Consisting of Book One:
The Universe Next Door, Book One:
The Trick Top Hat, and Book One:
The Homing Pigeons, the trilogy (copyright 1979) is a follow-up and companion piece to
The Illuminatus! Trilogy. A dizzying ride through quantum physics and politics, a
manifold of images taken from the late seventies.
Robert Anton Wilson obviously was taking a lot of
hallucinogens when writing TI!T with
Robert Shea. For
Schroedinger's Cat he ditches his co-author, and appears to have spent a little more time with
cocaine. Different decade, different drug, same ethic -- "It's an ill wind that blows no minds."
Structurally, this book is a glimpse though the multiverse, several different takes on the world as seen through the eyes of several of the players from TI!T.
Although not a linear sequel, SCT does follow the themes of
metaprogramming,
mental circuits, and the ideas of
Timothy Leary. When recommending these
books to people, I always say,
"Illuminatus will blow your mind. Schrodinger will show you how to blow everybody else's."
In my copy, there is a notation on the first page, in neatly lettered black ink. It says "Happy Jack". I believe I was on LSD when I made the note. I wish I knew what it means. It seems that if I could understand what a lesser-know Who song has to do with the universe next door, I would understand Everything.