D. Scott Apel Bibliography

[This is the only accurate, complete bibliography for D. Scott Apel that I know of. A link to this is available at the new "D. Scott Apel Resources" section on the right side of this page. Books are available at Barnesandnoble.com and at Amazon.]

Bibliography: D. Scott Apel

Including initial publication/copyright dates

PRINT MEDIA

FICTION

Alec Smart Comic Mysteries

The Uncertainty Principle? (1979, 2015) (Footnote 1)
The Infinite Mistress (2014)
Detective, Comics (2015)
Jobs of Work (2023)
Hollywood, Ending (2023)

Stand-alone novels 

Exemplary Lives of Impossible Men (2021)
Unfriendly Takeover at OzCo: A Fairy Tale for Aging Children (2025)
E Attraction (Limited Author’s Edition) (1976)
Escape from 50sville (2021) (editor) (Footnote 2)

Humor

Mein Summer Kampf (2014)

Plays

Fourplay (2018) (Footnote 3)

NON-FICTION

Scholarship on authors (Editor and Contributor)

Science Fiction: An Oral History (2014)
Philip K. Dick: The Dream Connection (1987)
Beyond Chaos and Beyond: The Best of Trajectories, Vol. 2 (uncollected Robert Anton Wilson writings) (2019) (Two editions, Apel's original edition and the 2025 Hilaritas Press edition)

Memoirs

NO PLAN B: The Adventures of a Carbon Unit in Silicon Valley (2020)
Famedroppings (2018)

Movie reviews (Footnote 4)

Freelance video columnist for the San Jose Mercury News (1985-1995); published 534 consecutive weekly columns and more than 50 feature articles

Published more than 200 articles on film and video in numerous newspapers and magazines (including Video and Video Review)

Contributing Editor at Reel.com (1996-2005) writing over 1,000 movie synopses for its film database, more than two dozen articles for its online editorial content, and more than a dozen reviews of current films as a film critic. Also developed several courses for Reel U., the world’s first online film school

Killer B’s, Volume 1 (1980-1996): The 237 Best Movies on Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen
Killer B’s, Volume 2: Son of a Killer B (1996-2016): 237 MORE Great Movies On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen
Killer B’s: The Hive: The 487 Best Movies* On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen *(and a few TV Shows) (2016)
Killer B’s Action & Thriller: 123 Great Action Movies On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen (Killer B’s Movie Guides)
Killer B’s Comedy: Mild: 101 Quietly Comic M ovies On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen (Killer B’s Movie Guides)
Killer B’s Comedy: Wild: 101 Insane Comedy Movies On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen (Killer B’s Movie Guides)
Killer B’s: Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror: 113 Great Imaginative Movies On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen (Killer B’s Movie Guides)
Killer B’s: Drama: 117 Great Dramatic Movies On Demand You’ve (Probably) Never Seen (Killer B’s Movie Guides)

Screenplays (unproduced) (Footnote 5)

Big Talk (1990)
Such a Deal! (1991)
If I Knew Then (1986)
Sleep of Reason (with Will Jacobs) (1992) 

Unpublished Novels

Daughter of the Wind (1980)
A Night at the Space Opera (1981)

THEATER

“A Night in the Graveyard” (1991)
“Trouble Is My Career Path” (1992)
“Me and My Shadow” (1992)
“Pledge Night!” (1993)

(All collected in the volume Fourplay)

VISUAL MEDIA (Footnote 6)

Film Roles (per IMDb) 

Night Terror (1989)
Almost Hollywood (1994)
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick (2001)
Maybe Logic: The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson (2003)

Television

“The Prisoner” Wraparounds (1985-1996), KTEH-TV, PBS for Silicon Valley
VJ/Host “Sunday Science Fiction Night” (1990-1996), KTEH-TV, PBS for Silicon Valley

FOOTNOTES:

1) You ask about the double copyright date on The Uncertainty Principle? While this is legally unnecessary, I wanted to add the date of the first version (entitled The Coincidence Caper at that point) to establish that I’d been working on that book for 35 years before publishing it. I also wanted to make sure no one could come around and say, “Oh, you stole that plot/character/scene/location from a novel published in 1980/85/90 (or whatever.)” Just a touch ultraparanoid (like most authors), but I do want credit for being there first, in case anyone finds similarities between UP? and anything published since 1979. I didn’t bother to do this with the two sequels (The Infinite Mistress and Detective, Comics), both of which were written in the 1980s (but unpublished until the 20-teens), or Science Fiction: An Oral History, which was compiled in 1978, since the dates of the interviews are included in the book.

2) Escape from ‘50sville is a novel “written by Casey Bragg,” who is a character in my novel Exemplary Lives of Impossible Men. A sample of the work of each writer in Exemplary Lives is included in that book, except for one by “Bragg.” I simply had no detective story to include as an example of his work. But when I foraged my files for something I could use, I came across a file of notes for 50sville that I’d shelved in the late ‘80s, since there were plot problems I couldn’t solve at that time. But when I read the notes 30 years later, the solutions became immediately apparent, and I decided to write 50sville as a “lost novel” by Casey Bragg. (The backstory becomes clearer if one reads Exemplary Lives.) So I take credit as the editor of this novel but attribute its creation to one of my characters. I love fun author shit like this.

3) Fourplay consists of two three-act plays and three one-act plays, all of which (except one one-act) were produced in the early 1990s by Stage One, a theatrical training and performance organization in San Jose, Calif. 

4) A few additional notes: I don’t really count the genre film guides as separate books, as they are collections of the genre entries lifted directly from the two volumes of Killer B’s rather than original writing. (My theory was that if readers were reluctant to purchase the full KB books from an unknown film critic, they might opt for less expensive volumes focused on their specific genre interests. To date, I don’t believe a single copy of any of these genre guides have ever been purchased.) I don’t count The Hive either, since it contains the contents of KB 1 & 2 combined into a single volume rather than being original writing.

5) I’ve also included unpublished/unproduced works.

6) I’m including my film and TV work, since I wrote my appearances.

D. Scott Apel on 'The Uncertainty Principle?" and his other fiction

D. Scott Apel (2024 Hilaritas Press podcast photo)

Many of you know D. Scott Apel as Robert Anton Wilson's friend and business partner. Apel co-produced the Trajectories newsletter with RAW, handling the production chores while RAW served as the editorial director. Material from that newsletter is collected in two books: Chaos and Beyond, and also Beyond Chaos and Beyond, both available from Hilaritas Press

But aside from that, Apel also is a prolific author; he has published about 20 books (getting an exact count is complicated), including 11 books of fiction. 

