City of Pillars [Paperback]

Dominic Peloso (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2000

Men In Black...An Ancient Manuscript...A City that Isn't Supposed to Exist...No matter how paranoid you are, you're not paranoid enough!

Mitchell Sinclair is an innocent man who accidentally comes into possession of an ancient text. Soon he is being chased to the ends of the earth, pursued by shadowy forces who seem intent on getting the book back and eliminating all evidence of it. As he attempts to stay alive and translate the mysterious document he uncovers horrific and ominous details of an ancient, worldwide conspiracy. But the question is, can he find the answers he seeks before he loses everything?

City of Pillars charts one man's journey into madness, past the narrow confines of Western notions of reason and scientific reality. As he decodes more and more of the secrets of the City of Pillars, Sinclair is pushed farther and farther outside the bounds of traditional society and is forced to discard his morality piece by piece to stay alive. He is forced to answer the question:

How far a I willing to go to uncover the truth?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[T]akes the hoary plot device of an innocent haunted by murderous operatives to delirious new heights" -- Brutarian Magazine, Fall 2001

About the Author

The name 'Dominic Peloso' has a Kabbalistic value of 284.

Despite being very well rounded, he is usually obtuse and is rather pointed despite not being too sharp. He holds MS degrees in Nuclear Physics, Environmental Engineering, and Biochemistry. He knows how to build a nuclear weapon, and has taught classes in the subject at the Joint Military Intelligence College. Due to what can only be attributed to a clerical error, he has been allowed to freely roam the halls of the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and a few places that don't even officially exist. He is currently developing environmentally friendly ways to dispose of chemical weapons left over from the Cold War. Besides writing subversive novels, his hobbies include; esoteric gnostic religions, hermeticism, tribal art, ethical philosophy, particle physics, environmental extremism, 20th century literature, feng shui, international politics, '80s dreampop, and several other things that absolutely no one else seems to be interested in. Although he sometimes wears black, he adamantly denies being affiliated in any way with the Knights Templar, Illuminati, or the Rosicrucians.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Invisible College Press (December 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931468001
• ISBN-13: 978-1931468008
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,468,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A conspiracy book that's not a conspiracy book., January 2, 2002

By 

Chris - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Pillars (Paperback)

A man is pushed to the brink of madness as he tries to decode an ancient text and stop a secret conspiracy from taking over the world. But this book isn't about the conspiracy itself, it is more about how a conspiracy, any conspiracy could succeed in today's modern society. It focuses on complacency and indifference, qualities that are required to live in the crowded, impersonal society we now live in, but qualities that make it so simple to manipulate the world from behind the scenes. How many of us would take on the challenge of 'outing' a worldwide conspiracy if we ever found evidence of one? It is much easier to keep our mouth closed, our belly full, and lie on the couch watching Baywatch reruns.

This book is more like Pynchon's "Crying of Lot 49", or Eco's "Foucoult's Pendulum" than it is to Wilson's "Illuminatus" Like life, the answers aren't all there, blatantly thrown in front of us. This book leaves more questions than it answers, but the satisfaction comes in the journey, not the solution. By the way, don't expect everything to turn out happy in the end, life isn't like that.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A modern Eric Ambler, April 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: City of Pillars (Paperback)

City of Pillars is about a man who discovers an anceint manuscript, only to have people attempt to kill him for it. This is reminiscent of Eric Ambler's work, where a common person gets caught up in something larger than himself. It is unlike Ambler's, in that the main character is not able to remain unaffected; his principals and personality change.

The book is sort of a cross between the Prisoner (the television show by Patrick McGoohan), Diary of a Madman, and some of Hume's and Kant's philosophies. In between some good action sequences (I especially like a scene of panic at the beginning) is some biting commentary on our society.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense, May 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: City of Pillars (Paperback)

Reading this book makes you feel like you've been running a race, but it is more than a typical 'action adventure'. Mr. Peloso has spent a considerable amount of effort drawing together diverse spiritual and historical subjects such as the Kaballah, Rosicrucianism, and the Qur'an, and fused them with well-known 'mythology' subjects such as the Men in Black and the origin of the Pyramids in Egypt. In addition to the action and 'mythology', the novel is filled with biting social and political commentary about the complacency and materialism of modern society. Overall, City of Pillars reads like a mix of The Celestine Prophecy and Fight Club, and could easily become an underground classic.