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How The West Was Weird #1
How the West Was Weird
Aztec vampires gorge themselves on a small Mexican village. A masked hero of the 1940s stumbles onto a town that time forgot. A gunslinging exorcist works to save a boy from demonic possession. These are the stories of the American West your history teacher never told you about... because she was scared! Includes nine original tales of the weird, wild west, by Barry Reese, Derrick Ferguson, Josh Reynolds, and more.
Approximately 53,000 words.
Approximately 53,000 words.
ebook
First published February 6, 2010
4 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Russ Anderson Jr.
34 books9 followersRuss Anderson can usually be found in the suburbs of Baltimore, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, two beagles, and a very old, very angry cat. When he's not working for the man, he enjoys bicycling, making up stories, and pie.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 27, 2023
Fans of weird fiction might be disappointed. The title contains the word "weird", but this is technically not weird fiction. No mentions of Lovecraft. Few real mysteries or plot threads left unrevealed to ponder over. Few strange or unexplained worlds. What we have instead is two thirds standard horror, one third western, with a random element thrown in every once in a while, like a spaceship in one story, a bunch of zombies in another, to keep things varied.
This anthology edited by Russ Anderson Jr. was popular enough that Anderson made it into a series. The original was published in 2010 and featured nine stories by nine authors I'd never heard of, all in just 164 print (not Kindle) pages. I'd not previously heard of Russ Anderson, Jr. either.
If you're curious about the other books in the series, Volume II came out in 2011 and has twenty stories. The Campfire Tales volume also came out in 2011, and Volume III was published in 2014. That as far as I know is the sum total of Russ Anderson, Jr.'s contribution to the subgenre of weird western, unless one of his 99-cent short stories that he himself wrote and can be purchased on Amazon happens to be weird western.
As far as I know, Russ Anderson, Jr., does not write or anthologize for a living. He has a day job around Baltimore, I believe, which limits how prolific he can be, I'm sure. He is not that widely known or widely read yet either. But maybe that's due for a change. I purchased the Kindle version of this book for $4.99. Brand new paperback print copies, I noticed go for $11.95. People who have purchased a copy are not selling it for less than $11.95 in the used book market once you include their shipping charges. People want to hold on to their copies.
Here is my take on the stories herein contained:
1) 3 stars - The first story is "Camazotz" by Joshua Reynolds. It starts out really well. We have three characters: a Mexican, an American, and a dead dude. The interplay in this 1915 Mexico setting is really interesting, and I became intrigued by what would result. Then suddenly nothing results. It's a strangely nothing ending with nothing being resolved. That, or I really don't understand the story. Help!
Interesting thing about this author. I read and reviewed his first novel Dracula Lives! a couple months ago: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Neither of these two early works garner more than three stars from me, but I bet some of his later ones might, if I get to reading them.
2) 2 Stars - "Wyrm Over Diablo" by Joel Jenkins. The setting, the conflict, and the plot are all fine. The antagonist, Carina Crawley, wants to acquire the Eye of Ulutoth. The protagonist, an Indian named Lone Crow, needs to keep her from getting that kind of power. The struggle ensues. My problem with the story is the storytelling. When writing dialog for characters, the characters must have their own motives for saying what they say. Usually a character speaks in order to get something the character wants, to try to influence something or to get information so that he can then wield influence. Sometimes a character speaks to help another or inform another, but even this has to be motivated. Jenkins' characters lack these motivations for their dialog. They speak, it seems to me, mostly in order to clue the reader in as to what the stakes in the story are and who has what cards to play. Having characters speak in order to loop the reader in is a rookie mistake one learns to avoid after one's first story gets workshopped in a group or class. It's easy to fix in an edit. You just take the dialog out and convert it into narration. I think Jenkins has a few tradecraft techniques to acquire (from 2010 on) before he can truly be considered a writer, but I definitely see potential here.
I just researched further and realize perhaps I am not being entirely fair. This is a very early story in Jenkins ouvre. He probably worked these kinks I mention out within the next year or two. Surprisingly, this is the first story featuring his Indian protagonist, Lone Crow, in a long series of short stories, roughly thirty of them since this 2010 premiere.
