn't get much of anything ! meaningful out of it that I couldn't get anywhere else. For all of you who think R.A.Wilson is on to something and he's showing us all how we can live apart from commercial, governmental, capitalist reality -- let me tell you something. The only thing he's on to is your money and mine! He has to eat too, after all!
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Summary: This is a very involving, interesting, sophisticated book.
Review: This trilogy is unbelievable. There are even appendices at the end of the third book, with backround information, the last appendix making the perfect end for the already strange book. This book is also very graphic, but anyone out there who would like this book wouldn't mind anyway. The book is very solidly written, and is so full of plot twists, hidden jokes, and outright lies that any reader will come out confused, but strangely satisfied, having read one of the greatest examples of writing that any modern author or authors have to offer.
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Summary: the conspirators are in our minds
Review: This book is essential to any discussion on why the human species is failing. My interpretation of the conspiracies in this book is that though some of them may have had flesh and blood individuals behind them, the conspiracies themselves are caused by 'mode-locking'. One example of mode-locking is the reason we drive gasoline powered cars rather than steam driven cars. When automobiles were first being built, there were both kinds. There happened to be a disease among horses that was thought to be transmitted through watering troughs, and these troughs were where drivers of steam driven cars refilled their tanks. People went to gas powered cars because they feared this was unsanitary. The conspiracies are imbedded in our minds in the form of mode-locked behavior patterns, such as territorialism, male-dominance behavior, and materialism, which are now obsolete, yet we still depend upon them as a foundation for our society. Wilson's book examines the destructive ways in which humans are programmed by society to think about ourselves and others. You may find this book difficult to read, but it will change your life. It is impossible to stress what an important work this book is.
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Summary: Read this book. Now.
Review: If you want a traditional, clearly-written book with a well-defined beginning, middle, and end... this is not the book for you. If, instead, you are looking for a book that will make you think things that you've never even thought of thinking (whoa), read this book. Now. Just don't take it too seriously.
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Summary: All should Read----
Review: One of those funky all time good time crass and sass books---if you are a lover of any kind of kinky sci-fi or fantasy---you MUST read this---characters are crazy--plot is nuts (not plotz--<G>) and it ends up---WONDERFUL!!! Knuckleheads save the whole thing---HAIL DISCORDIA HAIL CHAOS---and the Gold Apple used to be something for the teacher <NOT>---One of the truely all time best romps of sci-fi!!! the Masons and the Rosicrusions dont have a prayer---anyone who likes a great story and storytelling in an irreverant style that puts ya in a different light----READ THIS---one of the best of all time!!!!! Knock yourself out with this one!!!!! LOL LOL LOL
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Summary: THE seminal philosophy of the century, disguised as a novel
Review: Illuminatus! is more than a novel; it's a head trip, a philosophy course, a mirror, a funhouse; a work that should be read at least five times, because every journey through is a different trip. Equal parts mock conspiracy story, detective novel, science fiction epic and hidden treatise, what you get out of it tells you more about yourself than about the authors. On top of all that, it's just plain old damn funny. Keep your eyes open for the parodies of James Joyce, Ayn Rand and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and avoid the fnords at all costs. Whether you're nostalgic for the 60s or lost in the compassless haze of the 90s, you need to read this book, and get to know the philosophies of its authors. There's more education between these covers than between the start and finish of any university, but it's all achieved painlessly and, by the end, you'll look at the world and yourself in a different way. Finally, this is one of those rare books that has become less satire and more prediction in the twenty-three years since its publication. What was once cynical wit is now sad documentary, and authors Wilson and Shea have nailed it. Approach with an open mind, abandon all preconceptions ye who enter here -- and then read it again and be surprised all over as you realize it's a different book the second time around. And the third. And the fourth. And the... well, you know...
Rating: 
Summary: Not High Literature, but a Beacon of an Age
Review: I pity the conspiracy buffs, the humourless sci-fi mavens, and the Lit Crit who accidentally stumbled across this book. What is this book? I suppose if you took Leary, Pynchon and Hunter Thompson, put them in a blender, set them on 'frappe' and then poured them into a mould designed by Kurt Vonnegut, you might end up with this book. But that would be cloyingly trite of you. It's not a portrayal of reality, or a science fiction book, or a great literary achievement. It's more an encyclopoedia hallucinagenia, or maybe a thesaurus of the eschaton. All I know is that it's the fifth month of the twenty-third anniversary of the book's copyright date and that the thorazine is helping me cope with it. Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
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