Category Archives: Books

The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen: A Novel by John Walters

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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.

In print or for Kindle here.

At Smashwords in various electronic formats here.

After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece by John Walters – Now Available!

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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 or Kindle editions here.

In various electronic editions at Smashwords here.

Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales by John Walters – Now Available!

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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 and Kindle versions here.

In various elecronic versions at Smashwords here.

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”.

Love Children: A Novel by John Walters – Now Available!

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.

Print version is here.

Kindle version is here.

At Smashwords in various electronic formats here.

Painsharing and Other Stories by John Walters – Now Available!

Now available!

This short story collection is now available in print and electronic editions.

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.

These and other science fiction stories, some previously published and some original, are set on near and far future Earth and on distant planets.

Print edition is here.

Amazon’s Kindle version is here.

It’s also available at Smashwords in various electronic formats here.

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”.

World Without Pain: The Story of a Search by John Walters – Now Available!

Now available!


John Walters’s new memoir, “World Without Pain: The Story of a Search” has just been published and is now available at Amazon,
Smashwords, and other outlets.

Here is the description from the back cover:

“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.”

You can find the print copy at Amazon here.

There is also a Kindle edition available at Amazon.

Smashwords has it in other electronic formats here.

The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories by John Walters – Now Available!

Now available!

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.

This short story collection is available at Amazon in print and electronic editions here.

It’s also available in various electronic formats at Smashwords here.

” 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”.