My impetus for seeking a new interview with Scott came a few weeks ago, when I finally got around to reading his novel The Uncertainty Principle? It had been on my Kindle for years, but lots of stuff have been on my Kindle for years -- I read dozens of books every year, but it's hard to get around to everything I want to read!

Anyway, I did finally read it, and it was a good read, hard to put down. It concerns a detective, one Alec Smart, who is hired by a veteran science fiction writer. The client wants to know why the predictions in his fiction always come true. As with Illuminatus!, what seems at first like a straightforward detective story quickly gets very weird. The book includes portraits of Robert Anton Wilson, Arlen Riley Wilson and Philip K. Dick, and a character who is a self-portrait  of Apel himself.  (The ebook is only 99 cents from Amazon, the paperback is $14.95. And if you don't want to buy from Amazon, the Nook ebook from Barnes and Noble, which you can read on the B&N Nook app on your phone or your Nook tablet, also is 99 cents.)

After I discovered I liked The Uncertainy Principle?, I had some questions about it and about Scott's fiction, which Scott agreed to take via email. So here it is.

I will soon publish the only publicly-available, accurate bibliography of Scott's books (the Wikipedia article is very incomplete.)

So here is my interview. See also my 2017 interview with Apel about Robert Anton Wilson, and also my interview with him about the book Beyond Chaos and Beyond.  See also the Hilaritas Press podcast interview. 

RAWILLUMINATION.NET: You have written quite a few works of fiction, is The Uncertainty Principle? your favorite novel?

D. Scott Apel: This is a trick question, on a par with asking a mother which of her children is her favorite. Like most writers, I tend to believe that my latest effort is not just my favorite, but also my best work. So, while I have a fondness for UP? if only because it took 35 years to finish and publish, at this point, my favorite would be Unfriendly Takeover at OzCo, which I love and which I truly do believe is my best work.

But I also have a deep soft spot in my heart for my first novel, E Attraction, written in 1975, partly because it might be the best idea I've ever had; partly because it was my first novel; partly because I devoted two years to its creation, totally upending my life to concentrate on writing it (like moving from California to Virginia to avoid being sidetracked by my dissolute friends); and partly because no less a critic than Joseph Campbell read the original ms. and wrote me saying it was "obviously a serious work of modern mythology." (That quote would have gone on the cover if I could have gotten it published.) Alas, it will forever remain unpublished: about 10 years ago, I exhumed the ms. with the intent of rewriting it, but after rereading it, I came away baffled as to how to accomplish that. (I do love to refer to it in other books, however, like UP? and Exemplary Lives of Impossible Men, and even OzCo.)

Speaking of Exemplary Lives of Impossible Men, I'm quite proud of that one. It's incredibly dense with 50 years' worth of ideas; it works on several levels; and it incorporates virtually every trope of post-modern novels. In the same vein, I'm also quite pleased with Escape from 50sville, which exhibits a lot of literary tricks I've always wanted to use in a novel (like digesting entire chapters into a few sentences as the alleged editor, to skip boring exposition; including a Study Guide; and allowing me to make use of my extensive knowledge of the old TV series The Prisoner). And I think my other two recent comic mysteries (Jobs of Work and Hollywood, Ending) have the best endings I've ever written.

As for non-fiction, I am always proud of the two volumes of Killer B's movie guides. Deep research and fun reviews.

RAWIllumination.net:  I am confused about the history of The Uncertainty Principle?, as it has a 1979 copyright and also a 2015 copyright. Did you revise the book, and if so, how?

D. Scott Apel: While this is legally unnecessary, I wanted to add the date of the first version (entitled The Coincidence Caper at that point) to establish that I’d been working on that book for 35 years before publishing it. I also wanted to make sure no one could come around and say, “Oh, you stole that plot/character/scene/location from a novel published in 1980/85/90 (or whatever.)” Just a touch ultraparanoid (like most authors), but I do want credit for being there first, in case anyone finds similarities between UP? and anything published since 1979. I didn’t bother to do this with the two sequels (The Infinite Mistress and Detective, Comics), both of which were written in the 1980s (but unpublished until the 20-teens), or Science Fiction: An Oral History, which was compiled in 1978, since the dates of the interviews are included in the book.

RAWIllumination.net: What did Robert Anton Wilson think of The Uncertainty Principle? Did you get feedback from Arlen Wilson and from Philip K. Dick?

D. Scott Apel: Well, PKD died before I could get him a copy. He wasn't even a character in the book until a 1981 rewrite, when I realized that at only 60,000 words, The Coincidence Caper needed to be expanded, and his story fit nicely into the original plot. But oddly, I recently ran across a photo of PKD from about 1980, standing in front of one of his bookcases, and I recognized a copy of E Attraction on the top shelf, next to his head. I never had a chance to discuss it with him, however, for whatever reason.

Arlen Wilson had also passed before I finished the final version. I read much of this version to RAW when he was bedridden, and he gave me this quote: "Brilliant, original, and damned funny as well!" Bob also served as an inadvertent inspiration, since I intuited the whole backstory sipping Jameson on the terrace of his Capitola apartment.

RAWIllumination.net: The descriptions of the slightly fictionalized Robert Anton Wilson, Arlen Wilson and Philip K. Dick are accurate and affectionate as far as I can tell (I never met any of them), but the portrait of the Robert Heinlein is not very flattering and noticeably wrong on some details; was this  driven by the need of the plot, or were you unhappy with Heinlein?

D. Scott Apel: When I was a teen, like all teen boys who discover sci-fi, I read everything sci-fi by everyone writing sci-fi, from the space opera of Doc Smith to the literary stylings of Ray Bradbury. It took several college lit courses before I began to develop some discrimination and taste about what constituted good writing vs. hack writing. Early on, I consumed everything by the Big 3: Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein. And as I began to discover and appreciate good literature, I realized that most sci-fi would not be included. But that didn't matter as a teen: sci-fi was the literature of ideas, not literary style, and Heinlein had some great ideas. Eventually, however, I began to see the flaws in his work: wooden writing, two-dimensional characters, etc. -- not to mention his reactionary/Libertarian philosophy and his demeaning treatment of women, both of which made me cringe as a young liberal/radical. The personal enmity enters when my college friend and then-roommate Kevin Briggs and I were conducting interviews for what was supposed to be the first book of interviews with sci-fi authors. Our agent insisted he couldn't sell the book without an interview with one of the Big 3. Well, Clarke was in Sri Lanka, and Asimov was in Boston, which required travel that was out of the question for a couple of poverty-stricken young wannabe authors to accomplish. (How much easier it is today with Zoom and FaceTime!). But Heinlein lived only a few miles away from our Silicon Valley home. We wrote personal letters to him and even had his peer and one of our interview subjects, Ted Sturgeon, call him, vouch for us, and encourage him to meet with us, all to no avail. So the book was never published until 35 years later as Science Fiction: An Oral History. (The whole story of the subversion that prevented that book from being published is included in the book.)

