What if what you believe in is wrong? What if your beliefs are a myth no more valid than Greek and Roman mythology? What if the ancient philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, got it wrong? Can’t be. Not after all these millennia. And who says they got it wrong, anyway?

Kyle Ignatius Llano, The Savant, the barrio dumpster baby, and the Sisyphean toiler, says they got it all wrong. Kyle’s brilliant manuscript, Cogitatio Universum, challenges centuries-old ideas underpinning the core of contemporary Western thought.

As such, Cogitatio Universum threatens the political and religious establishment. Kyle’s best friend, maybe his only friend, is a supernatural phenomenon, Steph. Steph is a ghost. So what? He lays claim to being Steven Hawking’s doppelganger and professes to know all things Hawking. Steph serves as a counterpoint to Kyle’s establishment-shattering ideas, a loyal friend, an antagonist, and the glue that connects Kyle to the people who love him.

We first meet Kyle when he eviscerates the pompous Dr. Edward Eddington Keller, the self-proclaimed authority on everything Cartesian. Word of Kyle Ignatius Llano is out, and the Right Reverend Richard Righteous vows to take down Satan’s wanton minister, Kyle Ignatius Llano.

Fast forward to 2044. A two-headed viper, a political juggernaut dubbed God and Government, is clawing at California’s border. For twenty years, the single-minded devotion to a brain-numbing dogma has stunted the intellectual growth and diversity in America. You think that kind of thing can’t happen in California. But it can. And the juggernaut is little Tommy Browne’s problem.

Armed with Uncle Kyle’s manuscript, Cogitatio Universum, the college student must decide if he is willing to breach the gates of hell.