Here's the Lone Crow series list, if you're interested:
Wyrm over Diablo (2010) [SF]
Against the Gathering Darkness (2010) [SF]
Long Night in Little China (2010) [SF]
The Lost Vale (2011) [SF]
The Shadow Walkers (2011) [SF]
The Five Disciples (2012) [SF]
The Vanishing City (2012) [SF]
Old Mother Hennessy (2012) [SF]
The Eye of Ulutoth (2013) [SF]
The Steam Devil (2014) [SF]
Blood for the Jaguar (2014) [SF]
The Coming of Crow (2014) [C]
The Homunculi of Azathoth (2014) [SF]
The Pythagorean Hounds (2014) [SF]
The Succubus in Shotgun Ferguson (2014) [SF]
The Trail of the Twisted Tail (2014) [SF]
The Wolves of Five Points (2014) [SF]
Personal Devil (2014) [SF]
The Vorpal Tomahawk (2015) [SF]
Dead Before Sunrise (2015) [SF]
The Burial Mound (2016) [SF]
It Fell from the Nighted Sky (2017) [SF]
Day of the Undead (2017) [SF]
Bitter Days to Come (2019) [SF]
Phantom of the Leaden Skies (2022) [SF]
The Armies Beneath the Salted Sea (2022) [SF]
The Canyon Demon (2022) [SF]
The Vindication of Crow (2022) [C]
The Well of Eternal Sleep (2022) [SF]
Trail of the Brocklin Brothers (2022) [SF]
Two Crows (2022) [SF]
3) 4 Stars - "Space Miners" by Ian Taylor. This is a really good story. It's a western set in space. Instead of riding horses the cowboys are in single flyer spaceships (think Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica), and they're going after rustlers who are taking minerals from asteroids rather than cattle. These rustlers are aliens, sort of like Indians or maybe Mexicans, but they have unanticipated resources that make this a very interesting fight. Loved the storytelling and conflict. The only weird thing about it is there was not one aspect of weird fiction in this story. It is 60% Western and 40% science fiction, no weird, no horror. I don't blame the editor, Mr. Anderson, for including it anyway. It's the strongest, best written story in the anthology so far.
Ian Taylor's work has been really sporadic. His first work was a 2005 novel, Spindle. Then he wrote this gem of a short story in 2010, and followed up with another short story in 2011 titled "They Call Him Pat" which was published in How the West was Weird, Volume II. After that, nothing until Covid year 2020, when he burst back upon the scene with three short stories and his second novel (this time with Rosi Taylor) titled The Gatekeeper. He published no less than nine short stories in 2021, but I can't find anything since. Maybe if he did it's too recent for it to have become known. Obviously I think this guy is worth looking out for. Much of his work does get into the horror and weird genres even if this story didn't.
The next three stories were stronger than the first three.
4) 5 stars. "Don Cuevo's Curative" by Thomas Deja. A child in a small western town becomes possessed by a demon and the town has to call in an exorcist to battle not only the demon, but to an extent the town too and its ability to take their situation seriously. This was a well-told, riveting spectacle. The narrator is a townsperson who knew who to call in to get the job done. The fascinating exorcist is the title's namesake, Don Cuevo, but the character who steals the story is his lovely, enigmatic assistant, Dolores.
This amazing story has but one follow-up featuring Don Cuevo. Naturally, I had to acquire it: PulpWork Halloween Special 2017. The book arrived in my mailbox today, and I must say these five stories it features look absolutely amazing. The second story in the collection is "Don Cuevo's Legion", twenty pages I am very much looking forward to. Curiously, the first story in the book is a Lone Crow story by Joel Jenkins (see my #2 above): "Day of the Undead". I read the first few paragraphs of the story and am happy to report that my prediction was correct; Jenkins developed into a better writer. Those paragraphs read as much stronger material.
Thomas Deja has published twenty or so speculative fiction short stories, no novels yet. The one that looks the most intriguing to me personally is his 2002 X-Men novella, one of the stories that appears in Five Decades of the X-Men.
5) 3 Stars. "The Town with No Name" by Mike McGee. A western town hires a gunslinger to face a menace no one in town is willing to confront. The story turns out to be about the character of the gunslinger in relation to the character of the town. The menace is all but forgotten until the end. This story has a lot of pages and is told so slowly that it's hard to track the plot all the way through, particularly if, like me, you put the story down for a day and pick it up later to finish. On my second read, I read the entire story straight through. It made good sense and has an interesting if not riveting point: be careful who you hire to protect you; you may end up requiring protection from your agent. Speed readers will get the most out of this too-wordy but still good story.
Mike McGee is the smallest name in the book. He only published one other short story so far, "Terror in Toyland" (2011). It appears in the next volume: How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2: Twenty More Tales of the Weird, Wild West.
