Faster Gun

by Elizabeth Bear

It's hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, and a hundred times too big to be a ship. It looks like nothing anyone ever saw. And it's crashed just outside Tombstone with something alive inside.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Westerns, Fantasy, Fiction, Time Travel, Historical Fantasy

32 pages, ebook

First published July 18, 2012

About the author

What Goodreads really needs is a "currently WRITING" option for its default bookshelves...

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doc Holliday and some ladies investigate some mysterious wreckage in the desert near Tombstone...

I saw this was one of the nominees for the Locus award for best short stories. Since it was free on Tor.Com, I figured I'd give it a read.

Since it's a short story, there isn't a lot I can say without giving away the best bits. All you need to know is that Doc Holliday is the main character and there are time traveling magic-using ladies and a wrecked alien ship in it.

Oh, and it's a damn good story. Elizabeth Bear's writing is really good. I'll be picking up more of her stuff in the future.

On a side note, will I ever be able to picture Doc Holliday looking like someone other than Val Kilmer?

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doc Holliday leaned his head way back, tilting his hat to shade his eyes from the glare of the November sun and said, “Well, that still looks like some Jules Verne shit to me.”

3.5 rounded down because i didn't like it as much as her other shorts, mostly because i didn't get it at first because i'm a dummy.

review to come

read it for yourself here:

http://www.tor.com/2012/08/08/faster-...

[Karlyflower *The Vampire Ninja, Luminescent Monster & Wendigo Nerd Goddess of Canada (according to The Hulk)* · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some things a person just knows. And I know that I could never do this review as much justice as my fellow Toraholic, Jess, has done HERE!

A ward line wouldn't stop a bullet - lead just didn't answer to magic - but it would keep a person out.

That being said, I cannot completely cop out behind another person's words (even when they express all the things I felt in better words than skyline my brainsphere)

Ever since first reading Bear's The Horrid Glory of its Wings I have been a little in love with the way she weaves a tale. There is a rawness, a realness, that she brings to the fantastical that is so drawing to me. To be at once grounded to concrete (or sand) while simultaneously being sent soaring through the stars of imagining is:



Sci-Fi Grit-Lit?! Really, is that a thing? Well, it is now...

In Faster Gun Bear explores the world of western meets aliens and it's exquisite!

[Jess ❈Harbinger of Blood-Soaked Rainbows❈ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This

Plus this


Does not always equal this


And this little shorty is proof of that.

I've been itching for a good grit lit western and while sticking with my paranormal streak, tor.com fetish, and newly found love of Elizabeth Bear, this little shorty definitely fit my mood and didnt disappoint.

Sci-fi has always been a bit of a hit or miss for me. I love alien races, dystopias, parallel universes, and interstellar politics, but sometimes the time travel and metaphysical aspects of sci-fi just make my brain go a little wonky with confusion. But this story takes all those elements and only hints at them, so I never got bogged down with the scientific elements which would otherwise make me dismiss this story. But I should have known that Elizabeth Bear would come through with this one. The combination of cowboys and aliens is strangely compelling here and never felt hokey or contrived. On the contrary, her brilliant writing style brought all the elements together to make it seem historical and realistic.

The legendary Doc Holliday leads a motley crew of 4 ladies and 1 gent to the legendary Tombstone where some mysterious ship has wrecked.

The hulk that loomed over, curving gently outward to a stalklike prow, could have been the rust-laceworked, rust-orange hulk of any derelict ironclad. Except it was a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, and a hundred times too big to be a ship. It was too big, in fact, to be an opera hall, and that was where Doc’s imagination failed him.

The group, led by a tough-as-nails black woman named Flora, seems strangely interested in this wreckage for reasons Doc can't seem to understand. In fact, the whole group seems just a little....off. Kind of like they don't fit in. Kind of like they are from a different time entirely. And what is that thing out in the desert in 1881?

“That thing was a ship, Doctor Holliday. A ship that sailed between the stars.”

Pretty soon, some badass western violence goes down. Add to that old grudges, political secrets, time travel, and an enigmatic moon man, and you've got a very thrilling and intelligent story. There's danger and intrigue, historical retellings and deja vu. Oh yeah, don't forget cowboys and aliens.
But only the good kind.
Read this one for free here!
http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/08/fa...

[Igrowastreesgrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A damn good story.

[Corrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faster Gun by author Elizabeth Bear you can read for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2012/08/08/faster...

It’s hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, and a hundred times too big to be a ship. It looks like nothing anyone ever saw. And it’s crashed just outside Tombstone with something alive inside.

Doc Holliday is payed to take his possey of 5 tenderfoots to what seems to be a stranded star ship. I love me some Elizabeth Bear! Also, read the comments after the story to get a clue I didn’t see, like at all. Doh!

