by on

This is a Weird Western. No, I’m sorry; let me start over.

This is a WEIRD Western. It’s not just a case of a basic western with a few ghosts or werewolves shoehorned in. No, it’s seriously bizarre. It starts out normally enough with the hero, Marshal Elias Faust, being asked by a local drunk to retrieve something a couple of thugs stole from him. What it was, he won’t say, but Faust heads off to find the two lowlifes, known as the Gregdon boys.

What begins as a typical Wild West gunfight ends up taking Faust on a mind-bending and horrifying trip into the depths of cosmic nightmare. We’ve got a woman made of gold appearing from the stars, a hellish netherworld buried in the mines beneath a harsh frontier town, and, perhaps most notably, demonic sand-filled scarecrow spirits with rifles.

It’s a lot for the poor lawman to deal with. Fortunately, he has a few people backing him up, such as Grady Cicero, a Shakespearean actor who is a crack shot with a Henry rifle, and Lachrimé Garland, who has managed enough boxing matches that she’s usually able to give Faust some good pep talks after he gets into fights, which happens a lot.

This book is violent, befitting a western. Shootouts, chases, and knock-down, drag-out fistfights are the order of the day, and Faust never shies away from combat, even when he is dragged down to the unfathomable shores of some Boschian hellscape.

I was about to say this book does a good job of mixing western action with Lovecraftian horror. But I had to stop myself, because while it is easy to reflexively label any kind of cosmic horror as being in the manner of HPL, that would be misleading. Lovecraft’s protagonists are scholarly, bookish fellows, who summon occult horrors by reading some dusty old tome when they shouldn’t.

No, Elias Faust is in the mold of a Robert E. Howard hero: he’s tough, rough, and mean. He solves things with his fists and his guns. The setting, too, is reminiscent of Howard: a near-lawless wasteland, ruled by greed, violence, and the occasional eldritch abomination.

The writing is both witty and brutal, with Faust’s gallows humor often making the unrelenting fight scenes a little snappier. At times, the bloody battles can be so visceral as to be exhausting to read, but Faust’s narration always keeps them interesting, and it makes you want to stick with him to the end as he slowly uncovers the horrors at the heart of the web spun by a malevolent entity known as “the Magnate.”

It’s a harrowing, pulse-pounding, spine-chilling, and occasionally darkly funny ride into stygian abysses of madness and mayhem. If you like the Weird West genre, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll love this.

by on

Weird westerns are so cool, don’t you think? Well, I think so. Cowboys and six shooters and ghosts and horses and vampires and steam engines… yes, there’s something about the marriage of the American southwest and supernatural beings that just produces some very interesting offspring.

Speaking of interesting offspring, that’s what the titular character of this book is. A young woman named Mary Anne O’Sullivan had a child with a supernatural being, and this child was then spirited away by a mysterious witch. Anne’s husband sought the child, but… well, that’s how she became a widow.

Not to be deterred, she asks Zarahemla Two Crows, a Federal lawman who specializes in the occult, to track down her son. But, despite the Marshal’s reservations, she insists on accompanying him. And so, this unlikely duo sets off across a haunted land of vampires, witches, zombies, giant mechanical golem cavalry, and a whole host of interesting characters.

I feel like I don’t need to say any more, and already, you should be hooked. But, just in case you’re not, let me say a little more. I loved this book. The pacing, the characters, the atmosphere; all of it is great. Anne is my favorite character, and I enjoyed seeing her growth over the course of the story. Like Zarahemla himself, we watch her transform from being merely a “confounded woman” into a confident, capable, and relatable character.

One thing I should mention is that the story is chock full of Catholic motifs. Faith is a major theme that informs the characters. This might give some readers pause, but I want to emphasize that this isn’t done in the preachy way that you get in some religious fiction. Rather, the discussions about faith feel like a natural part of the characters’ evolution.

There are also plenty of cool action sequences; big battles, with infantry, airships, and especially those great steampunk cavalry golems I mentioned earlier. How can you not want to read a book that has a scene with zombies attacking a huge spider-tank?

In summary, I really, really enjoyed this novel. It was everything I hoped it would be and then some. If you like westerns at all, and especially weird westerns, you’ve got to check it out.

Oh… and one last thing. There are a number of sly cultural references sprinkled throughout the book. At first, I wasn’t sure if that’s really what these were, or if I was just imagining things. I won’t spoil them for you, but after I read a description of a certain weapon devised in Antioch, I was sure I knew what was going on. These are fun little Easter eggs to discover as you read.

by on

This is a short story I heard about thanks to Lydia Schoch’s weekly list of free speculative fiction stories. The cover caught my eye immediately. Look at that beauty!

Anyway, the story itself is very short. It’s about a ten-minute read. But Turpeinen packs a lot into those ten minutes. It begins with the title character transporting a captured killer. The killer tries to flee, causing their small plane to crash in the middle of the desert. They make their way to a ghost town, where the criminal begins having strange visions.

I won’t spoil the rest, but as it’s so short, and you don’t have to pay for it, there’s no reason not to give this book a try. I love weird westerns, and I love sci-fi, and this story contains a blend of both. It makes for a wonderful setting.