So to answer your specific question: I never knew Heinlein well enough to paint a realistic portrait of him in UP? The Harshlaw character is mostly based on the necessity of the plot -- I needed a famous old SF writer who realized everything he wrote has come true in some way, and an "alternate Heinlein" fit the bill. However, the analysis of his "works" roughly corresponds to my attitude towards his writing. (I mean, shit... Have you ever tried to read The Number of the Beast? I've tried three times, but always gave up in disgust. Absolute garbage.)

RAWIllumination.net: According to the Apel bibliography I am working on, you have written five books that feature private detective Alec Smart: The Uncertainty Principle?; The Infinite Mistress; Detective, Comics; Jobs of Work and Hollywood, Ending. Is that accurate?

D. Scott Apel: Yup. I have two more I'd like to write, but both are still in the research and brainstorming phase. You Killed Out There Last Night has Alec Smart hired in about 1981 by Don Rickles, who realizes that comedy is changing from his Old School/Catskill approach to a more observational approach, and who hires Alec to chauffeur him around to Bay Area comedy clubs to try out new material without the pressure of potentially bombing in a big city club. When he's still recognized and realizes everyone still wants the "old Rickles," he tutors Alec into delivering the new material, which provides the opportunity to discuss various theories and observations about humor and comedy. During the course of their comedy club gigs they cross paths with several rising standups of the time (which allows me the opportunity to use jokes I've written in their style). There is also a subplot concerning a teenage misfit who's built a dirty A-bomb in his garage, and a visit with Frank Sinatra, when Don and Rickles urge him to use his connections to persuade the Mafia to buy the bomb and dispose of it so the kid doesn't sell it to foreign terrorists. (The Mafia was always patriotic -- and they'd have no use for an A-bomb. Would they?)

The second would be The Dating Detective, in which Alec's look-alike frenemy David Call (who shared an adventure with Smart in Hollywood, Ending) hires him to pretend to be him and go on dates he's lined up at a video dating service, to screen potential girlfriend candidates since he's too busy to do it himself. This assignment is complicated by the fact that Call's wife is pregnant, which results in him saying things like, "I can't go to Lamaze class with you tonight... I have a date." There's also a plot about video piracy. But unless I'm inspired, I'll probably never get around to writing those two. (I can only hope that last sentence comes back to bite me when I do, in fact, write both comic mysteries.)

At the moment, I'm researching a non-comic mystery -- a Sherlock Holmes story set in 1894, during the period SH was missing from London, after his alleged death at Reichenbach Falls. In my story, he's in Chicago to visit the Columbian Exposition and gets involved with tracking down missing women, all victims of the notorious mass murderer: H.H. Holmes, who lured single young women to his "Murder Palace" and disposed of them. (Hence the working title, Holmes vs. Holmes.) (Erik Larsen covers this story in depth in his wonderful bestseller, Devil in the White City.) Holmes combines forces with journalist and proto-feminist Nellie Bly to track down the killer. It's discouraging that dozens, maybe even hundreds of writers have penned Sherlock Holmes stories (some even seem to make a career out of this), but I'm slowly warming up to that idea that apres-Doyle Holmes stories are in fact a genre all their own, and I'd be in good company contributing a unique and original adventure for the iconic (shit, almost archetypal) character, Sherlock Holmes. 

Tuesday links

Darryl Hannah, getting arrested at a Keystone pipeline protest. (Creative Commons photo, source).

 "I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s." Darryl Hannah. Has Hollywood gone too far with "based on a real story" lies? Is Robert Anton Wilson lucky he never became truly famous? I enjoyed Darryl Hannah's home movies of her husband, Neil Young, during the lockdown.

A New York Times reporter tries ibogaine. Compare with the recent Mike Gathers Hilaritas podcast. 

Can psychedelics fix cluster headaches, "probably the most painful medical condition known to science"? 

Hey, audiophile, is that an expensive cable or a banana? 

"America has become a bit like a banana republic, where the government is now so overbearing that everything becomes seen as a political issue. Indeed, President Trump often goes out of his way to make everything seem to be about politics. I used to think of this as something that happened elsewhere, say in Peron-era Argentina. It’s a sad way to go through life." Scott Sumner, maybe my favorite blogger right now. 

"Still, the point of the tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf is not that wolves don’t exist, or that wolves are always easy to spot. Though I’m painfully aware of the ubiquity of false accusations of fascism, one glaring expression of fascism hides in plain sight all over the world: anti-immigration policies." Bryan Caplan, the piece cites Alan Moore. 

A Shea and Wilson anecdote

Robert Anton Wilson, left, and Robert Shea.

An anecdote from Scott Apel, after I mentioned my Shea book to him: "How great you compiled a Shea tribute! I met him once, at the 12-hour Seattle performance of Ken Campbell's Illuminatus play. He was tall and thin with a high voice and RAW was short and round with his deep Brooklyn accent. Standing together, they reminded me of Mutt & Jeff, if it isn't heretical to say that. "

More soon, by and about Mr. Apel. 

New online reading group for Rosen's 'Classical Style'

 

Eric Wagner has asked to lead a new online reading group for The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven by Charles Rosen and I have agreed, note that Eric recommends the expanded edition. We start in May with the usual format, i.e. Eric will write a blog post and anyone who wants to take part will be invited to weigh in with the comments.

Here is Eric's statement:

"It pleases me to announce that we will begin a reading group on Charles Rosen’s The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. This book provides a great analysis of music dear to Bob Wilson, especially Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. Many people, including me, consider this book one of the best books on music ever written. We will begin on Monday, May 25. I recommend using the Expanded Edition of the text, but you may use the original edition if you would like to. I really look forward to this study group!"

I can't resist adding a couple of points. This book won the National Book Award, so Eric is not alone in his opinion.

I recently ran across a Tyler Cowen podcast that discussed music, and Tyler said that he believes the top three composers are Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. This is the received opinion, but I agree with it. Haydn also is considered an important composer; Sviatoslav Richter, my favorite piano player, once said that Haydn is better than Mozart. So if you are a music fanatic, this is a good opportunity to learn something.

