March 2024, as part of an ongoing hobby, I wrote fix for the giant hole in the plot of the 2013 movie Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise. All it amounts to is a couple added scenes and a few added paragraphs of dialog, but—like the other movie fixes I created—it’s nothing I can publish.

Aug 2023, The first half of a Youtube video of Slush doing a cover of Limelight by Rush. Don't ask me about the second half; whether or not the entire video will ever get officially published is an open question at this time.

Slush Limelight - Youtube

Feb 2023, Some new music from yours truly; an original single. Music by Dave Conklin. Lyrics by Richard Tidwell. Vocals: Rick Tidwell, Bass: Dave Conklin, Guitars: Dave Conklin, Drums: Terry Evans.

Illusions - Single by Ignorant Blitz on Apple Music

Illusions at Spotify

Ignorant Blitz - Illusions: lyrics and songs | Deezer

October 2021, the latest in the book writing department: I have been working on a follow-up story to The Pegasus Mission, picking up the story of the A-5 androids that were left behind on Titan. The title is: Robots of Titan. However, no current plans to self publish.

Other than that, I have taken up the odd hobby of writing new endings to various movies with bad to horrible endings. Of note is 2001 A Space Odyssey. Let’s face it, Stanley Kubrick was a great cinematographer, but the ending of 2001 got “cheaped out,” with the lengthy “acid-trip” kaleidoscope stuff and ink blots. The book of the same title is better, but I still thought there was room for improvement. | Another one is the 2011 movie Cowboys and Aliens. Well, can’t fix everything about this clinker with a new ending, but what I ended up with might be the best stuff I have ever written. Of course, I cannot publish either, as each contains scenes and characters from the movies blended within a new story line.

Here are few music videos of rock bands I have played in, though—bass, keyboards. A blast from the past, as it were:

Alone Again on Vimeo

Somebody to Love on Vimeo

Crystal Ball on Vimeo

A good book, if I do say so myself. And I think anyone should be able to follow along without necessarily having read Earth Raiders. I think writing hard-science-fiction—especially when you are doing your best to stay within the borders of hard science fiction, and avoid venturing too far into the whole “mystical realm” thing—can be one of the most taxing forms of writing; because not only do you have to be the master story teller, you have to be “Thomas Edison” at the same time, which is why I am very proud to have authored something with so much originality from front to back.

Back cover: It has all but become a historical footnote that one of the NASA astronauts caught up in Nekush Ajieen’s operation was the late Dr. Wesley Furste, who worked for NASA as a moon geologist and made no less than three round trips to the moon. His clone, created by Nekush, also made a trip to the moon and was presumed lost, having disappeared from the far side over fifty years ago. But guess what? He’s back, and man has he ever got a story to tell. . . .

Lulu.com - Behind the Veil of Pilash - paperback 177 pages. Format: 6X9 perfect bound, premium paperback. Year published: 2016.

Behind the Veil of Pilash chapter 1 (free pdf)

Reviews:
Joe B. (acquaintance)
Really enjoyed the book as usual. The characters are developed well, the settings are described to paint a great mental picture, and the technological side of things is based in enough science to make it fun. The best part is the inner thoughts and dialogue of the characters. Dr. Furste being the great hero. You have an amazing imagination.

My reponse: Have to disagree with Joe about one thing. I do not tend to write stories with a central character in mind, and in my opinion, if there is any great hero in the story, it is an alien named Chivasivay.

Back cover: An aquatic alien has been duplicated here on Earth, and he has wasted no time in taking hostages. Is he here as an enemy, or is he Earth’s last hope against an alien invasion? As the alien’s deception mounts, each member of a small group of human insiders must wrestle with his or her conscience regarding the creature and his deeds. As the truth slowly unfolds, five teenagers learn that the fate of the world might truly rest on their shoulders and whether or not they can crack an ancient Old-Testament code in time to spare Earth from imminent invasion.

Earth Raiders by David Conklin, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® 244 pages. Format: 6X9 perfect bound, premium paperback. Year published: 2011.

Earth Raiders chapts 1-4 (free pdf)

A bit of background behind this one: I think it's more of a movie--screen-writer--thing rather than a book-author thing, but I became fatigued of watching movies that start out sensible enough, only to become increasingly absurd until completely falling apart at the end (you know what I mean). So, good idea or bad, I decided to flip the phenomenon on its head and write a story that starts out a bit absurd, only to gradually make more sense and improve as the story progresses. The result, Earth Raiders and Behind the Veil . . . is a story that begins a bit toonish and, hopefully, ends up being worthwhile by the very end.

8/26/24: I recently moved this book from Lulu.com to Barnes & Noble after attempting to update the text file one day and learning it would no longer fit the cover. Lulu's only solution was that I reformat the text file or the cover, all over a measly 1/1000 of an inch. I will probably move the others as I get the time.

Back cover: In the latter part of the 21st century, a probe is sent to investigate the source of radiation recorded by Voyager 1 decades earlier at the very fringes of the sun’s influence. The probe discovers a strange object, assumed to be artificial, entering the outer solar system on a course trajectory for the inner solar system. Earth has assembled a manned mission, utilizing parts left over from NASA’s long-retired Space Shuttle Program, to intercept the object before it intersects the orbital path of Saturn. During the journey, the ship is lost, but little do the members of the five-person crew realize that they have not seen the last of the space shuttle Pegasus. Nor do they realize just how much their two-year adventure will change the course of humanity.

Lulu.com - The Pegasus Mission - paperback 270 pages. Format: 6x9 perfect bound, premium paperback. Year published: 2010, 1st Edition: 2007.

The Pegasus Mission chapts 1-4 (free pdf)

Some Pegasus Mission math that might not add up. Pegasus Mission math

Some background: My first science-fiction novel. I have read a lot of science-fiction novels that ultimately have very simple plot lines. So I set out to write something more complex – something that might need read more than once to fully comprehend (a puzzle to put together, as it were). Actually, in hindsight, I might have overdid it a little with this one, adding perhaps one to many sub-plots to the point that describing the central theme gets difficult. The central theme, though, is whether religion is complete nonsense or involves an element of truth that doesn’t involve an incomprehensible creator-of-all. Not an original thought, by far, when it come to science fiction, of course, but this story probably tackles the notion in a more obvious and direct manner than most, in the spirit of The Jesus Incident (F. Herbert and B. Ransom), for example. It is a theme, by the way, that carrys on through my later novels.

PM trivia: During the time I was writing The Pegasus Mission, I had several books by Arthur C. Clarke sitting on my bookshelf. However, it was only sometime after finishing the book that I happened to read Rendezvous With Rama for the first time. And I was gob smacked to discover the story to be a about a colossal rotating alien spacecraft that is landed on by a human spacecraft named the Endeavour, spelled the same way, even, due to various circumstances. Almost makes a person wonder if we both were not tuning into something—almost.

The following link is just a list of odd things I have come across after publishing a particular book, some things more suspicious than others, for the record. odd coincidences