#Byron Preiss

[balu8]

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Adaptation by Byron Preiss and Howard Chaykin

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Beth Meacham & Tappan King - Weird Heroes 4: Nightshade - Pyramid - 1976 (cover painting by Ralph Reese, illustrations by Rudy Nebres, a Byron Preiss production)

[book0ftheday]

Dragonworld: An Epic Fantasy by Byron Preiss and Michael J. Reaves, illustrated by Joseph Zucker, published 1979.

[noahhawthorneauthor]

Did you know Phantom and Rook was inspired by a real life treasure hunt called The Secret?

The Game is based on a hunt that has been ongoing in North America since 1982, called The Secret.

Byron Preiss hid twelve treasure boxes and the clues to finding them were provided in a book written by Preiss, also called The Secret. In this book are paintings which holds clues, along with written clues. These boxes were placed across the United States and Canada in places that represent events and people that played significant roles in North American history.

Those who discover one of the treasure boxes are entitled to exchange it with Preiss for a precious gem. After he died in 2005, his estate assumed the responsibility of honoring the terms of the treasure hunt.

The painter, John Jude Palencar, has also honored Preiss' wishes and claims he has no knowledge of the actual locations of the treasure boxes, and even if he did, he wouldn't tell anyone.

As far as I know, only three boxes have been found. I first learned about this on the show Expedition Unknown and have always loved the idea of people exploring and engaging in their community all for the sake of discovery.

Hence, the Game in Phantom and Rook.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

In 1982, Byron Preiss published The Secret: A Treasure Hunt, a book of 12 mind-bending riddles, illustrated by fantasy artist John Jude Palencar. Each riddle is paired with a painting to reveal a location in a North American city. Once the treasure hunter finds the location, they will find a bejewelled box buried 3 ½ feet underground with a key inside. The key can be exchanged for a jewel, collectively worth about $10,000.

In 1983, the first of the jewels was found by three teenagers in Chicago, who paired the fifth image with the 12th verse:

Where M and B are set in stone And to Congress, R is known L sits and left Beyond his shoulder Is the Fair Folks’ Treasure holder The end of ten by thirteen Is your clue Fence and fixture Central too For finding jewel casque Seek the sounds Of rumble Brush and music Hush.

Hidden in the image was a backward outline of the state of Illinois, as well as several Chicago landmarks, like the Water Tower. An image of a bowman pointed to a statue near Grant Park, while where "L sits" referred to a statue of Abraham Lincoln within the park. The treasure hunters used two intersecting lines of trees to locate a spot under a section of fence (the fence is also hidden within the image) where the treasure was buried. One of the teens, Eric Gasiorowski, wrote an explanation of how they managed to solve the complex riddle. A full solution can also be found here.

While many people believe they have identified the cities that hide each treasure, only three riddles were solved as of mid-2020. Treasure hunters all over the country continue the search for the other nine, even though Preiss passed in 2005, taking the secret locations of the remaining gems to his grave.

[juanfuerte]

Cosas en la cabeza

(Posiblemente) Inspirado en la 5ta ilustración del libro «El Secreto: 12 Llaves» de Byron Preiss. Técnica mixta. Juan Fuerte, 2016.

[cdchyld]

Just added to the Vintage shop!

~ “The Secret: A Treasure Hunt” by Sean Kelly and Ted Mann (1982)

[charlie-artlie]

so i bought this off ebay because i really enjoyed i, robot and, more importantly, the cover is just beautiful 🥰 but i was delighted to find it was illustrated throughout, including these amazing chapter headers!!!

(haven’t started the book at all yet but it was worth the money already lol)

[fuwaprince]

So I did some geek shit and checked the angle

It's roughly the same across each illustration

So I just put it over a satellite image of the giant pole and figured that the casque is probably roughly around there. Just take a giant step back from the pole at about 55° and you'll land in the middle of the 20° error

It's clear that a lot of people have dug in the past or tried but the casque is 3ft to 3.5ft deep so... It's hard to say anyone looked hard enough or if they even dug the right spot. Most people did the center of the island and directly by the pole or to the far right of it because it's the middle of the "island".