Eric has more musicological  knowledge than I do. I told Eric I was worried I would not be able to follow Rosen's points, and he assured me, "Yes, he has technical stuff, but he also has tons of entertaining nontechnical stuff." So apparently if you are as ignorant as me, you can still learn something.

If you are searching for a cheap used copy, it might help to know that the ISBN for the expanded edition is 9780393317121. Bookfinder.com is a good search engine for finding used books and I found a copy for less than $10.

Charles Rosen was a noted piano player as well as a scholar, as the Wikipedia bio explains. Eric has been bending my ear about him for years. 

I am currently listening to all of Beethoven's 32 sonatas, concentrating on a particular sonata each week (I am at number 18, about to start on number 19). Eric currently has a similar Beethoven listening project, tying it to a re-read of Timothy Leary's The Game of Life. 

Tom Woods on the latest U.S. war

 

Severe damage to Gandhi Hospital in Tehran after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. (Creative Commons photo, Tasnim news agency. Source.)

[I try to avoid "politics" here --- you can get plenty of that everywhere else --- but given the longtime antiwar stance of both Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, it seems false to simply ignore what's going on with the U.S. and Israel's attack on Iran and the  ensuing war.

I  am often not on the same page as Tom Woods, the conservative-leaning libertarian, but he's always been good on antiwar issues, his latest email is worth quoting at length. So here is an excerpt. -- The Management.]

This sh** is out of control.

The Wall Street Journal just released an op-ed called "An Urgent Need to Contain Turkey." Subtitle: "If the Iranian Regime Falls, Beware Ankara's Regional Influence."

It's echoing a former Israeli prime minister, who let us know a few days ago that Turkey "is the new Iran."

Turkey, a NATO member, is now the new Iran.

I am not looking forward to when you and I have to endure, in 2029: "Sure, everybody knows the Iran war was a fiasco, but there was no way we could have known that even though everyone tried to explain it to us. But it's urgent that we go after Turkey. That will be completely different. Not on board? You're an America hater!"

I wrote on my other list today that my Twitter feed has become almost intolerable, overrun by talking-point so-called arguments in favor of this Iran operation.

It's all one-liners that very suggestible people heard on TV:

(1) "They've been at war with us for 47 years" (in response to this one, Glenn Greenwald correctly comes back with: we've been in a war with Iran for 47 years but no prior American presidents remembered to wage that war against Iran or even mention to the American public that we've been in a decades-long war with Iran until about six days ago when Israel wanted to attack them?);

(2) Iran would have had a nuclear bomb two weeks from now if we hadn't acted (I don't hear this one so much because nobody really believes it);

(3) although we've been at war for 47 years, this is not actually a war and we shouldn't call it that because Speaker Mike Johnson told us not to, even though if anyone did these things to the United States we would of course describe them as acts of war, and even though up until the Iran intervention we all agreed that Speaker Mike Johnson was a lying weasel.

Ronald Reagan did the right thing in 1983 when the US Marine barracks was bombed and he got out of there, though of course Lindsey Graham and assorted other lunatics are implying that Reagan -- Reagan! -- was a wimp because he didn't respond with a rampage throughout the region.

You will have to forgive my impertinence -- I have a habit of asking questions that send a hush through cocktail parties -- but why the hell was there a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut to begin with?

"USA! USA!" does not count as an answer.

None of this benefits the average American. That's not to say absolutely nobody benefits, but you and I are not among the beneficiaries, I regret to inform you, dear reader.

[More here, with a link to subscribe to the newsletter. You can view the official website.  Here is antiwar.com.  Reason Magazine is good on this issue, here is an example from Nick Gillespie.]

Mary Butts, a modernist writer

Mary Butts in 1919 (public domain photo). 

Every once in awhile, I run into a writer and wind up being surprised that I did not know the name. The modernist writer Mary Butts (1890-1937) would be the latest example.

I am on the email list for Standard Ebooks, an outfit I've written about before that makes available excellent free editions of public domain books. The latest newsletter announced the publication of  the "influential but obscure modernist novel" Armed With Madness by Mary Butts: 

"Six friends are staying in a cottage in the English countryside when they discover a mysterious ancient cup buried deep in a local well. The cup seems to have a long history—could it be the legendary Holy Grail? Long-held tensions start simmering as the friends begin investigating the cup’s story, threatening the formerly peaceful retreat.

"Butts adapts the grail myth to early 20th century England in a highly modernist prose style that invites comparison to Virginia Woolf or Ford Madox Ford. The narrative resembles a kaleidoscope in its shifting perspectives, abrupt dialogue, and dreamlike feel, and close reading reveals densely packed allusions ranging from Greek mythology to English legend.

"The first edition of Armed with Madness was illustrated by none other than Jean Cocteau and won praise from her modernist contemporaries. Butts went on to write a companion novel in 1932 following some of the same characters, The Death of Felicity Taverner."

Who knows what I'll think of Armed With Madness when I get around to reading it, but I saw other indications that, at the very least, Butts was an interesting person who hung out with other interesting people. The Wikipedia bio records that she was a student of Aleister Crowley and spent time with him at the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily. She knew modernist writers such as Ezra Pound. A biography is available, by Nathalie Blondel.

A university professor in Canada provides the Mary Butts Letters Project online.  And here is an interesting piece from The New Yorker, "Modernism's Forgotten Mystic." That 2021 piece by Merve Emre describes Butts as pretty much forgotten, so maybe I get a pass for not knowing the name until a few days ago. Read the piece for the William Blake connection! 

Based on what they read, I  think both Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea would have been interested in her. But if either of them ever mentioned her, I  don't know  about it. 

What we read last month

Another reading log from Mark Brown and myself.

What Mark Brown read last month: 

Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler 2/6 
The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson  2/11
Two Hawks from Earth by Philip Jose Farmer  2/18   
Domnei by James Branch Cabell  2/22   
Land of Terror by Edgar Rice Burroughs   2/25   
Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Psychedelic Rock by Jim de Rogatis  2/27

What I read:

The Uncertainty Principle?, D. Scott Apel
War By Other Means (Fall of the Censor Book 7), Karl Gallagher
The Workshop of Democracy, 1863–1932 (The American Experiment Book 2), James MacGregor Burns
Colors of Asia: A Visual Journey, Kevin Kelly
Forged for Prophecy (Forged for Destiny, #2), Andrew Knighton

As usual, everyone else is invited to share what they have read. 

A bit more on 'All Things Are Lights'

 

I've updated my Feb. 20 post on Robert Shea's All Things Are Lights. 

