Richard Thieme at Borderlands San Fran Oct 30 and Ada Technical Books Seattle Nov 6

[Richard Thieme <rthieme () thiemeworks com>]

Richard Thieme will be reading from his new work of fiction, “Mind
Games,” and signing copies at Borderlands Books at 866 Valencia, San
Francisco, on

*SATURDAY OCTOBER 30 2010 at 3:00 P.M.*

Borderlands Books

866 Valencia St.
SF CA 94110
415 824-8203
888 893-4008
http://www.borderlands-books.com

and

Richard Thieme is the Featured Author in November at Ada's Technical
Books in downtown Seattle. He will be reading from his new work of
fiction, “Mind Games,” and signing copies of "Mind Games" and "Islands
in the Clickstream," a collection of his think pieces on the impacts of
technology, at Ada's on Broadway East in Seattle WA on

*SATURDAY NOVEMBER 6 2010 at 4:30 P.M.*

Ada's Technical Books
713 Broadway East
Seattle, WA 98102


please tell your friends, even if you can't be there!



"the only way you can tell the truth," a friend at NSA said, "is through
fiction" ... so I did ...

"Mind Games" is a unique collection of 19 stories of brave new worlds
and alternate realities - stories of computer hackers, deception and
intelligence, puzzling anomalies, spirituality and mysteries of
consciousness, the paranormal, alien life forms - in short,
everyday life in the 21st century. All have been previously published in
literary, slipstream, and science fiction magazines and anthologies but
have not been available in a single collection - until now.

The most common response to Thieme's writing and speaking is:

"You made me think."

This first edition is beautifully illustrated and published by Duncan
Long Publications.



“The depth, complexity, and texture of Richard Thieme’s thought
processes break the mold.” Brian Snow, Senior Technical Director, NSA (ret)

“Thieme’s ability to communicate complex, abstract concepts and
personalize them is like verbal origami.” - Jeff Moss, Director, Black
Hat, a division of TechWeb/United Business Media, and a member of the
DHS HSAC

“Silent Emergent, Doubly Dark” is ... very imaginative writing, with a
complexity that raises [the story] to the fringes of slipstream. We’re
left wondering what’s real and what’s not ....” Steven Pirie, /The
Future Fire/

“Beautiful descriptions and intriguing concepts ...” The Fix (UK).

“Thieme’s clarity of thinking is refreshing, and his insights are
profound.” Bruce Schneier, security technologist and author.

“The reader is left reeling, dizzy with insight.” Robin Roberts,
Information Security R&D, CIA (ret)

"Richard Thieme takes us to the edge of cliffs we know are there but
rarely visit. He wonderfully weaves life, mystery, and passion through
digital and natural worlds with creativity and imagination. Delightful
and deeply thought provoking reading." - Clint Brooks, former Senior
Advisor for Homeland Security and Assistant Deputy Director, NSA



    * some reviews of “Mind Games:

Jim Higgins. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

•Writer, speaker and consultant Richard Thieme has spent enough time
with hackers and National Security Agency people to bring a convincing
tone of anxiety to some of the stories in "Mind Games" (Duncan Long
Publishing, $20). In "Zero Day: Roswell," the haughty puppeteers who
think they're controlling events find out what end of the string they
really have. "Incident at Wolf Cove" is ostensibly a Cheever-inspired
story about the effects on a couple when the man sees a UFO descend into
a lake, but it could also be read as a meditation on what happens to the
relationships of a person who has a life-changing vision, real or
psychotic. "Nothing is what it seems," Thieme and his characters state
or imply consistently. His earlier books include the anthology "Islands
in the Clickstream: Reflections on Life in a Virtual World," a
collection of his widely published columns.


J. M. Arrigo, a professor familiar with "the dark side" of intelligence
operations -

This extraordinary book of short stories draws the reader into multiple
levels of reality and multiple dimensions. The settings are mostly
futuristic, as in engineered societies. But the principles of social
engineering are laid bare, inducing the reader to reflect on current
values, desires, and markers of progress.

The story that resonates most with me is a subtle account of a married
couple's evening out with friends, "Incident at Wolf Cave." On return
home at night -- by the husband/narrator's account --they are witness to
UFOs over a lake. Next day, when the husband remarks on the sighting,
the wife denies it. This incident closes the door to the psychic flow
between them, and they gradually divorce. A UFO story, yes, but who has
not felt this closing of the door when reality changes for one friend
but not another?

The form of the book, consonant with the theme, veers into another
dimension of literature. The short introduction to each story describes
the author's relevant life experiences, quests, or critiques. Rather
than demystifying the story, the author thereby locks the reader more
securely into the mystery of the story. Artist Duncan Long has also
provided a sort of portrait introduction to each story, in which the
boundary between line drawing and photograph cannot be discerned --
another play on the junctures of different realities.

Liking and disliking is maybe not the right attitudinal axis for this
book. Better: Are we game for these uncomfortable mental adventures in
consciousness and the nature of reality?



a comment from a colleague at the National Security Agency:

<depressed robot voice>

There he is, brain the size of a small planet, and what do they ask him?
"Should we file this under fiction or non-fiction, Richard?" You'd think
that they'd never considered the possibility that it's all true and all
fiction, just different dimensions of the same experience...

and another ...