Doc Holliday leaned his head way back, tilting his hat to shade his eyes from the glare of the November sun and said, “Well, that still looks like some Jules Verne shit to me.”

4 Stars

[Netanella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doc Holiday and a posse of female wranglers who aren't quite what they seem go after a Little Green Man. This is fun, short, and it could have been a whole lot better than it was.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild West shoot-out with Doc Holliday and a spaceship, yeehah! I'm not really sure what just happened but I know I loved it! (Thank heaven for story comments at the end to explain it to me! The clues were all there in the story, I just didn't have the insight to know which dots to connect.). Can Elizabeth Bear write a short story that is NOT fantastic? No, no she can not.

http://www.tor.com/2012/08/08/faster-...

[karenbee · Rating 3 out of 5]

"That thing was a ship, Doctor Holliday. A ship that sailed between the stars."

I enjoyed this one but I didn't really understand the set-up until I read through the comments on tor.com -- and I highly recommend doing that if you also end your reading with a "Huh. Okay. Wait, what?"

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite authors re-imagines Doc Holliday finding a UFO, in the OK Corral era of Tombstone, AZ. First-rate story. Read it, if you haven't already: https://www.tor.com/2012/08/08/faster...

[Jason Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story with Doc Holliday, but it ain't your typical oater.

Two stars plus one for the ending, for a total of three... I reckon. It's short. That's a plus. It's definitely a case where the destination is better than the journey, but I usually prefer it the other way around. It was a nice destination once we got there. I was pleasantly surprised, but all in all... well, it's no daisy. It's no daisy at all.

See whether or not you agree by checking it out for yourself. It's only 23 pages in a word document and clips right along.

Before the ending there are a few things that are unrealistic about the story as far as race relations in the wild west go, but I realized I was just going to have to let go of my expectations for realism. This is a story about Doc Holliday checking out a spaceship in the desert, after all. I wasn't pleased with the characterization of Doc; I mean, he's my huckleberry and everything, so get it right!

I changed my mind about a few things once I got to the ending, but jotted down some notes as I read, and I just hate to waste ink, so here they are anyway even if I don't feel the same way anymore. Or do I? I don't know. The ending tied things together, but it was still a mixing of genres, and I'm not sure whether or not it worked. Some things that don't naturally mix well can be forced together and still be good. Tropicana Twister for example. Flavors mother nature never intended, but should've. Works just fine. But then you have people trying to put Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana into a techno remix with a beat fit for a hoedown.



Obviously I'm not a fan of the latter, but people like different things. Here are the ingredients for this tale. You be the judge as to whether or not they should be combined.


The Doc


Crashed spaceship in the desert


A man performing hexes


The bard


Interracial romance


Alien


Time travel

And this next one brought to you by North Central Positronics and the Sombra Corporation

A reset button

Put em all together, and voila: short story.

Ambivalence. I've got a bit of that going on. First, I'm not a big short story person, but I think it's important to get out of my comfort zone sometimes. Second, the legend of Doc Holliday is hallowed ground. Tread carefully.



He lost some bad-ass points in this, and I just didn't like that. (This is a personal problem of mine.) He didn't lose too much, mind you, just... Like I said, tread carefully around my legends.

Oh, and you occasionally came across sentences like this: "...Miss Lil was regarding him levelly out of eyes brown and intelligent as her mare’s." Was the woman dumb as a horse, or was she riding Mr. Ed? (Or Mrs. Ed, rather.) I'd personally be insulted if someone said I was as smart as my mare, though I'm fine when "smart ass" is hung on me. I know; I don't make any sense.

If you like sci-fi shorties, then you'll probably enjoy this.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat, action-packed Western Scifi, with one very likeable character as the protagonist. The end was also rather mind-bending.
Recommended.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

...Bear builds the tension like in a spaghetti western, but uses elements that warp the story into something unexpected. Faster Gun is a very enjoyable read if you don't mind a blend of genres.

Full Random Comments review

[Mayumi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Li aqui, marquei lido aqui: Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2012 edition.

[Cathy]

I'm not exactly sure what I think about this one. I happened to see that it was nominated for a Locus Award for best novelette in 2013. I really liked The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi, which won the category, when I read it last year. And I already read another of the stories in the category as well, The Lady Astronaut of Mars. I think that's why the category caught my eye. I didn't want to read all of the stories at this point, my nook is overflowing, but I've always wanted to try Elizabeth Bear's work, so I had to add one more story to my current list. And it was a good story. It think. At least it was enjoyable to read. It flowed well, the characters were fun, I even learned a little bit of history. I'd never heard of John Ringo. And I thought I kind of knew what was going on. Until the end when I just didn't. I admit it, I wasn't smart enough to understand what Bear was doing with it. I had to read the comments to get it. Thank goodness for those comments, I hate finishing a story and feeling like I have no idea what just happened. So, given the ability to access help from from friendly strangers, I liked the story. It's clever and fun. But without that I'd be really annoyed. So I don't know how to rate it and I'm just going to skip it this time. But why don't you read it and see what you think? It isn't very long and it's an easy read.

