About the Book
The story begins on a terraformed Mars, in the year M-445/3031 A.D., in the small seaside city of Bradbury. Otto Fink's best friend Abby Strata awakens him, to take him out for a birthsol breakfast treat at Charlie Tokyo. Their other best friend, Cyd Nova, has already arrived to save their table. They spring their birthsol gift on Otto; a trip to the big city of Nilokeras, to go clubbing at Juventae Fons, the hottest nightclub on Mars. Otto, who has never technically left Bradbury, balks at the idea. Cyd and Abby coax Otto into going, but need him to fly them to Nilokeras in his father's transport, after Cyd admits that he has accidentally wrecked his cruiser, and Abby hasn't any transportation as well. Otto then reveals that his father has taken his transport to help a stranded friend. The trip seems all but scrapped, until Cyd spies a beautiful Hutchinson Deluxe Limited cruiser, that Otto and his father had just finished restoring, parked in Otto and his father's garage. Cyd and Abby suggest borrowing the cruiser for the trip. Otto is adamantly against the idea, because the cruiser belongs to a client of Otto and his father's cruiser repair shop. Being the smooth talker that he is, Cyd convinces Otto into borrowing the cruiser anyway. What happens after that, dramatically changes the lives of all three characters!
About the Author: My name is Phil Wigfall. I was born Feb. 16, 1964 in Oklahoma City, OK. My father was in the Air Force, and my mother was a Licenced Practical Nurse. We moved from Oklahoma City to Las Vegas when my father got his transfer to Nellis Air Force Base just outside Vegas. There we've stayed from 1971 to now.It wasn't long after we moved to Vegas, that I began to get interested in music. My older brother, Michael had just bought Herbie Hancock's "Headhunters" album. The first time I heard that record, I knew I wanted to be a musician. At age 9, my parents bought me the alto saxophone I so desperately wanted. Though the salesmen at the music store suggested that I start on clarinet, my parents gave in to my begging and bought the saxophone.My folks had great music in the house for me to listen to. Great jazz musicians like Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, The Crusaders, Grover Washington Jr., and Charlie Parker. To this day, those artists still have an emotional impact on my life. Not just as a musician, but as a person. They changed the way I thought about the world. After a while, the excitement of playing the saxophone wore off and I wanted to quit. My mother wasn't having it. She insisted that I keep playing. Today, I am grateful she made me stick with it.After high school, I enrolled at UNLV then later, transferred to Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was a great learning experience being on my own for the first time and being in a more aggressive music environment kept me focused on practicing.I was a bit of a jazz snob before I got to Berklee. That soon changed when I had the chance to see Miles Davis live. At that time, Miles was playing electric jazz funk. Not exactly bebop. I especially wanted to hear his new alto saxophonist, Kenny Garrett, whom I had met in 1985 at the Village Vanguard jazz club. I was so impressed with his playing, I became more serious about jazz music. That's when I became a jazz snob. But when I heard him playing funk and playing the HECK out of it, I realized I had been wrong! I needed to be as flexible and open-minded a musician as he was! And when I returned to Vegas, I returned with a more positive attitude toward all music.In 1989, I began working the casino lounge group circuit which was also a great learning experience. I had to learn different styles of music in order to work. A year later, a friend and I sneaked into Bally's casino showroom and caught a glimpse of Sheena Easton's show. Her band sounded great. Incredibly funky, with a very Prince-influenced groove. I thought to myself, "I want to be in THAT band"! By 1991, I got my chance. Sheena's tour manager at the time, Marc St. Louis, saw me playing one night. He introduced himself. We exchanged numbers and 6 months later, I got a call to audition. I got the gig, and performed with her for 8 years.I've also had the opportunity to back up other great artists such as: Quincy Jones, Gladys Knight, Clint Holmes, Joe Williams, Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Bette Midler, Bill Champlin, and currently with Celine Dion, and a great group of men called Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns. Also, during my youth in Vegas, I developed a love of something other than music; Science Fiction. As a child, Beverly Cleary was my favorite author, but as I got older, science fiction took the helm of my mind. I loved Star Wars, and Star Trek. The alien face with the snake-like eyes, from the Star Trek episode, "The Corbomite Manuever," used to frighten me as a child, and continued to creep me out well into my adult life! Never the less, I am a Trekkie for life. I was also drawn to the spooky unknown of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone series. I used to work at an Albertson's grocery store as a teen. Right at the start of summer break, the cashiers went on strike. Not wanting to cross the picket line, I decided at that time to do some reading over the summer. Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" had been catching my eye for years, so I checked it out from the library. Though I hadn't been much of an avid reader, Bradbury instantly became my favorite author. Shortly after, I read Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man." Bradbury and Serling inspired me to try and write my first science fiction story. The story wasn't executed very well, but it was a taste of something I had always wanted to do. I didn't try writing another story until decades later, I composed a concept cyber jazz album called "2031" set in Las Vegas, post nuclear WWIII. I found the concept so depressing, that I decided to write A Sol In The Life Of Otto Fink just to pull myself out of the doldrums. I set Otto Fink 1000 years into the future from 2031, in a more utopian Martian society. I guess Beverly Clearly had as much of an influence on my science fiction as Ray Bradbury!
