Foucault's Pendulum

One Colonel Ardenti, who has unnaturally black, brilliantined hair, a carefully-groomed mustache, wears maroon socks, and who once served in the Foreign Legion, starts it all. He tells three Milan book editors that he has discovered a coded message about a Templar Plan, centuries old and involving Stonehenge -- a plan to tap a mystic source of power far greater than atomic energy. The editors, who have spent altogether too much time rewriting crackpot manuscripts on the occult by fanatics and dilettantes, decide to have a little fun. They'll create a Plan of their own. But how? Randomly they throw together manuscript pages on hermetic thought; The Masters of the World, who live beneath the earth, The Comte de Sain-Germain, who lives forever. They add Satanic initiation rites of the Knights of the Temple, Assassins, Rosicrucians, Brazilian voodoo, the Third Reich. And they feed all this, and much more, into their powerful computer, Abulafia. A terrific joke, they think, until the Plan assumes and life and power of its own, and turns deadly -- as people mysteriously begin to disappear, one by one, starting with Colonel Ardenti.

About the Author :
Umberto Eco was born in 1932 in Alessandria, Italy. He is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, a philosopher, historian, literary critic and aethetician. He is the author of the international bestselling novels "The Name of the Rose" and "The Island of the Day Before," as well as three collections of popular essays, "Travels in Hyperreality, Misreadings "and "How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays." Mr. Eco lives in Milan. Tim Curry studied Drama and English at Cambridge and at Birmingham University, from which he graduated with Combined Honors. He created the role of Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show and starred in the screen version The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He has received two Tony Award nominations for best actor and won the Royal Variety Club Award as "Stage Actor of the Year." A composer and a singer, Mr. Curry toured the US and Europe with his own band and released four albums for A&M records. Tim's distinctive voice can be heard on more than a dozen audiobooks, and in countless animated television series and videos. He's read for such authors as Lemony Snicket, Brian Herbert, Ken Follett, and Stephen King. In describing one of Tim's performances, "AudioFile" Magazine said, "Curry is a master of dry, ironic tones that add an additional undercurrent of suspense, keeping the listener off-balance throughout."