Here (in part) how Shea described the novel in an interview (reproduced in my new Shea book, Every Day Is a GOOD Day.) 

"The title comes from a medieval  philosopher, Scotus Erigena, who said, 'All that are, are lights.' The main characters have an outlook that is as mystical as that statement, only their mysticism is not of the orthodox variety. The main character is a troubadour who achieves illumination in an adulterous affair with a countess through the rites of courtly love, which I portray as a westernized version of tantric yoga. The troubadour is also in love with a woman minister of the heretical Cathar sect. Nowadays they tell women they can't be priests; in those days they burned them at the stake for trying." 

Oz Fritz continues 'Shadow Ticket' analysis

Oz Fritz has continued his discussion of Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon, with a Part Two post now up at his The Oz Mix blog. 

This one focuses quite a bit on Dante. Oz observes:

"The Divine Comedy by Dante provides a foundational pillar in the canon of Western and Near Eastern literature. It poetically describes a journey through death and the underworld. The influence of this opus on modern and postmodern writers has been profound. You'll find it in James Joyce (Finnegans Wake), Ezra Pound (The Cantos), Robert Anton Wilson (Illuminatus! and others), Malcolm Lowery (Under the Volcano) to name a few."

Here is Oz' first post.   Also, please see my earlier post for links to what Eric Wagner and Peter Quadrino wrote about Pynchon's latest novel. 

A Part Three post is planned with "a Deleuzean perspective."

Dan Simmons has died

Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea both loved science fiction, and I do, too, but science fiction writers  still don't get as much respect as other fiction writers; Dan Simmons, who wrote the Hyperion Cantos novels, did not get an obituary in the New York Times after he died on Feb. 21. So I am telling you about it here.

The Hyperion books are really good; the Ilium/Olympos books also are well known, but I was less impressed with them. Simmons also  wrote horror and other work. Here is an obituary from Newsweek. 

Joseph Matheny announces free audio versions of his work

In his latest newsletter, available here, Joseph Matheny announces audio versions of several of his works are now available for free. 

The titles include the audiobook of This is Not a Game, Ong's Hat: The Beginning, Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT, and Xen: The Zen of the Other. They are torrents, but Joseph includes a video explaining how to use the technology.

Joseph also explains what you can do -- and not do -- with the free versions of his work, and it's worth quoting:

As many of you know, I always make a free digital version of my work available for free after a year of selling it through commercial channels. Some unscrupulous players have taken that to mean that those works are available to be taken, resold, and reused without permission. I shouldn’t have to explain this, but one more time for the folks in the back:

You’re free to download the free versions for your personal use. You are not allowed to resell, remix, or include in any collections without my express, written permission. There are legitinmate, legal copyrights on all my works, for that very reason. The free versions are distributed under the following Creative Commons agreements (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International) and are also legally copyrighted, registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Look it up. I'm happy to offer my work for free; I’m much less than happy for people or corporations to profit from it.

There are other interesting items in the newsletter. 

Mike Gathers' interesting podcast

As I mentioned I would, I listened to Mike Gathers' in the latest Hilaritas podcast, above, as I was intrigued. It is interesting, personal and candid. Mike talks about his two trips to Costa Rica for Iboga psychedelic therapy, what is was like, how it affected her personal habits and his health. He's planning a follow-up session. Mike is careful to explain that Iboga is dangerous, and not something to experiment with by yourself. 

'Saucers, Spooks and Kooks' news roundup

Saucers, Spooks and Kooks is a new movie based on the Adam Gorightly book of the same name, which I enjoyed. 

Here is an official podcast.  You can also read a roundup of other podcasts.  And there's a post on how the movie got made.  And here's the Substack home page.

Watch here.

Have a nice day!

Atomic bomb test at Bikini Island in 1946 (Wikimedia Commons photo).

One of the reasons I miss Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, besides the obvious ones, is that I wonder what they would make of advances in computers in general, and AI in particular. (They were both fascinated by personal computers; there's a little bit about this in my Robert Shea book.) At age 69, I love my smartphone and marvel at the computer I can carry in my pocket. Technology is wasted on the young. I was a teenager in the 1970s, when our second TV was a black and white with antenna ears, and mobile music meant eight track tapes.

Anyway, here are a couple of things that caught my eye, alarming or black humor, depending on your temperament:

1. "AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations." The lead sentence: "Advanced AI models appear willing to deploy nuclear weapons without the same reservations humans have when put into simulated geopolitical crises."

Via Jesse Walker, who writes, "I was rooting for the resolution of WAR GAMES and instead they kept giving us the setup for THE TERMINATOR."

2. Scott Alexander mentions one of the winners of the ACX forecasting contest and then writes, "Seems potentially bad that so many of the people who win forecasting contests are professionally involved in some form of worrying about AI killing us. Hopefully that’s just a coincidence."

PQ on Joyce and the state violence of evil days

Joyce and Militarism, a book cited by PQ. 

Peter Quadrino has a new piece up at his "Finnegans, Wake!" blog. The new posting is "Evil Days": Joyce and State Violence and it refers to recent events in the U.S. but mostly discusses the brutal repression by Britain when the Irish were trying to achieve independence.

As Peter explains, Joyce had quite a few friends who  were killed by the British, including in the wake of the Easter uprising. (Peter calls these killings "executions," but I think that implies more of a due process than many of the Irish rebels got). Here is Peter on one of the killings:

"One of Joyce's school friends was named George Clancy, he appears in Portrait as Davin, later he became the mayor of Limerick. He was the mayor when one night, the Black and Tans dragged him out of bed and summarily executed him in front of his family. This was in 1921. Joyce was remembering the shock of this almost 15 years later, in a letter to his son Giorgio 4 Feb 1935 he mentions "my poor friend George Clancy (Davin in Portrait). ... He was afterward Mayor of Limerick and was dragged out of bed by the Black and Tans in the night and shot in the presence of his wife." (Letters 1, Gilbert, p. 357)

Mike Gathers' guest? Mike Gathers!

The Hilaritas Press podcast released Monday has a format that's a little different this time. Instead of the usual interview of a guest by Mike Gathers, it stars Mike himself, doing a monologue.

It also sounds really interesting, and I will be listening to it soon. Here is the blurb:

"Hilaritas host Mike Gathers does all the talking this episode as he describes his illuminating experiences with iboga psychedelic therapy."

That's an iboga rainforest shrub behind Mike. 

RAW's circle of friends

RAWnet, the "Friends of the Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson," has moved to a new location on the RAW Trust website.  It's a "people who RAW knew personally who influenced him, or the other way around, and folks who were in some respect experts on RAW," Rasa says.

