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.
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Silent Interviews and Other Tales of the Telepathic Guild
Long have the clandestine members of the Telepathic Guild assisted individuals, corporations, and governments by means of their unique skills. Guild Home functions as a headquarters and a refuge, and its strict regulations foster unity and discipline.
In this linked series of stories, a guild member falls in love with an outsider and is faced with a life-changing decision; a group of young people rebel against the guild’s stringent rules; a famous sports star discovers he is telepathic and must choose between his wealth and celebrity status and a chance to change the world; a renegade telepath establishes affinity with a wolf pack in the arctic wastes; a talented telepathic detective attempts to solve a brutal murder at a chaotic science fiction convention. These and other tales explore the fascinating, enigmatic, and often dangerous lives of those who have sacrificed everything to join the guild and use their extraordinary abilities for the betterment of humankind.
A Glimpse of the Cosmic Dance and Other Stories
In a world whose inhabitants routinely visit famous historical events, two jaded road-weary tourists take a holiday in an isolated retrograde enclave where time travel is forbidden.
Humankind is plunged into chaos as the recently deceased reappear and take up residency in their former homes.
As the result of an expensive technique that restores their youthful vigor, wealthy old people gallivant from place to place adventure-seeking and partying. However, their newfound energy comes at a terrible cost.
In these and other tales you’ll find heart-pounding excitement, deadly perils, baffling perplexities, complex conundrums, dread mysteries, deceptive hallucinations, fantasy landscapes, far planets, distant futures, evil menaces, and unlikely heroes.
Invisible People: A Novel
In the near future, a member of an elite rescue unit stumbles upon a conspiracy that involves time travel, sightings of alien vessels, portals to distant worlds, and the disappearance of refugees, the homeless, and other disenfranchised people. As he and his team investigate further, he uncovers truths that cause him to question his worldview, loyalties, and the code by which he lives.
The Relocation Blues: An Inquiry into Transitions
Life is full of transitional experiences: relocations from one place to another and one job to another, setbacks due to accidents and injuries, the loss of family and friends, and the metamorphosis from youth to old age. This lively memoir takes you on a journey through transitions the author has experienced while traveling abroad for thirty-five years, seeking a place to call home in his native United States, raising five sons, and pursuing excellence in the art of writing. Besides telling his fascinating tales of multitudinous changes, the author shares tips on how to adopt a lifestyle that makes transitions more manageable. As uncertainty and confusion threaten to overwhelm us all, this memoir is not only entertaining and exciting, but also relevant, timely, comforting, and helpful.
Visiting Hours and Other Stories
An estranged married couple remains in virtual worlds compiled from past memories while they await new younger bodies. Their adult children must cope with tense surrealistic visits with each of their parents as well as protestors that resent the resources spent on keeping older people alive.
An official investigating a gruesome suicide journeys to a castle in a remote valley on a far planet where a sexually profligate cult ritually imbibes a fungus with hallucinogenic properties.
On a primitive world, a widow and an orphan child unite to combat a monster terrorizing a local trade route.
In the aftermath of devastating warfare that has reduced human society to confusion and poverty, benevolent alien visitors arrive to help restore unity to a decimated Earth.
In these and other tales of science fiction and fantasy, you’ll find adventure, intrigue, pathos, humor, love, terror, virtual worlds, far planets, mysterious castles, alien entities, monsters, ghosts, chaos, captivity, quests, and redemption.
Includes: “Visiting Hours,” “Lady Spider and the Flies,” “A Day in the Mine,” “Touchable,” “Highwayman,” “Interlude with Unfamiliar Cuisine,” “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” “Gladiators,” “The Motel at the Foot of the Mountain,” “Hitchhikers in the Hidden Cove,” “The Blood Test,” “The Old Man Who Came Down from His Mountain,” “The Screech of the Bolt, the Click of the Lock,” “Sithonia,” “Afterword.”
