Author Archives: John Walters

Book Review: Stranger in a Strange Land: The Original Uncut Version by Robert A. Heinlein

“Stranger in a Strange Land” is among those books that were life-changing and profound literary experiences when I was growing up.  It was a tremendously significant tradition-shattering revelation when I first read it, and coincided smoothly with the loose, iconoclastic … Continue reading

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The Lost Notebooks: The Birth of a Voice

When I set out on the road back in the mid 1970s it was a sprint for freedom but it was also born in the realization, or perhaps I should say the delusion, that until that point of my life … Continue reading

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On Book Addiction, Time Magazine, and The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

I am addicted to books the way some people are addicted to cigarettes.  As soon as I finish one, I start the next – like lighting up a new cigarette off the smoldering butt of the last one.  To be … Continue reading

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Book Review: Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties by Robert Stone

This is a re-read, actually.  I read this book several years ago, possibly around the time I was writing “The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen,” my novel about a hippy girl’s adventures in the sixties in a wilderness commune, Haight/Ashbury, and … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Best of the Nebulas Edited by Ben Bova; Part Two: Elegance, Depth, Nastiness, Nostalgia

I left off the first part of this review on a cliffhanger:  in fact, I was right in the middle of reading Samuel Delaney’s excellent novelette “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” when I wrote it.  The Delaney … Continue reading

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Remembrances of Clarion West 1973

Contemplating the upcoming 2015 Potlatch science fiction convention, which is being held here in Seattle and is closely associated with Clarion West, calls to mind my experience at the 1973 Clarion West writer’s workshop.  The amazing thing to me is … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Best of the Nebulas Edited by Ben Bova; Part One: Nostalgia, Excellence, Literature, and Freedom

The Nebulas, of course, are the awards given by the Science Fiction Writers of America for the best science fiction and fantasy stories of the year.  They were initiated in 1966 just after the founding of SFWA with the best … Continue reading

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Book Review: 1776 by David McCullough

Too often we associate history with obligatory lessons at school:  boring, petty, meaningless.  We memorize names and dates without affixing humanity to them, without realizing the inexorable bond that links us to those people and events in the past.  Not … Continue reading

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On Rereading “This Immortal” by Roger Zelazny

I first read this book a few years ago when I was still living in Greece.  I had found an old paperback copy in an obscure used book store on one of my infrequent visits to the States.  At that … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Powers That Be by David Halberstam; Part Three: The Watergate Investigation

Young adults today may not even understand Watergate or its significance, but it was an amazing example of the media toppling an errant presidential administration. The arrest of burglars at the Watergate office complex in Washington D.C. in 1972 prompted … Continue reading

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