Now, obviously, the nature of the story precludes any major character development. The author openly admits that this was written as an experiment, and the book ends with a request to readers for feedback on whether it should be expanded into a longer story. My answer: yes, it absolutely should. There’s so much potential here; it is just crying out to be made into a fully-fleshed out world.

Read it for yourself. It won’t take long, and it’s a fun story.

My three pieces of feedback for the author are these: first, I see from his bio that he is a pilot. Very cool! Given that, it would be nice to have a longer scene with the bounty hunter and the criminal on the plane. I’m sure Turpeinen knows all sorts of details about flying that could make that into a really gripping part of the story.

Second… and this is a pet peeve of mine, but I see it all the time, including in books by big name authors and Hollywood movies. I may have even made this mistake myself, early in my writing career. But, when talking about firearms:

clip ≠ magazine

Now, I know–sometimes you want a short, one-syllable word, not a mouthful like magazine. In that case, I suggest “mag.”

That’s a super nit-pick, of course, but it’s something that always jumps out at me.

And finally, my last piece of feedback is simply “MORE!” I want to read more about these characters and this world. I know I said it before, but it bears repeating: this could be built upon in all sorts of ways, and there are a ton of interesting concepts teased here. I would be thrilled to read a novel or short story collection in this setting.

by on

Cactus FlatsI love Weird Westerns. So as soon as I read Lydia Schoch’s review of this book, I knew I had to check it out. And it’s everything a story set in the Weird West should be: cowboys, prospectors, gunfights with shotguns and six-shooters, and of course, manifestations of supernatural horror, which I won’t describe in detail here.

The description in the book itself is minimal, which in my opinion is a good thing. In horror, you want to leave things to the readers’ imagination. But, still there’s more than enough information to get a sense of what the protagonist, a deputy named Jed, is facing by the time he’s loading up with weaponry and dynamite and heading to an abandoned mine to confront the horror.

In the beginning, there were a few little things that didn’t sit right with me–like the prospector being named Pete, which is about the oldest western cliché ever, or the fact that Jed is unfamiliar with using a single action revolver. These are minor points, but I noticed them… and in the end, it turns out there are excellent reasons for details like these. I take my hat off to the author for how he managed the ending of this book; it’s very well done.

Like Lydia, I’d have appreciated a bit more world-building, but at the same time, I can understand why the story had to be focused and fast-paced. And it makes for a very satisfying adventure, even before the final plot twist.

This has all the elements a good short story needs: it’s fast, easy to get into, and it leaves you feeling really satisfied with the ending.   I think anyone who enjoys horror or adventure stories will like it, and if you’re a fan of the Weird West like I am, I’d call it a must-read.

by on

IPanama love weird westerns. Maybe this isn’t technically a western, given that Panama is at approximately the same longitude as West Virginia, but in every other respect, it fits the bill. It’s got cowboys, ghosts, witchcraft, and plenty of good old-fashioned gunfights.

Ethan Stafford and Cooper Hexum are U.S. marshals sent by President Theodore Roosevelt to investigate the disappearances of workers in the Panama Canal Zone. Ethan has a mysterious ability to see and communicate with ghosts, and Cooper–“Coop,” as he is called–is well-versed in all manner of magic and witchcraft. Roosevelt has reason to believe supernatural forces are at work, and he is soon proven right, as Ethan and Coop discover that, in addition to a plot by Spanish invaders, a demonic entity known as “El Chivato” is building up an army of his own using the souls of workers lured into the jungle.

Ethan and Coop are outfitted with considerable weaponry to fight these threats, as well as plenty of magical amulets and talismans that Coop acquires. One of my favorite early scenes was one in which Dr. Welker, who plays “Q” to Coop and Ethan’s collective 007, outfits them with all the weaponry they’ll need for their mission, including a Browning machine gun.

In the course of their mission, the pair meet a witch named Jinx, who has been captured by the Spanish, and Billy the Kid, hiding out under a different name, along with many other interesting characters. The tension builds as El Chivato’s powers grow, until our heroes confront him and his malevolent army in a final shootout, just as any good Western should conclude.

The prose is straightforward and blunt. It reminded me a bit of Hemingway, which is exactly the right style for this sort of novel. The story is well-paced and blends elements of adventure, horror, and occasional comic relief very well.

My only gripe about the book was the number of typos. Mostly minor things–missing apostrophes or glitches like “if” for “it,” etc. There were also a few formatting issues, such as character’s thoughts sometimes being unitalicized. It was nothing that ruined the book for me, but frequent enough that I noticed. To be clear, I’m very sympathetic about this, as I know from my own experience that it’s really, really hard to put out a whole novel and catch every typo. What’s great about ebooks is that it is easy to go back and correct them.

Technical issues aside, I loved the book’s atmosphere and the way Boyack balances a classic cowboy adventure, complete with likable heroes and a cruel villain, with occult demonic elements. And he ties it all together in a way that’s very satisfying. Panama is a very fun read for anyone who enjoys a good adventure story.