Adriana’s Family
Aliens attack Earth, or so world governments believe. In the aftermath of global warfare brought on by the crash of an alien spacecraft, Adriana wakes up in a hospital-like facility with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The administrator tells her she has family on the outside that she needs to find. When she leaves, she begins to hear whispers in her mind that draw her to a disparate group of strangers that she instinctively feels are her brothers and sisters. After discovering that they all share an astonishing connection to the alien arrivals, Adriana resolves to protect her family members from a sinister organization intent on tracking down and annihilating them.
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The Woman Who Fell Backwards and Other Stories
A woman doomed to fall endlessly backwards in time unexpectedly finds an unusual and enigmatic romance. An elderly homeless man’s debit card becomes a magical fountain of money. As predatory aquatic aliens invade the Earth, a formerly disabled young woman obtains the power to fight back. A terminal cancer patient discovers a dark fantasy world where he embarks upon a quest towards a tantalizing yet ephemeral goal.
In these fast-paced but subtly-wrought tales you’ll find time travel, alien invasion, fascinating devices, dark fantasy worlds, revelries of the undead, and other wonders. Prepare to strip off the shackles of the mundane, abandon preconceived thought patterns, and step into worlds unknown.
Includes: “The Woman Who Fell Backwards, “The First One Through the Door,” “Fly Me Away Home Silver Hummingbird,” “Tripping the Dark Fantastic,” “Sylvia’s Wake,” “Hive Minds,” “The Yearbook Entry,” “At a Shotgun Wedding, Shots Fired,” “Spirit Girl and the Stolen Souls,” “Turn Me On,” “The Magic Debit Card,” “Afterword.”
Apocalypse Bluff and Other Stories
As invading aliens unleash monsters resembling mutated carnivores to devour all of human life on Earth, an extended family gathers together in a mansion on an isolated bluff for a last stand. To survive, they must fight together against ravenous beasts attacking from land and sea.
A recently divorced woman joins a virtual community in search of social acceptance and companionship. After fashioning a new identity for herself, she sets off to explore the meticulously created landscapes of this new world, unaware that the beautiful environments are rife with human predators.
While searching for a lost love, an unemployed mercenary comes across a wealthy world in which there are no weapons, no poverty, no permanent social attachments, and everyone is free to pursue their own interests. There’s only one catch: these people have no means to defend themselves against a rapidly approaching alien army.
In these and other fascinating tales you’ll find apocalyptic landscapes, virtual worlds, far planets, alien invaders, monsters, heroes, villains, lovers, life, death, tragedy, and triumph.
Includes: “Connecting the Dots in Pointillist Paintings,” “The Library at the End of the World,” “Vulnerable,” “Lest I Remember Thee O Torment,” “Bracelet of Skulls,” “Layla Moon Shadow and Princess Light,” “Rainfall,” “Shanti,” “The Herald,” “Escape Strategies,” “Film Star,” “A Visit to the Dentist,” “Encounter on a Castle Wall,” “Apocalypse Bluff,” “Afterword.”
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The Senescent Nomad Hits the Road
After his grown children move out, a divorced writer faces the prospect of living alone in a small apartment in Seattle. Instead, he buys a camper van, dubs it Good Fortune, and sets out on the road full time. As he journeys down the U.S. West Coast, he experiences ostracism, acceptance, harassment, and unexpected romantic encounters. In his youth, he spent years wandering around the world, and he begins to reconnect with his road roots, regaining the rhythms and metaphysical realities of the free nomadic lifestyle. His first destination? A science fiction convention in San Diego.
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The Senescent Nomad Seeks a Home
When the woman he has been traveling with returns to Europe, the heartbroken senescent nomad becomes disenchanted with his lifestyle on the road and decides to find a home. His search takes him up the West Coast from San Diego to Puget Sound. Along the way he encounters sophisticated transients at a makeshift homeless encampment, sinister campers in the wilderness, seductive members of a wandering sex cult, and idiosyncratic individuals at a gathering of science fiction and fantasy writers. As he travels, he discovers that abandoning the nomadic lifestyle is far more difficult than initiating it. Faced with the uncertainty, confusion, and perils of the open road, he wonders if he will manage to gain the stability of a place he can call his own.