It can be fun to look at the biographies. For example, I followed the links for Mark Frauenfelder, pictured above,  and discovered he has made several TV appearances, including the Colbert Report. 

'Illuminatus' on list of 'weird books'

 

An article at the Microsoft Network, "32 weird but brilliant books if you are seeking to read something different, as shared online," includes Illuminatus! as one of the books. 

The article is attributed to Asli Akalin, although I wondered if AI was used for the compilation.

Aside from Illuminatus!, I have read a number of books on the list: If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, Babel-17, Samuel Delany, and 334, Thomas M. Disch. It's not a bad list.

Hat tip, Nick Helweg-Larsen. 

My latest Bandcamp album

Above is a jazz album, Incandescence, released by trumpeter and composer Sarah Wilson and her sextet, that I bought after I heard one of her songs on a Cleveland jazz station. It was released on Bandcamp, a cool website and app that brings musicians and listeners together.

Jazz artists get little exposure in the modern culture, and I like the album, but I am mainly posting to bring your attention to Bandcamp. If you haven't tried it, it's a place where independent artists can post their music for sale (or even give it away). Typically, Bandcamp lets you listen to music before you decide whether to buy it. Purchase prices are generally quite reasonable and also allow the customer to stream the music from the useful Bandcamp smartphone app.

My collection of purchased material currently has 23 items, and many of the albums are by artists connected in at least some fashion with RAW fandom. So, for example, my music from Bandcamp includes The First Trip, a Tales of Illuminati soundtrack by Steve Pratt; Jukebox Musical by Danny and the Darlings, another Tales soundtrack; Ambient Blue by Starseed (e.g., Rasa's band); Tank Girl by Noah 23 and Squat the Condos by Prop Anon. Of course, I also have good stuff by people with no connection to the topics of this blog, such as Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok by Sassafras (e.g., Ada Palmer's Norse Myth song cycle), and The Time Curve Preludes by  Emanuele Arciuli and Costanza Savarese, music by a modern composer I like, William Duckworth. 

Bandcamp is worth taking a few moments to explore if you are into music. 

Robert Anton Wilson on 'All Things Are Lights' [UPDATED]

From a Sept. 4, 1986, letter written by Robert Anton Wilson to Kurt Smith:

"Shea is a nice guy and a good friend, so I told him All Things Are Lights was a wonderful adventure novel. That's my official opinion. I hate the bitchiness and nastiness that infests the literary world and I try to remember never to bum-rap anybody, but especially not old friends."

Via Michael Johnson, thank you Michael! Does anyone have any context, or any other comments by RAW about Shea's novels? I liked All Things Are Lights and it was a favorite of his widow, Patricia Monaghan. 

Update: In the comments, Eric Wagner writes, "Bob once sent me a Medaeval reading list. He told me he had sent a similar list to Bob Shea before he wrote All Things Are Lights." I forgot to ask Eric if he still has that list, but I'll ask now.

For the record, in the acknowledgements, Shea writes that "many people" helped him, and adds, "I would especially like to express my gratitude to Jeanne Bernkopf, Bernadette Bosky, Frances C. Bremseth, Gerald Bremseth, Ric Erickson, Christine Hayes, Dave Hickey, Dr. Joseph R. Kraft, Mary Kay Kraft, Neal Rest, Michael Erik Shea, Morrison Swift, Robert Anton Wilson, and Al Zuckerman." 

 

Bobby Campbell comic book volume nears completion

 

Bobby Campbell has posted a new comic, and reports that he will be soon collecting his completion of a long series as one big graphic novel. Here's the report in the latest newsletter:

"Never mind the B.S., here's a new comic!

"Agnosis! #3 Ep. 1 - "BEFORE THE LAW"

"Agnosis! #3 is the fifth and final installment of my OKEY-DOKEY comic book series, nearly 23 years in the making, and soon to be finished and collected in one handsome volume :))) I'll be irregularly serializing the final issue as I go.

"If you need to get caught up on what came before, the entire series has been spiffed up and made more user friendly than ever before!

"https://weirdcomix.com/OKEY-DOKEY/

"OKEY-DOKEY is the forthcoming meta-modern graphic novel by Bobby Campbell, Marcelino Balao III, and Todd Purse. Featuring two intertwined comic book adventures, Agnosis! & BUDDHAFART, which weave together to form the Dream@wake_Sutra, a Discordian Hypersigil that tells the tale of the tribe as a SUN PLAY OF THE AGES in five Acts :)))"

It's still there

During the heyday of the big box bookstores -- I still miss the Borders chain -- I would always browse the science fiction and fantasy section. And I could usually count on spotting a copy of Illuminatus! in the section.

While the days of a bookstore in every big shopping center in the U.S. appear to be gone, Barnes and Noble has been making a comeback lately and is opening about 60 new stores this year.   One of them has just opened in Strongsville, on the west side of Cleveland, and my wife and I visited it yesterday. I did my usual SF browse. The section was a bit confusing, as there were two separate A-Z sections, but I spotted a copy of Illuminatus!, as you can see. It was good to see it was there. 

The science fiction section was pretty large and has a good balance of classic authors and newer ones.

'The Unseen Internet' is a new book that seems interesting

Earlier this month, MIT Press came out with The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse by Shira Chess, and it seems like a book some of you might be interested in. 

Here is part of the book blurb: "Historically the emergence of the internet was concurrent with technopaganism, which blended digital technologies with the occult in ways that are both seen and unseen by the casual user. While technopaganism is not the only lens with which to understand the emergence of the internet, it is an understudied one that reaches toward contemporary anxieties about the ineffability of our tech."

Joseph Matheny called the book to my attention in his latest Substack, 

Matheny says he tried to do a similar book and endorses Chess'. "I will give it a full-throated endorsement and assure you that you will be in capable hands ... Included in the interviews, acknowledgements, and profiles (besides your’s truly) are friends, acquaintances, and co-conspirators: Nick Herbert, Tiffany Lee Brown, Jon Lebkowsky, Robert Anton Wilson, Klint Finley, R.U. Sirius, Richard Metzger, Don Webb, Timothy Leary, and Douglas Rushkoff, to name a few. I’m sure I left someone out, but it wasn’t on purpose." More at the link.

Chess has a Substack. 

Review of '28 Years Later: Bone Temple'

 

By Tracy Harms
Special guest blogger

Deep in the roots of Science Fiction are the pulps, disreputable depths from which visions of zombie hordes emerged. Pulp magazines were a most lowbrow medium. This was a medium where SF and Horror smudged together too closely to bother sorting one from the other.