That's basically it! Yay! If you read all this, you're fucking amazing and I love youuuuu :') thanks for taking interest in my insanity

Another thing I noticed btw while deep diving this stuff was inspiration for certain drawings like this one here

This view is at Spreckles lake. Can you pretend there's a sleeping giant making all that smog in the background? The homes are on his belly. It's like the sleeping giant is secretly the hill that everybody lives on

Anyways here's the final map where I put together all my mini maps:

I hope it makes sense and I hope I didn't solidify being crazy and baseless.

Oh yeah the casque has a jewel worth like $1000 so... :') that's cool. I didn't do it for the jewel though I just like torturing myself psychologically to distract myself from the horrors of life

So there's this book called the secret and it has like 12 hidden casques and each one has a little treasure inside. They're buried underground and the one I've been pondering is in golden gate park! I've been obsessed with it. When I wanna distract myself from shitty thoughts I can always count on it to keep me busy. I heard about it at a book fair and then again at a library but I didn't get into it until adulthood maybe like 2 years ago? Everyone calls me crazy and says I use deductive reasoning to get my conclusions and I disagree! Hopefully you do too

Each poem is paired with a pic and no he didn't say which poem belongs to which pic because that would make it too easy

^^This is his beautiful pic for the pearl. He hired an awesome illustrator and handed them tons of specific instructions showing hints to where it is. I bought the book recently

This is the poem that goes with it^^

I think I might have narrowed it down to a very specific spot and I wanna get a permit to dig one day but I'm also very lazy and okay just KNOWING it could be there. I don't need to dig

This is a satellite view of the map!vv

I sectioned it into 4 bits to make it easier to explain. I also marked it up. I gathered all the pics to one ugly ass looking map covered in all my thoughts that I'll attach soon. It's kind of hard to read tho so I'll save the big map collage for after and explain as if we're on the hunt and starting from square 1!

You may notice some resemblance of the rose on a table. The leaves represent different locations. The flower bloom is Speckles Lake! The horizontal lines are JFK Drive. Even the little clock is significant since the tip of the top piece is where the north bathrooms would be.

The red is where we start. At stonewall's door! Hidden on that side of the Angler Lodge is a stone wall and it has this dungeon ass looking door. You can't see it from Google and there's no vids or pics of it. It's super tucked and there's no reason anyone should really stop there to admire it unless they're some architecture freak lol

The door is in the stone wall and I wish I had my old phone because I went and took tons of pics

It looks like that basicallyvvv

We're gonna go 2 lines at a time here while looking at the poem

The stone wall's door was surrounded by sweet smelling flower bushes. I actually smelled them on the trail before I noticed the door. Can't miss the scent! It was so so sweet! (I took pics of them too on my other phone)

I circled the door in red. If you refer back to mini map 1 above you'll see that the white dashes take you down these very stairs!

There's many ways to go but this is the only route I found 3 nearby posts

Post 1 is that lamp post

[retrocgads]

UK 1985

[a-book-of-creatures]

Map of Dragonworld.

From the manual for the Telarium game Dragonworld, based on the Byron Preiss and Michael Reaves book of the same name.

[the-emerald-wyrm]

—Dragonworld by Byron Preiss and J. Michael Reaves, illustrated by Joseph Zucker

[tomoleary]

Howard Chaykin "The Stars My Destination" Original Art (Byron Preiss, 1979)

[arconinternet]

Rendezvous with Rama (C64/Apple II/DOS, Byron Preiss Video Productions/Trillium Corp., 1984/1985)

You can play the C64 and DOS versions in your browser here.

To play the Apple II version in your browser, use the disk images here in this alternate in-browser emulator.