6) 4 Stars. "Sins of the Past: An Adventure Starring the Rook". This story was a surprise. During my teenage years I read and greatly enjoyed a Warrren Comics series titled The Rook. This can't be an episode in that series. It is written over thirty years later. But it has some amazing similarities in that both protagonists are time-travelling adventurists who call themselves The Rook. This Barry Reese story is one in a series of Rook stories (I'm not sure how many; ISFDB is strangely unhelpful this time) by this author and was a lot of fun to read. The Rook leaves his time (1943) to travel back to a small western town stuck in 1884 that is causing problems for people in 1943. The Rook has a mystery to unravel and a time bubble problem to resolve. I'm would enjoy looking for more Barry Reese to read. Recommended for people who enjoy time travel stories with emphasis on protagonists' characteristics.
The first two of the last three stories were really good.
7) 4 Stars. "You Need to Know What's Coming" by Ian Mileham. A woman hires a guide to lead her to a pit that contains mysterious gemstones similar to opals. How did the woman come to acquire these opals? As we learn more of their origin and the features of the country around the pit we learn this story is about more than a simple treasure hunt. The story starts out slow, but once it gets going becomes quite exciting. Well worth the ride for the final answers.
Sadly, Ian Mileham wrote only this story and one more for its sequel, How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2: Twenty More Tales of the Weird, Wild West. Nothing more is listed in ISFDB. Oh well, needless to say I will be reading the sequel.
8) 4 Stars. "Of All the Plagues a Lover Bears" by Derrick Ferguson. This is a well-told zombie story set in the Wild West. A man bit by a zombie, therefore due to turn into one soon, wants to hire a zombie slayer to rescue his daughter who was kidnapped by a zombie. It feels like we're in a world Ferguson has set others of his stories in, but this one stands alone well. I'm not really into the zombie phenomenon at all, but this story was okay by itself. Ferguson does a good job of explaining his premises as he goes without data dumping and tells a fun story. Zombie story fans will of course get even more mileage than me unless this is all cliche. I wouldn't know.
Okay, I just looked it up and I see this story is the second of Ferguson's three Sebastian Red stories. Sebastian Red is the zombie slayer who is hired to rescue the daughter. I enjoyed Ferguson's writing enough that I would seek out the other two in the series at some point. Ferguson has written several other stories as well, usually containing a known character, Frankenstein, Sinbad, Odin, for example. His The Madness of Frankenstein looks interesting since I like Frank.
9) 1 Star. "Out South of Borachon Creek" by Bill Kte'pi. This story seems like it was written as a vehicle for the author's 17 gratuitous f-bombs. The plot is a dude goes wandering out of town on a horse, finds a demon scarecrow, and decides on a bet to give it his soul. The End. That actually sounds better than it is. The writing itself is puerile, dipping into second person "you" for a slangy feel that fails utterly, for example. The swearing is to shock and shows the authorial sophistication of a middle schooler. Awful. What an odd choice to end the anthology with. Surprisingly enough, this author has written two novels and about a dozen short stories.
All in all, this was a wonderful anthology. It has a breadth wider than I expected with different levels of writing talent and widely different ideas of how to tell a weird western story. I'm glad there is such variety. I could have dealt entirely without the last story, and was not that impressed with the second, but the other seven were good, certainly worth my time, and I recommend each for certain audiences. I'd be happy to try another story by the first eight of these nine authors any time.
This anthology edited by Russ Anderson Jr. was popular enough that Anderson made it into a series. The original was published in 2010 and featured nine stories by nine authors I'd never heard of, all in just 164 print (not Kindle) pages. I'd not previously heard of Russ Anderson, Jr. either.
If you're curious about the other books in the series, Volume II came out in 2011 and has twenty stories. The Campfire Tales volume also came out in 2011, and Volume III was published in 2014. That as far as I know is the sum total of Russ Anderson, Jr.'s contribution to the subgenre of weird western, unless one of his 99-cent short stories that he himself wrote and can be purchased on Amazon happens to be weird western.
As far as I know, Russ Anderson, Jr., does not write or anthologize for a living. He has a day job around Baltimore, I believe, which limits how prolific he can be, I'm sure. He is not that widely known or widely read yet either. But maybe that's due for a change. I purchased the Kindle version of this book for $4.99. Brand new paperback print copies, I noticed go for $11.95. People who have purchased a copy are not selling it for less than $11.95 in the used book market once you include their shipping charges. People want to hold on to their copies.
Here is my take on the stories herein contained:
1) 3 stars - The first story is "Camazotz" by Joshua Reynolds. It starts out really well. We have three characters: a Mexican, an American, and a dead dude. The interplay in this 1915 Mexico setting is really interesting, and I became intrigued by what would result. Then suddenly nothing results. It's a strangely nothing ending with nothing being resolved. That, or I really don't understand the story. Help!
Interesting thing about this author. I read and reviewed his first novel Dracula Lives! a couple months ago: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Neither of these two early works garner more than three stars from me, but I bet some of his later ones might, if I get to reading them.