A bit more recently, SF took to centering tales of apocalyptic futures. This subgenre has offered more of a mix between coarse titillations and sophisticated social commentary, and has proliferated so much for so long as to make one wonder whether Science Fiction is always and only portrayals of wildly disastrous futures. It’s not, but that’s been a sweet spot for sales, exactly as the pulp heritage of SF makes unsurprising. It meshes well with zombies, too.

28 Years Later: Bone Temple is the new release in a film franchise that has all the superficial hallmarks of a comic book. I went in expecting a zombie flick and a gory action flick and a civilization-struggling-in-collapse flick. In these regards I wasn’t disappointed, but to my surprise some viewers were. They wanted more zombies and more cathartic sprayings of blood and bones. Tough luck for them. They unwittingly stumbled into a strikingly crafted storyline, a highbrow Science Fiction tale that earns its place among other SF works that insert serious thematic implications where ticket-buyers thought they were choosing pulp shallowness. Such is life.

We’re not done with the stereotypes, though. Bone Temple hinted strongly, from the conclusion of the prior film, 28 Years Later, that it would be riffing on Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, and/or the infamous film version of that story. That classic work of UK SF put an overt eye towards “the future,” and particularly to puzzles regarding social cohesion in the face of modern transformations. Might children wind up feral in the absence of adequately civilizing influences? The answer in the world of the Bone Temple is strongly affirmative, most distressingly so.

People, unlike zombies, entail all sorts of complications. People bring moral problems that outweigh mere violent death. The street gangs in A Clockwork Orange were counterposed against establishment institutions. While the police, courts, and psychiatric wards in Burgess’ tale were apparently inadequate to prevent gangs from forming and wilding, they were present and poised to intervene and suppress. The world of 28 lacks any such taming powers. The gang that fleshes out most of Bone Temple is in social free-fall.

As a result, 28 Years Later: Bone Temple may be the most alarming horror film I have seen in years. As in: could the world of our future send us to Hell? Not literally the mythological spiritual abode, of course, but a simple human pattern of suffering, ignorance, and evil which easily passes as its namesake. One in which people come to expect, accept, and enact the worst.

Last year’s 28 Years Later laid the groundwork and context for Bone Temple. The premise of these movies gives a more blatant origin for the horrid brats who rove in gangs than does Burgess’ future. The world was yanked out from under them in their tender years. These films draw us into thoughts about childhood, childhood trauma, and what happens when children are deprived of a decent future. The youthful gangsters clutch to their memories of children’s television entertainment. It was the sparkly portion of their past, now cemented in their minds with no mature art to supersede it. Kids’ TV is superficial and infantile and so are its post-apocalyptic fans. The global disaster which forms the premise of the 28 franchise implies a generation that was stunted in its development. The tensions between childhood and maturity, between innocence and depravity, are magnified through brazen reference to Jimmy Savile, a UK TV celebrity whose reputation collapsed in a sexual abuse scandal. Do these damaged youngsters know he became thought of as a monster? Perhaps; and perhaps that’s why they emulate him. Perhaps not. There’s no internet to inform them. I suspect they would not care. To emulate is to honor a past, even a horrid past, whereas indifferent ignorance is the mark of civilizational erasure.

My interest in this film and in its 2025 predecessor started with knowing it’s written by Alex Garland. Garland has written some of the best on-screen SF I’ve seen over recent years. I’m particularly enamored with Annihilation. I thoroughly enjoyed both Ex Machina and the television series Devs. Garland’s screenwriting is so consistently strong that I will sit down for anything he pens. The storyline of Bone Temple exceeded my expectations. I was expecting something adequate, like the 2025 film that is its set-up. I got a good deal more.

In my enthusiasm I may have given the impression that this is A Most Weighty Film, which would miss the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Bone Temple is very much crafted to provide an entertaining couple of hours in the theatre, assuming you’re eager to see icky stuff, as lots of moviegoers are. It’s more in the vein of a graphic novel than a work of literature. Yet, it has stuck with me for its character interactions and its plentiful implications. Strong SF concocts fantastical scenes and, through them, pokes at the human condition. That’s everything I wanted from the pulps, and more.

When the Pentagon spied on Nixon

Richard Nixon in 1972 (public domain photo). 

Robert Anton Wilson used to rail about the national security state and how much power was held by unelected bureaucrats. You can see some of those comments if you search this blog for "National Security Act." See for example, this blog post on John  Barth, where Wilson writes about "the sense of uncertainty and dread that has hung over this nation since democracy was abandoned in the National Security Act of 1947 and clandestine government became official. Sometimes I find it astounding that we have lived under fascism for 40 years while continuing the rituals of democracy .... "

The New York Times recently published a piece by James Rosen (gift link) on the extensive spying the Pentagon carried out on Richard Nixon and his aides.  

The piece, "Seven Pages of a Sealed Watergate File Sat Undiscovered. Until Now," describes how Nixon finally found out about the spying. Nixon did not believe he could prosecute the people responsible and reveal the spying without discrediting the military and having his own secrets revealed, but the two people primarily responsible were sent far away from Washington, D.C., and were wiretapped.

Rosen writes, "The Joint Chiefs’ spying formed only one prong of the campaign against Nixon, the most spied-on president in modern times. Declassified documents and scholarship published since 1974 have established that the F.B.I., under its director, J. Edgar Hoover, spied on Mitchell, the attorney general, and that the C.I.A. detailed its personnel to various units associated with Nixon, including the Watergate burglary team and 'components intimately associated with the office of the president,' as the agency admitted in 1975."

A fan writer's tribute to Arthur Hlavaty

Cover for Dillinger Relic 23, one of Arthur Hlavaty's zines posted at Fanac.org. 

Andy Hooper, a prominent science fiction fan who writes a lot about fanzines and fannish history, has justed posted a good tribute/obituary for Arthur Hlavaty. Arthur was a BNF, a "big name fan," nominated many times for the Hugo Award for best fan writer, although many of us knew him as a friend of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson and the founder of The Golden APA. 

Hooper mentions that he went through a number of Arthur's zines as he was working on the piece. As the Hugo nominations imply, they are well worth reading. Many of his zines are available at Fanac.org.  At one section of the site, they are alphabetized by editor; scroll down in the H section. From the zine pictured above: "Then someone else called up to report that he just read ILLUMINATUS last week, and he's already started hanging out with witches and smoking hash. Some people are just fast learners."

