Author Archives: John Walters

Book Review:  A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally – Part One: Background

I don’t think I ever heard of the Grateful Dead until in 1970 at the age of seventeen I headed down to Santa Clara University from Seattle for my first and only year of college. I was immature, naive, and … Continue reading

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Remembering Greg Bear

Science fiction and fantasy writer Greg Bear died on November 19, 2022. I was (and am) an outlier, having lived overseas for thirty-five years and only recently, in the past several years, having become acquainted with other writers in the … Continue reading

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I Finally Got COVID: A Perspective

I figured that I had escaped it, that it was behind me. After all, since the pandemic began I have been faithfully isolating, wearing masks in crowded places, and obtaining vaccinations and boosters whenever they became available. I already worked … Continue reading

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Another Look:  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.  … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel

Sea of Tranquility is marketed as a mainstream novel but it is in fact science fiction. It is a story of time travel and human colonies on the moon, on other planets and moons in the solar system, and on … Continue reading

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On the Reading and Implementation of Self Help Books: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg, and Others

We all need help. We all have areas of our lives that need improvement. In my case, I find myself living alone in a one-bedroom apartment after having raised five sons overseas (mainly in Greece) in an extremely lively atmosphere, … Continue reading

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Another Look: 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 … Continue reading

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Book Review:  I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins

I got it into my head that I have been reading a lot of nonfiction lately and I needed to get into a novel. I conducted an online search to see what my local library had on hand, and if … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma by David Eimer

It is oddly appropriate that I am writing this during a rare power cut of several hours (and counting) in my apartment complex – appropriate because normally we here in Seattle can count on having electricity and other utilities twenty-four-seven, … Continue reading

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Another Look: 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. Visitors … Continue reading

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