GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado – Hilaritas Press has published the first new book in more than 30 years by Robert Shea, best known for co-writing Illuminatus!, the popular cult novel written with his friend, Robert Anton Wilson.
Shea also was known for his historical novels such as Shike and All Things Are Lights, books that still draw rave reviews from readers at websites such as Goodreads and Amazon.
When Shea died in 1994, an obituary announced that a book would come out collecting his short pieces. That plan has finally been realized 30 years later with the publication of Every Day Is a GOOD Day, a collection of Shea’s writings. The book is edited by Tom Jackson, who has often written about Shea at his RAWIllumination.net website.
The book is expected to appeal to fans of Illuminatus!, to readers who have enjoyed Shea’s acclaimed historical novels and to people interested in anarchist theory. Shea published an anarchist fanzine, No Governor, and often wrote about anarchism.
Experts on Illuminatus! in both the United States and the United Kingdom who have read advance copies of Every Day Is a GOOD Day have praised the book. For the full text of their comments, please see the "Endorsements" page on this website.
Since Robert Shea’s death, his son and literary executor, Mike Shea, has re-released Shea’s historical novels under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike licenses, meaning that ebooks of the novels are widely available at no cost on the Internet, at Project Gutenberg and other websites, including the bobshea.net website maintained by Mike Shea.
Used paper copies of Shea’s novels remain available at reasonable prices, and inexpensive Kindle editions of Shike, All Things Are Lights and Shaman are available on Amazon. The Illuminatus! trilogy has remained in print since its original publication in the 1970s. The first novel in the trilogy, The Eye in the Pyramid, was printed in September 1975, so the new Robert Shea book is coming out on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the publication of the trilogy.
Every Day Is a GOOD Day is published by Hilaritas Press, the small press publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust. After Wilson died in 2007, the trust was set up by Wilson’s daughter, Christina Pearson, to preserve Wilson’s literary legacy.
Wilson and Shea worked together at Playboy magazine as editors in the 1960s. The two Illuminatus! co-authors remained close friends after Wilson moved away from Chicago, the then-home of Playboy’s editorial offices. The new book includes Wilson’s moving tribute to his old friend, written after he learned of Shea’s death. Richard Rasa, co-founder and publisher at Hilaritas Press, designed the book, created the book’s cover and served as the book’s chief editor.
Buy at Amazon. Or buy at Barnes and Noble. Or buy at Bookshop.org and support a local bookstore.
Comments
Post a Comment