NOTE: John has recently recorded a professional dramatic reading of his novel HIGH HEART, which is the more intimate first-person version of the third-person HEART FORCE novel and screenplay.
You can choose to listen to the whole HIGH HEART novel for free on John's Spotify account - or listen on Audible.
This audio performance of John's 'lucid tale of love and discovery' brings to life (through the eyes of her lover Jack Hadley) a remarkable new-form hero named Mahalena Bernhardt. Her outlandishly-brilliant wit, nonstop courage, and inspired vision reveal a new type of female superhero who transcends all the standard hero clichés. She remains mysterious throughout the story – but in this expanded audiobook version she fully springs to life.
And Jack himself is a new type of lead male hero. Rather than asserting his own masculine dominance, for once he surrenders to his female counterpart's drama and inspiration. In so doing, Jack becomes enmeshed in an archetypal conflict between male and female reactions and responses to all sorts of challenging situations.
This audiobook version also differs from the HEART FORCE screenplay adaption at sexual levels – namely, this is the unrated version where sexual relating often includes deep dialog and mystic/erotic breakthroughs. There's no pornography here, but also there's no limits to intimate description and engagement. Sex and spirit quite naturally intertwine!
First-person accounts can dramatize only what the narrator is experiencing. For the third-person HEART FORCE version intended for a feature film, the story expands into a complex hi-tech AI subplot in Silicon Valley that involves both Google, the CIA, and the devious actions of Mahalena's megalomaniac brother in both California and Guatemala. John recommends experiencing the first-person HIGJ HEART story first, preferably in the audio dramatization - then delving into the much broader thrust of HEART FORCE.
LISTENING TIP:
As you listen to the HIGH HEAERT dramatic reading, you'll find it best to put aside traditional literary expectations. HIGH HEART and its HEART FORCE film adaptation will continually surprise you. Yes, this is an action-adventure drama about psych-tech inventions running head-on into ancient shamanic complications. But it's also an intense love story playing out on top of the action plot. Furthermore, it delivers an even deeper level – contemporary archetypal twists inspired by James Joyce's ULYSSES novel exploring the ever-evolving mythic realms that underlie all of our lives.
Mahalena Bernhardt is both very real as a struggling young woman, and also somehow larger than life. She talks differently than most women because English is her fourth language – and also because her unique shamanic training as a child, merged with her intense scientific training in Europe, forever set her apart as an almost-mythic new expression of the archetypal female hero.
The film version of this story might be produced with a special creative mix of live action visuals, just slightly transformed by motion-capture computer animation. The aim is to subliminally touch the story with a super-hero edge of mystic 'lucid dream' fantasy – but just slightly! As you listen to Jack telling this story, do let yourself embrace this touch of other-worldly reality. Let your imagination open up to discover and enjoy the story's deeper resonance of multi-dimensional possibilities, discoveries, and realizations.
Also – as you'll immediately detect from this intimate audio version of the lucid tale, there's an uplifting element of playful lightness running throughout the plot, even in the most challenging situations. As quoted from Alan Watts early in the screenplay version, 'life is so serious that if you take it seriously, it'll kill you'. Our heroes are dedicated survivors – thus they keep it light.
This HIGH HEART first-person version of the HEART FORCE story is admittedly walking the very edge of mysticism, science fiction, lucid dreaming, synchronistic action, and universal archetypal philosophy - but ongoing playfulness keeps it all grounded in authentic feelings and real-life decisions.
In the Latin American literary spirit of magical realism, High Heart plays on the edge of supernatural/sci fi twists but remains mostly mainstream. If you want the deeper stuff, take a listen here to John's dramatic reading of HIGH HEART!