Things To Come

A Fairy Tale for Paranoids

The decision to start a Wiki for discussion of Illuminatus! seems popular with the gang, so we will probably start on that in the new year (Christian Calendar).

I have various bits and pieces that I found useful when doing the Illuminatus! course with RAW that I would simply like to put in one easily accessible place.

First of all, a list of characters, which had been compiled by Toff Philippo and shows just how many people swirl around in the books – and helps piece together who they all are (like a Russian novel, it seems easy to lose track). I tidied up the formatting, and Quackenbush posted it on the excellent RAWilsonFans website.


I hope we can supplement this list a bit with things like the origins of character’s names (someone called Mocenigo, for instance, betrayed Giordano Bruno to the Inquisition).

I also had a secret weapon during the course (for quick research of non-linear time plots) in that I found a (probably illegal) PDF download on a Russian site, in praise of the KLF. I actually found a couple of other places you could download or read online copies, but kept quite quiet about it for a while (not feeling secure about how an author might feel about PDF versions of a book).

Anyway – they exist, and you can find them if you have any skill at Googling at all…and who reads whole books on screen? Not many people, yet. As a research tool to supplement reading the paperback, it seems essential, however. Rather than point to my various secret sites, perhaps I should direct you to RAWilson Fans, again, as it would seem best if we all refer to the same copy (consistency of page numbering, etc). Here’s the ebooks page…whatever you do, don’t go to the html copy on that Buddhist hustler page… (heh)

NB: I do wish they would publish the thing in 3 volumes again, like my original set which I gave away. So much easier to carry around than the fat Omnibus edition. I’d also like to see the plot summaries (story so far) that appeared at the beginning of volumes two and three.

Somewhere in my boxes I have the programme for the stage show, which I should dig out…sadly, a few of the actors have left the planetary stage…and at least one is in jail (George Dorn).

While considering this project, I discovered that 3 issues of a comicbook version had come out. I have traced copies of the first two, but not the third (as yet).

Still, the artist, Mark P.Steele (ICARUS!) has a MySpace place where you can look at some of the art work.