Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007)

With a quarter of the book being appendices and the characters realizing they're in a book this is where this series goes from metafiction into a winking declaration of Truth, or maybe fiction that might as well be fact. If you come into it expecting a conclusion that would make sense of the nonsense you've spent 600 pages trying to decipher you will be disappointed. Much like a koan, the book isn't supposed to make sense on the surface level, it's supposed to make sense to you, in a flash of enlightenment. Or illumination.… (mer)

The concluding book of the trilogy offers less autobiography and more on the topics that were preoccupying RAW late in life. The cultural touchstones of Rodney King and OJ Simpson being recent memory, as well as his disdain for HW Bush, gives you a sense of where this stands on the timeline. Some events like the Reich saga are gone from public consciousness, but a lot of the discussion around social topics hasn't moved an inch in 30 years. Wilson would undoubtedly have continued morphing his opinions had there been more entries.… (mer)