'Modern Occultist' interviews me about Robert Shea

 

Modern Occultist, which recently interviewed Eric Wagner, has posted an interview with me about Robert Shea. 

Here is one of the questions and answers:

MODERN OCCULTIST: John Higgs observed that one of the great paradoxes of Illuminatus! is that its cult following transferred itself almost entirely to Robert AntonWilson, leaving Roberts Shea’s enormous contributions and later solo work at genuine risk of being forgotten. You spent a decade assembling this collection to correct that imbalance. What do you think produced that asymmetry in the first place—and what does Shea’s work offer that Wilson’s, for all its brilliance, doesn’t? And also, is that something that you can directly address as the editor and chief webmaster for the RAWIllumination.net official blog?

TOM JACKSON: I suspect that part of it is that after Illuminatus! was published in 1975, Robert Anton Wilson went on to fairly quickly publish  a series of other brilliant books that continued some of the same themes as Illuminatus!,  e.g. Cosmic Trigger in 1977, the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979-1981), The Illuminati Papers (1980) and so on, with more new books coming out in the 1980s.  Robert Shea's first novel, Time of the Dragons (the first of the two Shike novels), came out in June 1981. six years after Illuminatus!, and the connections to Illuminatus! are more subtle than in Wilson's work. 

Shea's solo novels are all historical novels, many of them set in the Middle Ages, and will appeal to anyone who likes a good story and wants a vivid sense of what life might have been like in those days. When I began my RAWIllumination.net blog back in 2010, it was almost exclusively devoted to Robert Anton Wilson and to RAW's many interests. As I read more of Shea's novels, though, I began to realize he was a very interesting writer in his own right, and I gradually shifted to more posts about Shea. I now have both "Robert Anton Wilson Resources" and "Robert Shea Resources" areas on my home page.

More here. 

Here is the official page for Every Day Is a GOOD Day, the anthology of Robert Shea's writings I put together.  And here is the Hilaritas Press page.