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. ( )

Well i can say with absolute certainty now that you don't want to read this as 3 seperate books. This volume is broken in 3, the first part is the end of the main plot. The second part is the aftermath very much like the Scouring of the Shire in Lord of the Rings and the 3rd part is appendices.

I only skimmed the appendices, maybe i'll read them properly when i buy a hard copy, which i'm definitely going to do.

This was a great read and just so much better than i could have expected. It feels like it should be trash but its so well... orgainized? Even when it switches perspective mid sentence you can very quickly tell which character your now following, this kind of clarity, aswell as the overall amount of plot cohesiveness, simply can't be achieved by bad writers.

And there are great ideas and explorations of character here too. Not much more i can say, i really want to read this all in one go next time.

P.S.
Pity none of the newer editions have nice covers like the 60's ones, all the new versions look like Dan Brown knockoffs :| . Oh well, i'm just going to get a cheap secondhand copy, something that looks like its seen a bit of life :) . ( )

The double-headed epic-and-farce climax, with Nazi legions and Yog Sothoth the first time round and marriage between a sea monster and a submarine the second, is sublime. But this clearly wrote itself, in the bad way: if you were reviewing the three books in a single volume, you'd just say "the ending drags a bit," but this is just all the plotlines following out the trajectories laid out for them in the first two books (complete with SHOCKING REVELATIONS!!) and so it's necessary but a bit humdrum. Also, maybe I'm just repressed, but any book in which the world is saved via gangbang makes me think again about how anti-woman the sexual revolution was in ways and fret urbanely about the effects of this series on my childhood sexual development.

As a kicker, here's this clipping, found in the back of the book:

Evangelist warns of witch takeover

ZIONSVILLE, Ind. (UPI) - A California evangelist has convinced some memebrs of a fundamentalist church that they must prepare for a war against witches conspiring to take over the world.

Those members are stockpiling food, buying weapons and even considering the purchase of property in Christian retreats, according to Rev. H. Eugene Riker, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Zionsville, a community near Indianapolis.

The moving force behind it all is evangelist john Todd, who claims he once participated in the high decision-making councils of a group of witches called the Illuminati.

Todd, 28, said he was born and reared in witchcraft, but six years ago was "saved" from the pagan religion.

"John Todd has spurred folks to draw nearer the heart of God," explained Riker. He's stirred people more than any speaker we've had."

Riker said Todd has preached at his church on several occasions - the last in late March - and will return in September. He added Todd also has engagements at several other Indiana communitites this fall.

Todd preaches that the Illuminati has plans for creating a major crisis as early as 1980 through disruptive strikes of the food and transportation systems.

The base for Illuminati in the United States is the Council on Foreign Relations, according to Todd. He charged the financial backing is from David Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Co.

-Dallas Times Herald, June 5, 1978 ( )

Illuminatus 3