This book is a compilation of interviews of Terence McKenna as he is being asked by different people about the plethora of ideas McKenna was known to joust for. As a transcription of said interviews, these lose quite bit by being rendered in text, since Mckenna was mostly a very good conversationalist — the spoken word was his most unique quality; the text presented here becomes much drier than any recording on the same topic.

In any case, this is a good showcase of McKenna’s inventiveness and ease with making new and surprising connections. Since this book is organized by interviews standing for chapters, even if the book lacks some overall coherence making it a bit harder to take it as a whole work, this also allows you to read it as what it is, a compilation, something to be read in many sits, not necessarily tying the whole reading together.

If you are deeply interested in McKenna’s ideas and you’re looking to dig deeper to their origins and developments, inevitably you have to go through this book. However, if you’re just curious and not very prone to waste your time away reading, you’ll be much more satisfied by listening/watching to the many McKenna’s lectures available online, where you’ll not only learn about his ideas, but you’ll the get the full package of having the bard himself saying them, where he’ll delight you with his unmatchable skill in guiding your imagination through the power of his mastery of words.