Hooper's piece mentions "Goldencon, a 1980s gathering of Illuminati fandom," does anyone have any more information? 

Danny Robinson's Patreon

The Headies. From left: Grant Robinson - keyboards and vocals, Todd Purse - drums, Danny Robinson - vocals and guitar, Billy Frolic - guitar and vocal and Justin Vavala - bass guitar. Yes, it's the same Todd Purse who is the 'Tales of Illuminatus' artist. 

Danny Robinson, who made a soundtrack album for Tales of Illuminatus No. 2 as "Danny and the Darlings," now has a Patreon. As Bobby Campbell says, he's "he's sharing demos, shop talk, lyric sheets, background lore, and vegetarian recipes as he endeavors to get his forthcoming album pressed on vinyl!"

Here is more information on the soundtrack album; you can read my interview with him and you can read up on his new punk rock opera. 

Rock album includes 'Illuminatus!' song [UPDATE]

I did not hear about it at the time, but in 2019 the Philadelphia rock band Eye Flys released the EP Context. And as Bobby Campbell mentioned in his latest newsletter, the album includes the track "The Triumph of Hagbard Celine." As with most Bandcamp tracks, you can check out the song before deciding whether to buy it. I had trouble making out some of the lyrics, but I did hear "submarine" and "immantize the eschaton" and other words.

"This is an album of commanding, lean noise rock absolutely brimming with vitriol," says the band, describing its music. More information here.  

Update: Please help Bobby with the lyrics; see the comments. 

Does Hagbard Celine shave? Maybe!

 

In his latest newsletter, "By Hagbard's Beard," Bobby Campbell explains how he wrestled with a particular question with his Tales of Illuminatus! comic book adaptations: Does Hagbard Celine have a beard or is he clean shaven? I'll let you follow the link for Bobby's solution!

Lots of other interesting news and bits at the link, don't forget to click through Bobby's links! For example, Bobby is working on his plans for a Maybe Day event on July 23 in Berkeley, California: "I've been scouting venues and bugging the locals. Speaking it into existence one step at a time :)))"

Technical difficulties at RAW Fans Germania

 

Robert Anton Wilson Fans Germania is an excellent website of RAW material maintained by Martin Wagner. The main website is currently down because of technical difficulties. Martin is addressing this, but in the interim, please use the site archive. 

Mass market paperbacks are going away

 

A fascinating article in the New York Times details a major cultural shift for readers -- mass market paperbacks are going away. Of course, the Illuminatus! trilogy originally was published as a trio of mass market paperbacks.

I used to buy many mass market paperbacks. I still have my original paperbacks of Illuminatus! But nowadays, when I buy a cheap book, it's an ebook. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle, most of them purchased on sale for a couple of bucks or so. Mass market paperbacks used to be the easiest way to be able to read anywhere. But because I have a smartphone, and a Kindle app on my phone, I have a big library I carry everywhere I go. 

What we read last month

What Mark Brown read:

Cocktail Time by P. G. Wodehouse  1/3/2026 
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin  1/14  
The Night Life of The Gods by Thorne Smith  1/22   
The Charwoman’s Shadow by Lord Dunsany  1/29
Llana of Gathol by Edgar Rice Burroughs  1/31

What I read in January: 

A Kiss for Damocles, J. Kenton Pierce.
Hellenistic Philosophy, John Sellars.
Red Heart, Max Harms.
Beyond Control, Jacob Sullum.
The Fourfold Remedy, John Sellars.
Forged for Destiny, Andrew Knighton.

As usual, the rest of you are invited to post in the comments about what you read last month. 

RAW and his editors

 

Michael Johnson's latest Substack, "Ezra Pound and Robert Anton Wilson and Publishing and Editors," examines RAW's general disdain for the editors he worked with. There are lots of interesting comments to the post. The piece is "part one," and I am really looking forward to part two. 

Bobby Campbell on the Robert Shea anthology

 

One more item, if I may, from Bobby Campbell's latest newsletter: 

"Wanted to make sure I mentioned this wonderful addition to the Illuminatus! canon, an excellently crafted spotlight on co-author Robert Shea. My enthusiastic review is enclosed below:

Meet Bob Shea! The legendary co-creator of Illuminatus!, Hodge to Robert Anton Wilson's Podge, a luminous man of letters, friendly suburban zen buddhist anarchist, and visionary creator of better tomorrows, that you are most welcome to enjoy today!

Tom Jackson has crafted a perfect introduction to Robert Shea's literary labyrinth, a guided tour of his revolutionary ouvré, wherein Shea's unique voice delivers enlightening epiphanies as casually as an old friend discussing the weather.

Make no mistake, the mystic mystery of Illuminatus! continues right here and now!

More on the book here. 

In a comment on my recent post about the latest Hilaritas podcast, podcast host Mike Gathers said the podcast on the Shea book and the Vincent Murphy podcast were two highlights in the 2025 podcasts. I thought the Shea podcast was good, too --- not because I was on it, but because Mike Shea told so many wonderful stories about his father. 

Maybe Day event planned in Berkeley, California, in July

Wilmington Comic Fest at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware 1/10/26

Bobby Campbell's latest newsletter has an announcement that I think deserves a separate blog post, so that it can get a little attention: " I have set my sights on an in-person Maybe Day event in Berkeley, California on July 23, 2026. We'll see!"

I hope this comes together, and of course as I learn more, I will share here. 

Bobby of course is the founder of the annual Maybe Day celebrations on July 23, and the more recent midwinter Maybe Night events. At first, these were online celebrations, but recently Bobby has shifted more toward in-person events, such as his Wilmington Comic Fest conventions. 

I am a big fan of the possibilities of the internet, but there also is something to be said about in-person meetups. I certainly loved my time with Gregory Arnott and Bobby at Confluence in Pittsburgh, and I got to meet up with Gregory and his wife at another Confluence. 

Free 'Tales' webcomic and other Bobby Campbell news

 

In his latest newsletter, Bobby Campbell announces that Tales of Illuminatus No. 2 has now been released as a free webcomic, so that everyone can now read it. Print and digital copies remain available, as the free version likely won't be around forever. 

"I'm super psyched to have this out in the wild, and hopefully catch more folks up on our illuminated tales as we ready the next installment," Bobby says.

Bobby has combined two separate newsletters, previously on Substack, and moved to a new platform,  ghost.io, for a combined newsletter, Gloria Discordia. If you got the previous newsletters you should be getting the new one; otherwise, sign up here. 

I'll have a separate post on some of Bobby's other news, as I don't want it to get lost in the Tales announcement. But you can go ahead and read all about it.