[wool_gather]

Illuminatus! is deliberately a send-up of the kind of stuff that Dan Brown writes, though. He's sincerely trying to make thrillers; Wilson and Shea were (partly) making fun of authors like him.

[KineticLensman]

> Illuminatus! is deliberately a send-up of the kind of stuff that Dan Brown writes

To be clear (for the benefit of others), not specifically of Dan Brown. DB was only aged 11 when Illuminatus! was first published in 1975.