Book Reviews: A Monster-Wild West Mashup Fails
Melinda West, MonsterGunslinger, by KC Grifant (Bridgid’s Gate Press)
I’m a softie for mash-ups like Jane Austen with supernaturalcreatures or, in this case, the Wild West with monsters. Throw in a strong,competent woman protagonist and you get a fun read, one in which I’m willing tooverlook a lot. I won’t insist on peerless prose or immaculately consistentworldbuilding in a “fast, fun read” novel.
Melinda West, MonsterGunslinger had a great deal going for it, starting with a landscapeinhabited by a slew of weird, wildly creative monsters (giant flying scorpions,psychic bugs, things with made-up names). All the creatures seem bent onmayhem, leaving me to wonder whatever happened to the herbivorous varieties,but such details are not essential in “fun, fast read” Monsters-in-Wild Westtales. At the outset, I found the easy banter between Melinda and her partner,Lance, appealing, as they offer their services to desperate settlers beset bythe aforementioned monsters.
Therein lay the first of several elements that kicked me outof the story. I lost sympathy for Melinda (and Lance, but mostly Melinda) whena wave of scorpion-monsters emerges from a mine and begins to swarm. Melindademands payment from the sheriff of the beleaguered town. As in, right now orthey’ll let the creatures do their worst. We call bullying vulnerable folks“punching down,” and it’s not okay in a sympathetic character. As it turnedout, the sheriff had the payment ready, but what if he hadn’t? Would Melindaand Lance let the town be destroyed? Were they in it only for the money? Ifound this exploitative moment so off-putting, I never re-connected with thecharacters.
Following this, there’s a lot of dialog about gettingtogether enough money to retire (someplace without monsters), a reunion, andthe beginning of a quest that is no more believable than anything else in thisworld. By this time, the inconsistencies in worldbuilding, emotional distancefrom the characters, and amateurish prose turned continued reading into a slog.The prose occasionally rose to the level of adequate but was all too oftenclunky, pretentious, and laced with emotional manipulation of the reader. As Isaid, I can put up with a lot for the sake of a “fun, fast” story. I rolled myeyes at, “They continued upwards, the horses losing steam while they stompedthrough the snow mounds,” but kept going (these are normal horses, notmechanical, btw, and I leave it to you to imagine a horse stomping throughsnow). Here’s the line that caused me to stop reading: “His face hung grimmerthan she had ever seen.”
Of course, YMMV.
