Illuminatus! Part I Audiobook By Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson cover art

Illuminatus! Part I

The Eye in the Pyramid

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Illuminatus! Part I

By: Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson
Narrated by: Ken Campbell, Chris Fairbank
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"It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton".

So begins this original trilogy of conspiracies, Illuminatus!. For the first time in audiobook form, the unabridged epic is presented in all its grandeur, spookiness, hilarity, and brilliance.

The Illuminati, an inside joke? The lunatic fringe? Or a vast conspiracy hidden for centuries, unleashing it's power on a naive, defenseless world? It was the lousy luck of Saul Goodman, a tough, streetwise New York detective, to smell the trail in a bombed-out office - the heavy case he'd always dreaded. In a breakneck race against an awesome deadline, Goodman plunges down the trail of the ultimate conspiracy as the days fall away toward Apocalypse.

Filled with sex, violence, and rock-and-roll, in and out of time and space, Illuminatus! is only partly a work of the imagination. The trilogy tackles all the cover-ups of our time, from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on the one-dollar bill, and suggests a mind-blowing truth.

Part I: The Eye in the Pyramid is performed by the incomparable Ken Campbell and Chris Fairbank. In 1976, Ken Campbell adapted Illuminatus! for the stage, creating a 10-hour epic that went on to open the Royal National Theatre in London under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II.

©1975 Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (P)2006 Deepleaf Productions Inc. Fiction Science Fiction Funny Mind-Bending Royalty

Critic reviews

"If baseball can have a designated hitter, why can't science fiction have a designated underground classic? Well, apparently it can, and Illuminatus! is its name." (Booklist)
"The ultimate conspiracy book...the biggest sci-cult novel to come along since Dune." ( Village Voice) "If you want to read a riddle wrapped in an enigma within a conundrum that turns out to be the best secret in the world, get the Illuminatus! trilogy." ( New Age Journal)
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Campbell is brilliant. Fairbanks is awful. This would have been so much better if they had just let Campbell read the whole thing.

Classic book, sketchy performance.

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yeah don't listen to the haters their ego is getting in the way. it's a bit dated but it's got so much cultural cache you'll spend the rest of your life learning how much of it is true

life changing if you let it

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As you should be able to gather from the other ratings and reviews, you will either really love this trilogy or really hate it. There are no tepid reactions to this one.

The disjointed presentation of the story (Think a literary version of Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" to get the idea, although the stories have nothing in common.) can make these books confusing at first. Still, I personally find a visceral impact to this trilogy that has not dissipated over time or many, many rereadings. There is literally no other book (or series of books) like this one.

The narrators do a good job translating this incredibly difficult piece to audio. I'm looking forward to the release of Leviathan.

there is nothing like Illuminatus!

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I am sorry I wasted a credit to download this book. I found that the narrators spoke too fast and jumped around so much that I couldn't keep up. I barely made it to chapter 2 before I had had enough. It may be that this is not my type of book, I don't know. What I do know is that I like all kinds of books . i was very disappointed. Margie

Margie

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Contains sexually explicit scenes, occasionally racist, sexist, homophobic language at times...It was written in the 1970's by counterculture hippie journalists from Playboy magazine, so it has a Hunter S. Thompson vibe to it. If you like Fight Club, you'll like this. I liked it a lot. It was really smart, creative, funny, and thought provoking. It seems like a historical biography at times, but I'm sure most of it is made up. But what is reality anyway?

Entertaining, Thought Provoking

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I admit the book was a turn off intitially because of the narators voice, however that changes as you grow accustom to it and eventually grows on you. The story line is a bit hard to follow but again once you get used to it, it becomes pleasing and reallly keeps your attention. Like the book I just got done with "the Lost Symbols", I found my self waiting for the next drive in my car to pick it up again. I will be gettting the next book soon, highly recomend to the not so easily entertained!

Pulls you in...

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befuddling. recommended.
meaning is transitory. clarity irrelevant.

beware the fnords.
the first 5 trips can be found here

the first 5 trips

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At first, I wasn't too keen on the narrator's narration, but it grew on me so immensely that I have been thinking with similar inflection ever since.

Very good book

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the characters voices and narration are out of this world, just like the book itself

the best acted book ive listened to this year

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Okay, I’m not going to hate on the narrator as much as other reviews, because, honestly the narrator is absolutely perfect for the spirit of this fabulous book (his Sean Connery is hysterical, but the super racist Chinese accented characters are a bit hard to swallow). That said, the narrator and his stable highly unique and borderline of psychotic character voices ultimately just make the gleefully chaotic story that much harder to follow.

Still a goddamn great book.

Ooof… listen to the sample to see if you can handle the narrator

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