Richard Thieme

Bewildering Stories biography

to Bewildering Stories bibliography

“Those who were seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music.” — Frederick Nietzsche

Richard Thieme has been hearing the music for a long time. His track record includes hundreds of articles, dozens of short stories, five books with more coming, several thousand speeches, and — in a former incarnation — hundreds of original sermons.

Thieme is an author and professional speaker focused on the deeper implications of technology, religion, and science for twenty-first century life. 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.

About a decade ago, a friend at the National Security Agency suggested that he could address the issues they discussed in a context of "ethical considerations for intelligence and security professionals" only if he wrote fiction. "It's the only way you can tell the truth," he was told. Three dozen published short stories and one novel later, the result is "Mind Games," published in 2010 by Duncan Long Publishing. “Mind Games” illuminates four kinds of “non-consensual realities:” the world of hackers; the worlds of intelligence professionals; encounters with other intelligent life forms; and illuminations of deeper states of consciousness. In addition, his topic for Def Con 22 (August 2014), The Only Way to Tell the Truth is in Fiction: The Dynamics of Life in the National Security State has been watched several thousand times.

Clients include: National Security Agency; the Pentagon; the FBI (internal presentation + 3 Infragard conferences); the U.S. Secret Service; Los Alamos National Laboratory; U.S. Department of the Treasury; GE Medical Systems; Medtronic; Microsoft; Johnson Controls; Thunderbird School of Global Management; IT Defense (Berlin); Ajilon; OmniTech; Strong Capital Management; Neohapsis; Network Flight Recorder; Merge eFilm; System Planning Corporation (SPC); International Intelligence Ethics Association; and many more. He has spoken for 21 straight years for the Black Hat Briefings (intelligence and corporate security) and Def Con, an annual computer hackers’ convention, and for other security conferenes around the world.

He was an enthusiastic contributor to the MUFON History Project documenting the response of the U.S. government to UFO phenomena in the 1940s and 1950s which resulted in “UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry,” a serious work of history that reads like a good novel. The book was singled out by CHOICE, an academic journal, and recommended for all university libraries. It is now in 65 of them. The neary 1000 citations point only to government documents and other primary sources, letting the government sources tell in their own words why UFOs were taken seriously in light of national security concerns.

Clients for keynotes, other speeches, and consulting

Publications

publications:

A Richard Thieme Reader Ñ a 5-volume e-book anthology of fiction and non-fiction available on Kindle. Spring 2016

FOAM Ñ a novel (Exurban Press: September 2015)

Mind Games: A Collection of Nineteen Stories of Brave New Worlds and Alternate Realities Duncan Long Publications, April 2010

Richard Thieme’s Islands in the Clickstream, Ñ a collection of non-fiction, Syngress Publishing (a division of Elsevier), July 2004.

UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry (Anomalist Books: San Antonio, TX: 2012) by Michael Swords and Robert Powell, with Richard Thieme, Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, Barry Greenwood, Jan Aldrich, and Steve Purcell — a team effort by a collection of veteran UFO historians and researchers who spent four plus years researching, consulting, writing, and editing to develop a work of historical scholarship on government response to the UFO phenomenon from WWII to the present. Recommended by CHOICE for inclusion in all academic libraries, currently in 50+ university and many public libraries..

“Silent Emergent, Doubly Dark” in Subtle Edens (editor Allen Ashley, Elastic Press: Norwich UK: 2008)

"IRemember Mama" in New Writing, Volume One: An Anthology of Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Drama From Press Americana (2013)

“Entering Sacred Digital Space” published in New Paradigms for Bible Study: The Bible in the Third Millennium from T. & T. Clark, Ltd., June 2004.

“Identity/Destiny” published in Prophecy Anthology, Volume 1" a full-color book featuring sequential art by artists such as Shannon Wheeler, Scott McCloud, Sho Murase, Yuko Shimizu, Nathan Fox and Bernie Mireault by Sequent Media (2004).

"The Changing Context of Intelligence and Ethics: Enabling Technologies as Transformational Engines" in Defense Intelligence Journal (accepted). Published in an adapted version in the proceedings of the New Paradigms for Security Workshop (NPSW 2008) and at the Ethical Spectacle (January 2009 – www.spectacle.org/ as “Changing Contexts of Security and Ethics: You Can’t Have One Without the Other.”

Short stories in Analog Science Fiction, Ascent, The Puckerbrush Review, Timber Creek Review, Porcupine, Zahir, The Future Fire, The Ranfurly Review, Bewildering Stories, anotherealm, Pacific Coast Journal, The Potomac Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Karamu, Combat, Heartlands, The Circle Magazine, The Listening Ear, Words on Walls, Nth Degree, Down in the Dirt, EWG, Phrack, Cantaraville (Eight), Chaos Theory: Tales Askew, Wanderings Magazine, BigCityLit ...

articles in: Forbes, Salon, Information Security, Review Americana, The Gardian (Infragard), Secure Business Quarterly, Cyber Defense Magazine, LAN Magazine, Village Voice, LA Weekly, South Africa Computer Magazine, Wired, Counter Punch, The Pedestal Magazine, Common Dreams, alternet, Internet Underground, National Catholic Reporter, Anglican Theological Review, Asia Times Online, .net, Internet Today, Pravda, rebelion, ATTAC Madrid, Computing Japan, Business Times of Singapore, Convergence (Toronto), Computer Underground Digest, CTHEORY, DoubleClick, Ethical Spectacle, Small Business Times, Computer Mediated Communication, Skeptica (Denmark), Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Informatiebeveiliging (Netherlands). Now Magazine (Toronto), Future Briefs, Access Control & Security Systems, The Bangladesh Report, Phrack, The Witness, Interesting Times...

articles anthologized in Digital Delirium, Cyber Reader II, Cyberculture (UK).

Bewildering Stories bibliography

Prose Fiction
Break, Memory Less Than the Sum of the Movable Parts

Would you like to write to the author?

Return to the Biographies & Bibliographies index