If you received an invitation to attend a mysterious masked ball held by a secret organization of the rich and powerful, would you accept? Meet the five candidates who do: the scientist, the singer, the chef, the attorney, and the financier. They crave power, love, money, respect, fame – that which eludes them. Their enigmatic host, known only as Pig King, craves something more basic: salvation for his kind. But the Illuminati Ball requires a sacrifice… “I was seduced by Cynthia’s art. She is a wonder.” – Neil Gaiman “Creative genius.” – Forbes

Mike Auburn dangles above the city of Chicago from the beams of a half-built skyscraper. He is seconds from plummeting towards the circuit board of buildings and streetlights below, but oblivion is not what he seeks—it’s the dead. Obsessed with discovering evidence of the afterlife, Mike’s death-defying stunts have brought him closer than ever to lifting the veil of reality, always just out of reach. However, his ventures to the edge have not gone unnoticed, and a mysterious organization by the name “O’Neill” seeks to recruit him to their own cause: preparing the city for impending Ragnarok, the end of the world as they know it. Before long, a world ruled by scientific method and rational thinking is challenged by the supernatural—luring the dead, the damned, and the demons that have long awaited the return of magic, and they will stop at nothing to bring it back for good. Suddenly, Mike is at the center of a battle between the forces of reason, of good, of evil...and everything in between.

This American underground classic is a rollicking cosmic mystery featuring Albert Einstein and James Joyce as the ultimate space/time detectives. One fateful evening in a suitably dark, beer-soaked Swiss rathskeller, a wild and obscure Irishman named James Joyce would become the drinking partner of an unknown physics professor called Albert Einstein. And on that same momentous night, Sir John Babcock, a terror-stricken young Englishman, would rush through the tavern door bringing a mystery that only the two most brilliant minds of the century could solve . . . or perhaps bringing only a figment of his imagination born of the paranoia of our times. An outrageous, raunchy ride through the twists and turns of mind and space, Masks of the Illuminati runs amok with all our fondest conspiracy theories to show us the truth behind the laughter . . . and the laughter in the truth. Praise for Masks of the Illuminati “I was astonished and delighted . . . Robert Anton Wilson managed to reverse every mental polarity in me, as if I had been pulled through infinity.”—Philip K. Dick “[Wilson is] erudite, witty, and genuinely scary.”—Publishers Weekly “A dazzling barker hawking tickets to the most thrilling tilt-a-whirls and daring loop-o-planes on the midway to a higher consciousness.”—Tom Robbins “Wilson is one of the most profound, important, scientific philosophers of this century—scholarly, witty, hip, and hopeful.”—Timothy Leary

In 1966, everyone who was anyone wanted an invitation to Truman Capote's "Black and White Dance" in New York, and guests included Frank Sinatra, Norman Mailer, C. Z. Guest, Kennedys, Rockefellers, and more. Lavishly illustrated with photographs and drawings of the guests, this portrait of revelry at the height of the swirling, swinging sixties is a must for anyone interested in American popular culture and the lifestyles of the rich, famous, and talented.

The murder of a world-famous physicist raises fears that the Illuminati are operating again after centuries of silence, and religion professor Robert Langdon is called in to assist with the case.

"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy", is an 1842 short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, hosts a masquerade ballwithin seven rooms of the abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. Prospero dies after confronting this stranger, whose "costume" proves to contain nothing tangible inside it; the guests also die in turn. Poe's story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the titular disease. The story was first published in May 1842 in Graham's Magazineand has since been adapted in many different forms, including a 1964 film starring Vincent Price.

Unravelling the genealogies and permutations of conspiracist worldviews, this work shows how this web of urban legends has spread among sub-cultures on the Internet and through mass media, and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture.

Has the world’s hottest pop star been kidnapped, joined a secret sect, or simply gone into hiding? The answer lies in the abandoned subway stations of Chicago . . . One minute insanely famous pop singer Molly Metropolis is on her way to a major performance in Chicago, and the next, she’s gone. A journalist who’s been covering Molly joins the singer's personal assistant in an increasingly desperate search to find her, guided by a journal left behind in her hotel room, and possible clues hidden in her songs—all of which seem to point to an abandoned line in the Chicago subway system. It leads them to a map of half-completed train lines underneath Chicago, which in turn leads them to the secret, subterranean headquarters of an obscure intellectual sect—and the realization that they’ve gone too far to turn back. And if a superstar can disappear without a trace . . . what can happen to these young women? Suspenseful and wildly original, The Ghost Network is a novel about larger-than-life fantasies—of love, sex, pop music, amateur detective work, and personal reinvention. Debut novelist Catie Disabato bursts on the scene with an ingeniously plotted, witty, haunting mystery.

After she is mistaken for someone else at the Halloween Ball and consequently loses the prize for best costume, the angry old witch plans her revenge.