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Invasive Procedures: Stories
A dying detective’s final assignment, to solve the mystery of a series of kidnappings of infants from maternity wards of hospitals, becomes complicated when he discovers that aliens are abducting the babies to use as vehicles for their non-corporeal colonists.
An elderly warrior faces ignominious torture and death as a sacrificial scapegoat offering to prevent total warfare.
Invisible aliens infiltrate human society as innocuous researchers, students, and tourists, but when humans become aware of them and react violently, the aliens strike back.
While seeking solace among the station riffraff before a violent alien invasion, a lonely technician on a remote moon outpost learns of a wild plan to save the populace by driving them to the edge of sanity and beyond.
These and other exciting, surreal, enigmatic, gut-wrenching, breathtaking, uplifting, tear-inducing tales offer you strange journeys into mysterious and wondrous places that you’ve never before imagined.
Includes: “The Beatification of Lady Poverty,” “High Time in Low Town,” “Invasive Procedures,” “He/She/They,” “Manifest Destiny,” “The Siege of Bright Hope,” “A Voice in the Wilderness,” “The Rip Van Winkle Effect,” “The Scapegoat,” “What Really Happened to Martin Eden,” “Camp College,” “Afterword.”
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Heroes and Other Illusions: Stories
Heroes aren’t always as they seem; often they are ordinary people reacting to circumstances beyond their control or pursuing the only option open to them. In this eclectic collection, reclusive old folks take on powerful cyborg bodies to combat ferocious invading aliens; a man near death uses cutting-edge psychiatric technology to journey into his memories and come to grips with crucial decisions from his past; a dead woman travels halfway around a bizarrely mutating world to keep a promise to an old friend; a young woman in the frozen northlands rescues a centuries-old creature with an amazing tale of survival. These and other stories upend traditional concepts of courage, honor, love, death, enchantment, and terror and present mind-boggling alternatives.
Includes: “Heroes,” “Matchmaker,” “Maze,” “Chiaroscuro in Chalk,” “Rim’s End,” “Shanti Times Seven,” “Pacific Beach Revenants,” “Katabasis,” “The Voices From Beneath the Flames,” “Sharon,” “Maggie Goes to the Beach,” “An Encounter on a Country Road,” “Ultimate Blues,” “This Won’t Hurt a Bit,” “Unplugged,” “Survivor,” “Aurora Borealis,” “Afterword.”
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After the Fireflood: A Novel
During the Fourth World War, the entire Earth is engulfed in a torrent of fire, transforming the landscape and obliterating all life. Using terraforming, time travel, and other expediencies, human survivors from Moonbase and the outer colonies attempt to cope with their devastating loss, reconstruct the Earth’s surface, and reorganize Earth sociologically to ensure lasting peace, while others plot to claim the pristine reconstituted planet for their own purposes.
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Caliban’s Children
Content is being siphoned from libraries and replaced with half-truths and lies. Weather, time, and distances are distorting like images in a funhouse mirror. People are discovering the ability to morph into animals. At first it all seems idyllic and magical until a dark power begins to manifest itself, assert control, and demand obedience.
Ethan is a university student caught in the midst of a kaleidoscopic confusion he cannot understand. After journeying into the wilderness seeking answers, he realizes he has to ally himself with the beasts of the Earth and venture into a bizarre, mutating, peril-filled city to rescue his lover and attack the source of the evil.
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The Fantasy Book Murders
After a famous fantasy writer is murdered in his castle-like mansion, two unlikely investigators discover a pattern of similar murders suggesting a serial killer. They begin to research the killings, starting with the most recent and working backwards into the past. Danger mounts as they uncover the backgrounds of the victims and the truth begins to resemble the fantasy writer’s most bizarre and horrific fiction.
