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Friday, May 10, 2013

'The House of Rumour' on sale today

The House of Rumour by Jake Arnott (a British novelist who's been getting quite a bit of attention in the press) is one of the "Kindle Daily Deal" sale books today, just $1.99. I bought a copy.

I don't know whether Arnott would claim or admit a Robert Anton Wilson influence, but here is a description of his novel, from the publisher: "Mixing the invented and the real, The House of Rumour explores WWII spy intrigue (featuring Ian Fleming), occultism (Aleister Crowley), the West Coast science-fiction set (Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and Philip K. Dick all appear), and the new wave music scene of the ’80s. The decades-spanning, labyrinthine plot even weaves in The Jonestown Massacre and Rudolf Hess, UFO sightings and B-movies. Told through multiple narrators, what at first appears to be a constellation of random events begins to cohere as the work of a shadow organization—or is it just coincidence?

"Tying the strands together is Larry Zagorski, an early pulp fiction writer turned U.S. fighter pilot turned 'American gnostic,' who looks back on his long and eventful life, searching for connections between the seemingly disparate parts. The teeming network of interlaced secrets he uncovers has personal relevance—as it mirrors a book of 22 interconnected stories he once wrote, inspired by the major arcana cards in the tarot."

Occult rocket scientist Jack Parsons also is a character.


1 comment:

Rarebit Fiend said...

I've read Jake Arnott's "The Long Firm" which is obviously modeled after the career of Ronnie Kray. Alan Moore used it as a resource for Century 1969. He's a pretty good author and I like the paradigm he moves in. I'd bet he's read RAW.