No matter in which direction we look out from our position in space, everything is moving away from us at an ever-increasing rate. The Runaway Universe. It appears as though we are living on the surface of a balloon which is being inflated by the force of the Big Bang which first brought our universe into being. While some scientists believe that the universe will eventually run out of energy and die, others, including the author, suggest another, more exciting possibility. What if this universe is just one incarnation of a continuous series of universes that recycles through a sequence of expansions (Big Bangs) and contractions (Black Holes)? This book expands on ideas developed in Energy and Everything, the first of a three-part series by the author examining recent developments in the fields of particle physics and cosmology. Readers are invited to join the author in some interesting and challenging thought experiments designed to examine what is reality and what is illusion, all smoke and mirrors. Is the universe we live in merely a stage on which we act out our lives, telling our stories in a continuous, never-ending series of stories that join with countless other stories in a book called Life?