World Without Pain: The Story of a Search
In the 1970s, after the Altamont Rock Festival, the Manson Family cult murders, and the fiasco of the Vietnam War many young people, disillusioned by the hippy movement, began to leave their homelands and travel to the far places of the world. Hoping to find drugs, sex, freedom and excitement, they more often were confronted with destitution, despair, disease, loneliness, and culture shock.
As a young writer wishing to break out of the familiar rut in which he was stagnating, Walters hit the road during this time, first to Europe, then onward to the Indian Subcontinent. He sampled Buddhism and radical Christianity; he wandered alone in the Himalayas; he listened to strange gurus spouting stranger doctrines; he watched the people around him deteriorating and dying in the lands of the East. As he traveled onward he became fascinated with the road itself, and determined to discover its secrets. He wondered what it was that gave the road its alluring power, and he forsook everything else to find out.
His story will appeal to those who lived through the turmoil of the 60s and 70s, to those who are hungering after spiritual fulfillment, to writers and other artists in search of their voice and their inspiration, and to anyone who loves a true story of adventure and excitement in strange lands.
Available in print at Amazon here.
For Kindle here.
In other electronic versions at Smashwords here.
America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad
In 1976 John Walters left the United States in search of adventure and literary inspiration. He lived for many years in India, Bangladesh, Italy, and Greece. He married and had five sons. Finally, faced with the economic catastrophe in Greece and the lack of opportunities for his sons, he returned to the land of his birth. Without home, without job, without resources, he confronted his own country as if for the first time.
This is a memoir of someone who, late in life, was forced to leave everything behind and start fresh in what for him had become a new land. It will appeal to those who are confronted with major life changes in these troubled economic times; to those who, though they may desire rest and retirement, must continue toiling to make ends meet; for those who desire insight into the vast, multifaceted culture of the United States from a fresh perspective, unencumbered by familiarity.
Available in print here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
Fear or Be Feared: Fantasies
A teenage girl climbing Mount Olympus with friends becomes possessed by an ancient Greek god who uses her as an instrument of vengeance.
A young artist pursued by her abusive stepfather is recruited to join a society of people linked together by telepathy which exists completely outside the awareness of the present world system.
Paranoia overwhelms a young college student as reality and fantasy merge in the midst of a drug trip that he realizes a dark power may be controlling.
During the British Raj an American reporter discovers a hidden valley in the foothills of the Himalaya ruled by a lovely but sinister woman who may not be human.
In these fourteen weird, surreal, frightening, and fantastic tales, unwary people discover that the world is very different from what they imagined.
In print here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen: A Novel
Sarah Tabitha Jones, a twenty-year-old fascinated by the youth culture of the late 1960s, leaves her middle-class home and wanders to a wilderness commune and then to the Haight/Ashbury in search of truth. On the way she encounters many strange characters: bikers, draft dodgers, Vietnam War veterans, peyote worshippers, heroin dealers, Jesus people, feminists, violent anarchists, Black Panthers, and science fiction fans. She experiments with drugs and sex, but at the same time helps out those she can; though often disillusioned, she believes that hippies should unite to create a better world. In the midst of all this she finds herself pregnant. Eight and a half months later, undaunted, belly bulging, she travels to Woodstock for one last attempt at finding the love and unity she seeks.
“The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen” will appeal not only to those who lived through the disconcerting era of the 60s and 70s but to those younger who are curious about what took place back then. It will also resonate with anyone who is idealistic and in search of personal fulfillment, as well as those who simply enjoy a wild tale: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes violent, sometimes sexy, always extreme.
Now available in print at Amazon here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
The One Thousand: A Novella
It is the late 1960s…
What better place than prison to recruit psychopathic killers? So thinks Benny, possessed by a thousand alien entities which he intends to share around with the other inmates before unleashing hell on Earth in the form of a murderous rampage. Only William Stafford, a Vietnam War veteran unjustly convicted of killing a girlfriend, can stop him. But to do so he has to break back into the prison he has just escaped from…
In print here.
On Kindle here.
