From the Introduction: "In 2000, I set out to catalogue every published literary reference (no allusions) Burroughs had made throughout his career. The document you hold in your hands is the result. The Road to Interzone is an annotated checklist of the reading of William S. Burroughs. It stands as a testament of an obsession and more importantly, the raw material for an investigation into what John Livingston Lowes called, %u2018the shaping spirit of the imagination,%u2019 the source materials of what was to become Burroughs%u2019 literary legacy and the skeleton for an interpretation of the operational processes of influence and the function of artistic inspiration."