Author Archives: John Walters

What a Long Strange Year It’s Been: A Personal Look at 2017

Like many of you, I have been aghast at America’s convoluted, complex, and dysfunctional political situation this past year, but I’m not going to comment on that. Early on in this blog’s history, I decided to stay far away from … Continue reading

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A Second Look: 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 … Continue reading

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Book Review: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

I have to blurt out right from the start that this is the best novel I have read in a long time. How I came to read it was unusual. I had started another novel, a highly acclaimed novel in … Continue reading

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Book Review: Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name: The Change of Worlds for the Native People and Settlers on Puget Sound by David M. Buerge

When I take my daily walks in my neighborhood in north Seattle, I marvel that so much of the indigenous foliage has survived the carpeting-over by houses, shops, streets, and sidewalks. Majestic evergreens tower high over the tallest buildings, and … Continue reading

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A Second Look: 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 … Continue reading

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Book Review: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

In my search for new nonfiction books to read, I perused recent awards lists and came across this title. It surprised me that a book on surfing should have won a Pulitzer Prize, but as I read brief descriptions of … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen

I’m a graduate of the Clarion West science fiction writing workshop, and I am on their mailing list. I recently received notice of a one-day special workshop by the award-winning writer Kij Johnson taking place in November 2017. The workshop … Continue reading

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I’m Not Home Here Either

Where is home really? Listening to a Bob Dylan song recently somehow made me think of another Bob Dylan song, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” In it, the singer leaves a woman and heads back out on the road … Continue reading

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The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 Edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu

I’ve been reading a lot of short stories lately, what with The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year 2017 edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith, and now this volume. Normally I like to … Continue reading

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On Rereading The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith

Most of you have probably never heard of Cordwainer Smith, whose real name was Paul Linebarger, and yet he is one of the greatest science fiction writers ever. You don’t have to take only my word for it; he has … Continue reading

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