The One Thousand: Book Two: Team of Seven
It is the late 1960s…
In this sequel to “The One Thousand” a team composed of humans and benevolent aliens hunt for murderous, alien-possessed convicts with enhanced powers who have escaped from prison. They discover that this fellowship of psychopaths is preparing an elaborate party for hippies and other street people in a remote mansion built to simulate a Medieval castle, and that they are planning to slaughter everyone who attends. Now the seven are faced with the task of locating the mansion and stopping the killers…
In print here.
On Kindle here.
After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece
Greece has always been regarded as the birthplace of western civilization and a Mediterranean paradise. In The Iliad and The Odyssey Homer uses the magical epithet rosy-fingered dawn to describe the sunrise over a land of myth, fascination, and mystery. But when preconceptions and illusions are swept aside, what is Greece really like?
John Walters has lived in Greece for over fifteen years. He has hitchhiked over many of its roads; traveled by camper; journeyed by plane, boat, bus, car, taxi, motorcycle, and on foot. He has lived and worked and raised a family among Greeks. He offers insight from an intimate perspective on aspects of Greek society and culture of which tourists are unaware.
Many have visited Greece and afterwards acknowledged that the country has profoundly changed them. This memoir is for those who feel something special when they think of Greece and Greeks, those for whom Greece holds a special thrall, those who have visited and have their own memories of the place, and those who would like to visit someday and know that when they do they will obtain new insight, new clarity, and will never be the same again.
In print here.
On Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales
When it malfunctions, a teacher discovers a microchip implanted within her forehead which was designed to eradicate her free will. She determines to rescue the orphaned children in her care from a similar fate.
In the aftermath of a conflict in which all adults were killed or driven away by their progeny, children and teens roam the streets of a ruined city. When they near the age of 21 they must play the ultimate game, snuff sport, to prevent themselves from becoming hated adults. A lone grown-up who re-enters the city on a mission of reconciliation is captured and put on trial for his life.
The people of Earth are losing a war with aliens that they themselves provoked. Every able-bodied person is being called up to fight, even prisoners. A battle-hardened general enters a prison to recruit a woman who refuses to fight, but who may have a most unusual special ability that can turn the tide of the war.
These and other tales offer terrifying glimpses of Earth’s future gone wrong.
From the author’s afterword: “When I postulate dark futures it is not to get you to despair. When I hold up dark mirrors before your eyes it is not so that you will see the worst in yourself and do yourself in. Far from it. Some of our greatest illuminations come from deep dark prose. Dark literature is not meant to overwhelm us. It is meant to purge us, to provide catharsis. It is a cleansing and purifying process. We must be aware of the evil within before we can clean it out.”
In print here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
Love Children: A Novel
It is the mid-1970s. The Summer of Love and the Woodstock Music Festival have come and gone. Into the atmosphere of cynicism and doubt following the wild optimism of the youth revolution the Love Children, raised from birth by benevolent aliens, come home to Earth. Sexually free, telepathic and honest to the extreme, they are appalled to find that the world they left behind is full of darkness and deceit. As they set about using their extraordinary powers to bring light and unity back to their world, they run up against a sinister alien force intending to keep it in darkness.
In print here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
Painsharing and Other Stories
After nuclear war, a survivor of the monster-populated ruins of Oakland California joins the crew of a clipper ship sailing the waters of the Pacific; a typhoon shipwrecks him on a tropical island whose inhabitants share a bizarre secret.
An unlikely team investigating the deaths of the crew of an interstellar spaceship near Pluto are confronted with a life-or-death conundrum stranger than anything they could have imagined.
On a distant planet the ultimate civil punishment is to be genetically deformed into an abhorrent beast and forced to live in the forbidden compound called Purgatory as slaves of the State. When authorities arrest and condemn the woman he loves, a man determines to find and save her, even if he must descend into Purgatory itself.
In these and other gripping science fiction tales John Walters explores possible futures on Earth and other worlds.
In print here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories
High in the Himalayas a young woman receives an extraordinary gift. Beneath the streets of Calcutta a man discovers a terrifying presence. In a palace full of sybaritic pleasures a demigod incurs terrible retribution. On a far desert planet teeming with venemous creatures a woman searches for ultimate truth.
In these and other strange and wondrous tales John Walters explores the ramifications of human/alien encounter.
In print here.
For Kindle here.
At Smashwords here.