Reviewing Mind Games by Richard Thieme is a somewhat awkward task, in
large part because the usual topics of such a review (plot, character
development, writing style, narrative structure, etc.) seem to be beside
the point. It's not that Thieme is a bad writer. Quite the contrary,
he's quite capable, and the book is full of turns of phrase and
extremely observant attention to the little details that make a lightly
sketched scene turn real in one's mind. No, it's more that as with
writers such as Philip K. Dick, the stories Thieme presents are delivery
vehicles for ideas that will burrow into your mind and if one is
fortunate, set your thoughts on their own "connect the dots" mission to
destinations unknown.

The individual stories in this collection stand well on their own, but
taken as a whole, they present a sort of fractal message to the reader
from the mind of Thieme. Yes, they are stories, but they are also an
interwoven reiteration of basic concepts at multiple levels of
granularity. As I said, fractal - delve down to detail, the pattern is
there. Zoom out to macro level, the pattern repeats. The concepts that
Thieme puts forth about how the world works, the interaction between
people, the relationship of people to technology, information and
control, the nature of spirituality, and all the rest are everywhere one
looks, if one chooses to notice.

The question is whether one sees the message, and one's ability to
discern the message, whether or not one fully accepts it. And in some
ways, just as perfume reacts with the individual body chemistry of the
wearer, Thieme's basic message is not of the form of him telling you
what to think, but rather of him pulling aside the veil, showing
glimpses of the man behind the curtain, and asking "what are the
implications for you, dear reader?" He opens the door, and allows you to
decide for yourself what lies beyond the door.

This will be a life-changing book for some of those who read it. Not in
the sense of the self-help tomes by the doctors, gurus and shamen who
assure you that your investment of $29.95 will bring you the answer to
finding your bliss. If anything, Thieme assures you just the opposite.
If, as in the movie The Matrix, you take Thieme's red pill, you will see
his vision of the truth, with all the implications. You can't just take
the happy parts, because they are inextricably bound to the uneasy
aspects of the reality Thieme channels.

Faced with a vision that disturbs our comfortable assumptions and even
our self-image, some will comprehend, and go off on their own way,
irrevocably changed. Some will understand, but will find the resulting
possibilities unsettling, so they will block out the ideas, and will
mentally file the stories under "fiction", never to be troubled by them
again. Others will just be puzzled, and wonder what the heck Thieme is
talking about. In short, a good segment of those who read this book will
soon forget the stories, and go back to their own corner of the generic
setting of Wolf Cove where Thieme sets some of his tales.

This loops back to why this book is difficult to review, and why it will
be a slow read for some. For those Thieme is attempting to reach, these
stories carry cargo of ideas to be savored, and the end of the book may
leave on longing for another ride on the merry-go-round.

But attempting to review such a book is kind of like doing a taste
comparison of apples, only to find out that one of them is from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil from the story of the Garden of Eden. Take
a bite of such an apple, and the taste test is suddenly a moot point.
It's not about the taste any more when one's mind has been bent and
one's eyes have been opened to a different perspective. There's more
going on than the flavor and texture of a mere apple.

But still, it's a nice, crisp, juicy apple. Go ahead. Take a bite!

Michael D. Bauer, former editor of Linux Magazine:

This book is exactly how I hoped it might be: not so much Richard Thieme
essays (much as I enjoy those!) in fictional format, but simply
excellent stories that happen to concern reality-manipulation, the
elusiveness and relativity of truth, etc., each told in a variety of
voices that quite convincingly and entertainingly appear to belong, at
key moments, to other people. (That's the trick with fiction, isn't it?
Without convincing characters, it's just monologue.)

Having said all that, if you've ever seen Richard speak or have read his
essays online, the themes in this book will be familiar to you, as will
the wit, credibility, intellectual rigor, and warmth that shine through.
But again, I think you'll enjoy these stories for their own narrative sake.

And if you aren't familiar with Richard's work, you're in for a treat.
Come for the space-aliens and spies; stay for the cognitive workout!




Richard Thieme has published hundreds of articles, dozens of short
stories, two books with more coming, and given several thousand
speeches. He speaks professionally about the challenges posed by new
technologies and the future, how to redesign ourselves to meet these
challenges, and creativity in response to radical change. Many recent
speeches have addressed security and intelligence issues for
professionals around the world. He has keynoted conferences in Sydney
and Brisbane, Wellington and Auckland, Dublin and Berlin, Amsterdam and
Rotterdam, Israel and the USA. Clients range from GE and Microsoft to
the FBI, US Dept of the Treasury. and the US Secret Service. His
pre-blog column, "Islands in the Clickstream," was distributed to
thousands of subscribers in sixty countries before collection as a book
by Syngress, a division of Elsevier. His work has been taught at
universities in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States. He
lives with his wife, Shirley, in Fox Point, Wisconsin and can be reached
at www.thiemeworks.com <http://www.thiemeworks.com>
















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