Conspiracies in literature

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I love conspiracy theories, I love intrigue and double-crossing and I love secret societies - the older, weirder and more sinister the better. Robert Rankin is a great one for this, and I quite liked Iain Banks's The Business, about a clandestine company that dates from the days of the Roman republic. Then you've got Lovecraft's various cults and secret societies, and I have to say I enjoyed this aspect of The da Vinci Code (it's just a shame about the one-dimensional characterisation, clunky prose, gratuitous technical descriptions, appallingly cliched posh-bumbling-English-twit-who-turns-out-to-be-the-baddie and cop-out ending).

Can anyone point me towards some more half-decent fiction of this sort?
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus trilogy is probably the grandaddy of a lot of this stuff. Very tied to the hippy era it was written in tho.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I'd second Foucault's Pendulum and Illuminatus.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson might be worth a look. I'm not a massive fan of it, but it's fun, and has some quite good geekery in it.

The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow both have some element of conspiracy, too. And they're well worth reading in their own right.

They're not really about conspircies in the same sense, but I think good spy novels would probably hit the same buttons - try John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, for instance.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus trilogy is probably the grandaddy of a lot of this stuff. Very tied to the hippy era it was written in tho.

Yeah, I read that - wait a sec, no I didn't, I read the Schrodinger' Cat trilogy (by R.A.W. and some other guy also named Robert, I think). Which I found frequently enjoyable, but far too all-over-the-place and, well, pretentious not to be quite annoying. Is Illuminatus! in the same sort of vein? (if you've read SC or can compare I! to my description of it...)

Edit: Cryptonomicon is fantastic - read it a few years ago and I think it's probably one of my favourite books. :)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
you might try snow crash as well then, though it probably has more RAW in it

I mean to get round to reading some of Stephenson's (future-set) sci-fi, but at the moment I'm reading* Quicksilver, from his 'Baroque' cycle. Which is great too, in case anyone is wondering.

*or rather, will resume once I've finished Austerlitz
 

adruu

This Is It
the writing about conspiracy theories, fourierism, and all that in The Arcades Project sort of trumps everything i've read in novels. with the exception of pynchon who just approaches it all differently anyway...

how can you really top Indiana Jones and The Last Crusades? =)
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Is Illuminatus! in the same sort of vein? (if you've read SC or can compare I! to my description of it...)
Nah, Illuminatus is essential. Very funny. Being all over the place is kind of the point of Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy and it makes it's point well but it's no where near as entertaining.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Cool. Cheers for the recommendations everyone, I'll check out Pendulum and Illuminatus! in the near future.

Keep the thread rolling if this has got anyone interested, by the way...
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I never read/watched The Da Vinci Code but I did read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail when it came out and from what I understand of the former they do seem awfully similar in content.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I never read/watched The Da Vinci Code but I did read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail when it came out and from what I understand of the former they do seem awfully similar in content."
Well, they deal with the same legend don't they? HB&HG purports to have discovered the truth (their work since discredited) and DVC gives an entirely fictional (and admittedly so) treatment of that truth. So does Foucault's Pendulum for that matter sort of.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Yeah I reckon that means it's all true. That's why they let Dan Brown win the court case, to make it look more like fiction and further discredit the other dudes. Obvious really.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Snowcrash is just one of the best books ever, it repays reading as well, I've still never finished Cryptonomicon despite trying it three times though.

The Iluminatus thing I loved but I wonder whether it helps reading it younger rather than older. Also smoking loads of dope helps when reading it, i can't imagine reading it not stoned, but it's totally essential for conspiracy shit. And of course Uncle Bill Burroughs is there if you want to go down that route. I've greatly enjoyed Mark Manning and Bill Drummond's stuff too, to my surprise, I was expecting to hate it.
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
I never got around to reading it but The instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears or similar I think was a murky historic thriller possibly fitting desired specifications.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Snowcrash is just one of the best books ever, it repays reading as well, I've still never finished Cryptonomicon despite trying it three times though.
How did you get bogged down with it? I was hooked from the first page. The bit where he mercilessly rips it out these smug po-mo Californian social-science academics had me piddling myself with joy. :D
I've greatly enjoyed Mark Manning and Bill Drummond's stuff too, to my surprise, I was expecting to hate it.
I read The Wild Highway last year courtesy of IdleRich - fantastic stuff, I need to read the others in the series now.
 

pfhlick

t'paal nokht
i first read illuminatus! when i was 13 or 14 and it was fan fuckin tastic.

i recently picked up a copy of Masks of the Illuminati, also by RAW, and found it to be a much more mature and subtly funny take on conspiracy lit. Sir John Babcock gets mixed up with the Ordo Templi Orientis and has his experience explained to him by young Einstein and James Joyce. find a copy of this shit, top notch.
 
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