[Tammy K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is still free on Tor.com
I was in the mood for a cowboy short and this title fit that bill.
Overall it was a decent (average) read. The mystery was a good one. The settings/scenes are vividly described. The characters could have been filled out a bit more but they work for such a short story (32 Pages).
My main complaint is this: The story is written with chapter two first, followed by chapter one.
I was wondering how this would work and here it is:

A. Hoppalong Cassidy.
Q. What do you call a frog who wants to be a cowboy?

About the same as a joke, when you tell the punchline first.
I found chapter one to be boring and pointless once I read chapter two (first).
My suggestion to future readers is to read chapter one, followed by chapter two.

Yet as I said before, It is a decent read.
I recommend this to Western, Science Fiction, and short story readers.

Special note: You might want to know that it is very rare that I give a book under 50 pages 5 full stars, as I feel they are only partial stories.

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope that Elizabeth Bear is testing the waters for a new series! It would certainly make an excellent adventure series with a sci if twist - great read!

[Debra N · Rating 1 out of 5]

Strange.

[SadieReadsAgain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is by no means my typical read, so I don't feel well qualified to review it. I will say, that has been my experience with Tor stories (I read them to fulfil reading challenge prompts I'm reluctant about, and they are in genres I wouldn't usually touch) but I've always been impressed with them so far. Like the others, I found this quite an accessible read. The writing style is really good and I was interested to see where the story went. However, I didn't really get it and had to read the comments of others to understand the bigger picture. I think it's a bit meta for the likes of me. Still, I enjoyed it well enough.

[Per · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://reactormag.com/faster-gun/

[Morgan Dhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A day in the alternate life of an alternate Doc Holliday. Or so it seems. In Elizabeth Bear's chapbook Faster Gun, a somewhat unusual party of tenderfeet - a man with a gift for magic, and four women with a variety of striking attributes - hire Doc to guide them to the wreck of an alien spaceship not far form the town of Tombstone. But the reality is something rather different indeed.

Beautifully written, as Bear's work always is, with just enough clues to the explanation of what's really going on to make the realisation a slow and poignant one.

I'm not particularly enthralled with the mythos of the American Old West, but a cowboy fantasy story this good transcends the very genres it embodies.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is a story mixing the Wild West, science fiction and even a little fantasy into a nice little package. It seems that Westerns are not an unlikely pairing with science fiction elements – just see Cowboys vs. Aliens or Mike Resnick’s The Buntline Special (review). I’d place Bear’s story above The Buntline Special and somewhere in the vicinity of Cowboys vs Aliens (what, I enjoyed it!).

Read more at Starmetal Oak Reviews.

[harlequin {Stephanie} · Rating 2 out of 5]

Elizabeth Bear is a rare author to discover. More chameleon than simple writer, able to conform her writing to different genres.

The is spot on for the time period with clipped to the point writing and very literal comparisons. It is very dime store western.


Not a favorite by any stretch, but I liked the ending.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Western that meets science-fiction twist. This tale features the legendary Doc Holliday, who plays tour guide to some "tourists". I really want to know more now about this world with these unusual agent ladies (seem like MIB types), and the use of hex magic. I'm kind of sad though about how Doc (and us) don't get many answers at the end.

[Malapata · Rating 1 out of 5]

En los años de la leyenda del Far West un grupo de exploradores se adentra en una nave espacial alienígena que se ha estrellado en las afueras de Tombstone, liderada por Doc Holliday.

Para los amantes del Lejado Oeste estará bien, pero quitando eso la historia me ha parecido bastante plana y previsible.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doc Holiday and Johnny Ringo. It would be interesting to see where Elizabeth Bear takes this. I hope she gets enough response to expand this. There are so many places it could go. I certainly recommend this, and hope for more.

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sci-fi western time travel novellette, centered around a spacecraft crashed on Earth, just outside Tombstone, with something alive inside. I am not a fan of the Western genre, and probably because of it the story did not work for me.

[Alytha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of Cowboys vs Aliens (or rather, some Cowboys/girls with and some against them), with some time travel thrown in.

Not bad, but not spectacular either.

[Anne Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combined scifi mad western interesting idea - a good read

[Jeremy Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steampunk + time travel + space travel. Fun.