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Opting Out and Other Departures: Stories
A homeless man fleeing confiscation of the van he lives in stumbles upon a seemingly paradisiacal haven. A housewife enters a mysterious portal to another world. A coma victim, wide awake in a world of the mind, finds that the struggle between light and shadow in his dream is a life and death battle for the real world he left behind. A man who feels redundant and forsaken is offered a one-way ticket for a fresh start on an alien planet.
Those who embark upon a hero’s journey are often not heroes when they begin. The choices they make and the deeds they do make them heroes as they encounter obstacles and dangers. These stories concern misfits, outliers, wanderers, loners – those who have stepped beyond the norm or who have never fitted into it. Each is confronted with the call of the open road. For some it is physical and for others metaphorical, but all must choose to either cower in mediocrity or set forth on the path of adventure and destiny.
Includes “Opting Out,” “Portals,” “Plants,” “Lady Linguist,” “Evermore,” “A Gathering of Shadows,” “Slug,” “The Precedent,” “Weapons,” “Downloading Catherine,” “Opting In,” “The Island Story, As Revised by One of the Participants,” “Afterword: The Call of the Open Road.”
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Sunflower: A Novel
In early 1970 a new era, the Age of Aquarius, is dawning. Penny, who adopted the name of Sunflower on the way to the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, attends another rock concert touted as Woodstock West, at Altamont Speedway near San Francisco. Seeking to enhance the transcendent experience, she instead comes away covered in the blood of a man brutally stabbed to death in front of the stage.
Has the new youth experience descended from idealism to anarchy? Confused and disillusioned, Sunflower embarks upon an odyssey across an America torn by violent anti-Vietnam War protests, racial tension, and gangs of hard drug dealers. From a search for a shared social experience it becomes a personal quest for fulfillment that leads her on a journey across continents.
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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.
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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.
Includes “Fear or Be Feared,” “The Disappearance of Juliana,” “Invisible People,” “The Elephant’s Eyes,” “War Horse,” “The Lady of the Lost Valley,” “The Ghost of Halkidiki Past,” “Wolf in a Cage,” “The Gift,” “Clouds Without Rain,” “Mendocino Mellow,” “Slice-of-Death,” “The Illuminations,” “The Customs Shed,” “Afterword: Deviations.”
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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.
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Writing as a Metaphysical Experience
From the author’s introduction:
“For me, writing is metaphysical because it is inseparable from who I am and my conception of the universe and my place in it. My interpretation of writing goes far beyond the definitions of hobby, job, or career – it is rather in the nature of a calling. It is something that blossomed from within me and, though invisible to instrumentation, has been as integrally a part of me as my flesh, bones, and internal organs. How this transpired and how it manifests itself is the subject of this book.
This is not a how-to book on writing, although in its course I offer many practical tips and suggestions. It’s more like a travelogue, a story of the life’s journey on which my writing has led me.”
This journey has led Walters on a decades-long quest from the United States to Europe to the Indian Subcontinent and back in the pursuit of voice, inspiration, and literary excellence. On the way, he has written and published novels, short story collections, essay collections, memoirs, and numerous individual novellas, novelettes, short stories, and essays.
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Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing: Volume Three
From the author’s introduction:
A popular topic in science fiction these days is the multiverse, the concept of an infinite number of parallel worlds. Remember, though, that the multiverse is not as far away as you suppose. Each book that you read takes you into a new universe. When you enter a bookstore or a library you are in the midst of thousands of portals to other worlds. To enter all you have to do is follow the words that the authors have set down to guide you. If they have done their jobs effectively, you find yourself in strange lands and alternate timelines with all sorts of different types of characters. The best part is that you can do it anywhere and anytime. Just open up the door, namely the cover of the book, and dive in. I compile these collections of book reviews to serve as maps leading to wondrous worlds. I wish you joy, amazement, prosperity, fun, and adventure in your explorations.
Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing: Volume Two
From the author’s introduction:
Preparing the second volume of Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing has caused me to think about the role not only of reading books but also of writing book reviews in my life. To write about the thoughts and impressions brought about by a book is as valid as writing about a physical journey that I take to another location. The author of the book serves as my traveling companion.
Because of the inevitably profound effect that books have on me, I have to be careful about what books I read. If you are what you eat, physically, then you are what you read, mentally. I try to select books that entertain me and also nourish and strengthen me mentally and emotionally.
Among the multitudes of books I have read in my lifetime, some of my particular favorites have been books about books. Why? Because they make the task of finding new reading material easier. I read them eagerly, pen and paper nearby, and make new lists of books I have not yet discovered, realms of thought I have not yet explored. That’s one of the delights of this present volume, part two of Reviews and Reflections. Consider it a guidebook to point the way on your own journeys of discovery.
Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing
From the author’s introduction:
The books have always been there. They have added nuance, depth, and richness to my life. When I speak of reading I am not talking about an expediency but a glorious adventure. The reading to which I refer is like a drug rush, a phenomenon. Reading is a much more vital experience than watching films or playing video games. The author’s words ignite your psyche and create a multidimensional, multisensory experience which can be totally fulfilling, totally absorbing.
Because I cannot imagine a life without books, book reviews are an essential part of radiating who and what I am. Reading is a voyage of discovery. And though a true reader wants the freedom to discover new worlds without restriction, a map with a few landmarks is a useful tool to save time. All I can do is point out what paths I have followed and what those paths mean to me. Reviews are one way of fine-tuning your discernment, to ensure that your reading experience is time well spent. We are each of us microcosms in the great vastness of the larger universe, and reading is one way we have of closing the gap.
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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…
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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…
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The One Thousand: Book Three: Black Magic Bus
To escape pursuit, a fellowship of alien-possessed psychopaths has fled to Europe. In the mountains of Italy they customize a psychedelically-colored tour bus, intending not only to pick up and murder unwary young travelers, but deliver a cargo of lethal pathogens to a major city in the East. Only the Team of Seven composed of enhanced humans and benevolent aliens can find and stop them…
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The One Thousand: Book Four: Deconstructing the Nightmare
It is the early 1970s. Their hunt for a group of alien-possessed psychopaths intent on igniting a rampage of mass murder leads the Team of Seven, composed of counterculture humans and benevolent aliens, to a prison in Turkey, war-ravaged Vietnam, a luxurious nuclear fallout shelter, and finally to direct confrontation with their enemies.
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Bedlam Battle: An Omnibus of the One Thousand Series
All four novellas of the One Thousand Series in one volume. Includes “The One Thousand,” “Team of Seven,” “Black Magic Bus,” and “Deconstructing the Nightmare.”
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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.
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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.”
Includes “Dark Mirrors,” “Life After Walden,” “Generation Gap,” “This Won’t Hurt A Bit,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Tasting the Forbidden Fruit, or, If This Is Hell Then Why Is Everyone Smiling?,” “Noah and the Fireflood,” “The Earthborn,” “The Perspicacity of Soaring Eagle,” “Afterword: Future Tense.”
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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.
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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.
Includes “Painsharing,” “Leilani,” “State of Grace,” “The Orpheus Equation,” “The Coma Killings,” “The New World,” “The Left-Handed League,” “Fearful Symmetry,” “Beyond Purgatory,” “Afterword: Here, There, and Everywhere.”
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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.
Includes “The Dragon Ticket,” “Under Calcutta,” “The Golden Ones Who Work Miracles,” “Ceasefire,” “Star Over Babylon,” “The Touchstone,” “At The Edge,” “Clear Shining After Rain,” “Afterword: Concerning Reality and Fantasy.”
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John Walters 