Schrödinger's cat (novel trilogy)

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Schrödinger's cat (engl. Schrödinger's Cat - by Erwin Schrödinger's thought experiment Schrödinger's cat ) is a novel - trilogy of Robert Anton Wilson . It consists of the following volumes:

  1. The Universe Next Door (Engl. The Universe Next Door )
  2. The magic hat (Engl. The Trick Top Hat )
  3. The pigeons (Engl. The Homing Pigeons )

The main theme of the trilogy is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics . Each band plays in a different parallel universe that is slightly different from the other two. With the plot, the author parodies various conspiracy theories at the same time in the form of various secret societies and secret services that use disinformation and multiple agents from the background to steer the fate of the world. This is a parallel to the Illuminatus novel trilogy ! , Which he, along with Robert Shea wrote. He also took over some characters from this work.

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The plot takes place in Unistat, the novel equivalent to the USA, and describes overlapping storylines with a variety of characters, e.g. B .:

  • Epicene Wildeblood, (after gender reassignment: Mary Margaret Wildeblood), a transsexual literary critic who often throws wild parties
  • Frank Dashwood, President of Orgasm Research (name is a reference to the famous libertine Sir Francis Dashwood )
  • Markoff Chaney, a dwarf
  • Hugh Crane (also: Cagliostro the Great), a mystic and magician
  • Furbish Lousewart V, author and president of Unistat
  • Marvin Gardens, author and cocaine addict
  • Eve Hubbard, Unistat Scientist and Alternate President
  • Dr. Rauss Elysium, founder of the Invisible Hand Society (the name is an allusion to the expression daughter from Elysium in the poem An die Freude by Friedrich Schiller )

Wilson himself also appears in various places in the books. Real people are transferred into completely new contexts. B. James Joyce in one volume an opera singer, while in another as Pope he fundamentally reforms the Catholic Church.

In The Universe Next Door , Furbish Lousewart V is the President of Unistat. In this universe, a terrorist organization called Purity of Essence threatens to detonate Unistat's atomic bombs in a number of large cities if President Lousewart does not confiscate property greater than $ 1 million and distribute it to the poor in the country.

In The Magic Hat, it is not Furbish Lousewart who is president, but Eve Hubbard. She tries to improve the life of humanity, for example by promoting the colonization of space and the development of longevity pills. In addition, everyone who develops a robot that does its job is guaranteed a monthly basic supply. President Hubbard also radically changes the legal system. There are now only three different categories of crimes: victimless crimes that are not punished, financial crimes that are punished with repayment of the damage, and serious crimes such as B. Murder punished by sending the guilty party to Hell, which here describes a real place that is cut off from the rest of Unistat and forms a world of its own. In this universe, Unistat becomes a kind of utopia .

In the third volume, The Carrier Pigeons , Kennedy is President, but this figure has little to do with the well-known President Kennedy . There are also parts of this book where either Lousewart or Hubbard are presidents of Unistat.

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