2001...Are We There Yet?

Keir Dullea & I.  September 2016

My mind’s been in – or on – 2001 of late.

I’ve seen the science fiction film many times but over the last few weeks I finally took time to read the book by Arthur C. Clarke.  It’s as sprawling and magnificent a science fiction experience as the film is but a bit less enigmatic – but only a bit.  The book, as is usually the case, fleshes out several sequences.  Interestingly in the book the monolith has multiple lessons like how to tie knots in addition to the use of deadly force with a bone.  And the ending has a more menacing, if not surprising, note to it.

In addition to the book, in September I had the pleasure of hearing at the MidAtlantic Nostalgia Convention first hand 2001 film remembrances by stars Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood.  Interestingly, Dullea said that HAL’s voice on set was delivered by a set worker with a cockney accent light years from the iconic computer's now famous voice.  Both Dullea and Lockwood agreed that director Stanley Kubrick had a masterful photographer’s eye, especially in regards to detail.  Kubrick was also open to allowing the actors to bring ideas to the table.  Lockwood suggested the astronauts attempt to confer without HAL’s ease dropping in the space pod.  It’s a scene I can assure you was not in the book.

I’m done with 2001 for now.  It’s 2016.  But I have to wonder – where are the promised space ships?

April No Fool's Deal

    
The 1st of April has finally arrived and here in Maryland after a brutal winter there's a tantalizing taste of spring from a sunny sky.

Here's my attempt to tantalize you with an April deal.  Use the code FOOLSGOLD to get 10% off your order of either of my books or both from www.lulu.com/spotlight/wrigler

I've always been a big fan of sci-fi.  I logged countless hours in front of ye olde tv - the kind that was the living room floor's centerpiece with a big back behind the screen and an incapabbilty to switch channels unless the viewer actually rose to turn a knob on it - watching classic sci-fi shows.  My favs were from the 60's in which more imagination was put into the programs then dollars for special efects.  Sci-fi films were great too.  And books? 

I loved the wild romantisism found on the colorful covers of early sci-fi books.  Bug eyed aliens were cool - intergalactic views of or from space ships were fantastic.  I was introduced to Ray Bradbury in middle school when the reading assignment was The Martian Chronicles.  I found the ideas nifty, but it wasn't until I re-read the book on my own in my high school years that I was truly hooked by Bradbury's marvelous Martian landscape of adventure and introspection.  Other sci-fi novels quickly figured amongst my favorites as well, like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

My imagination has always been rather wide-ranging and it wasn't long until I was coming up with my own ideas for sci-fi adventures.  Horror and fantasy tales also spewed from my mind.  Finally a couple years ago I decided to go ahead and bring those ideas to the printed page in a book called Summoned Secrets.  In Summoned Secrets you'll learn the secrets of...

An alien world where hunters test their skills and dragons dwell.
A library whose biographies hold the key to life and death.
History's most infamous serial killer's gambling... More > habits. And more...
18 strange stories of science fiction, dark fantasy, suspense & horror.
12 poetic creations.
1 book.
"With a cast that includes dimension-hopping murderers,extraterrestrial monsters and even the shade of Poe himself, Rigler's dark imagination will help populate your nightmares for days to come." Nathan Rosen, editor at microhorror.com

And my second book, Masters of the Alpha Crystals, is a novel of intergalactic intrigue and 
adventure in which Earth finds itself under attack by alien invaders. They do not ask for surrender or terms, merely seek destruction. All seems hopeless and then another mysterious alien craft appears in Earth's... More > sky...

While lulu.com offers 10% savings of either or both books by using FOOLSGOLD code when ordering April 1st 2014 or April 2, 2014, I hope you will take adventure of the deal and check out my sci-fi ideas.  But even if you miss the sale, the books will still be there at my spotlight.  No fooling.