2) 2 Stars - "Wyrm Over Diablo" by Joel Jenkins. The setting, the conflict, and the plot are all fine. The antagonist, Carina Crawley, wants to acquire the Eye of Ulutoth. The protagonist, an Indian named Lone Crow, needs to keep her from getting that kind of power. The struggle ensues. My problem with the story is the storytelling. When writing dialog for characters, the characters must have their own motives for saying what they say. Usually a character speaks in order to get something the character wants, to try to influence something or to get information so that he can then wield influence. Sometimes a character speaks to help another or inform another, but even this has to be motivated. Jenkins' characters lack these motivations for their dialog. They speak, it seems to me, mostly in order to clue the reader in as to what the stakes in the story are and who has what cards to play. Having characters speak in order to loop the reader in is a rookie mistake one learns to avoid after one's first story gets workshopped in a group or class. It's easy to fix in an edit. You just take the dialog out and convert it into narration. I think Jenkins has a few tradecraft techniques to acquire (from 2010 on) before he can truly be considered a writer, but I definitely see potential here.
I just researched further and realize perhaps I am not being entirely fair. This is a very early story in Jenkins ouvre. He probably worked these kinks I mention out within the next year or two. Surprisingly, this is the first story featuring his Indian protagonist, Lone Crow, in a long series of short stories, roughly thirty of them since this 2010 premiere.
Here's the Lone Crow series list, if you're interested:
Wyrm over Diablo (2010) [SF]
Against the Gathering Darkness (2010) [SF]
Long Night in Little China (2010) [SF]
The Lost Vale (2011) [SF]
The Shadow Walkers (2011) [SF]
The Five Disciples (2012) [SF]
The Vanishing City (2012) [SF]
Old Mother Hennessy (2012) [SF]
The Eye of Ulutoth (2013) [SF]
The Steam Devil (2014) [SF]
Blood for the Jaguar (2014) [SF]
The Coming of Crow (2014) [C]
The Homunculi of Azathoth (2014) [SF]
The Pythagorean Hounds (2014) [SF]
The Succubus in Shotgun Ferguson (2014) [SF]
The Trail of the Twisted Tail (2014) [SF]
The Wolves of Five Points (2014) [SF]
Personal Devil (2014) [SF]
The Vorpal Tomahawk (2015) [SF]
Dead Before Sunrise (2015) [SF]
The Burial Mound (2016) [SF]
It Fell from the Nighted Sky (2017) [SF]
Day of the Undead (2017) [SF]
Bitter Days to Come (2019) [SF]
Phantom of the Leaden Skies (2022) [SF]
The Armies Beneath the Salted Sea (2022) [SF]
The Canyon Demon (2022) [SF]
The Vindication of Crow (2022) [C]
The Well of Eternal Sleep (2022) [SF]
Trail of the Brocklin Brothers (2022) [SF]
Two Crows (2022) [SF]
3) 4 Stars - "Space Miners" by Ian Taylor. This is a really good story. It's a western set in space. Instead of riding horses the cowboys are in single flyer spaceships (think Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica), and they're going after rustlers who are taking minerals from asteroids rather than cattle. These rustlers are aliens, sort of like Indians or maybe Mexicans, but they have unanticipated resources that make this a very interesting fight. Loved the storytelling and conflict. The only weird thing about it is there was not one aspect of weird fiction in this story. It is 60% Western and 40% science fiction, no weird, no horror. I don't blame the editor, Mr. Anderson, for including it anyway. It's the strongest, best written story in the anthology so far.
Ian Taylor's work has been really sporadic. His first work was a 2005 novel, Spindle. Then he wrote this gem of a short story in 2010, and followed up with another short story in 2011 titled "They Call Him Pat" which was published in How the West was Weird, Volume II. After that, nothing until Covid year 2020, when he burst back upon the scene with three short stories and his second novel (this time with Rosi Taylor) titled The Gatekeeper. He published no less than nine short stories in 2021, but I can't find anything since. Maybe if he did it's too recent for it to have become known. Obviously I think this guy is worth looking out for. Much of his work does get into the horror and weird genres even if this story didn't.
The next three stories were stronger than the first three.
4) 5 stars. "Don Cuevo's Curative" by Thomas Deja. A child in a small western town becomes possessed by a demon and the town has to call in an exorcist to battle not only the demon, but to an extent the town too and its ability to take their situation seriously. This was a well-told, riveting spectacle. The narrator is a townsperson who knew who to call in to get the job done. The fascinating exorcist is the title's namesake, Don Cuevo, but the character who steals the story is his lovely, enigmatic assistant, Dolores.
This amazing story has but one follow-up featuring Don Cuevo. Naturally, I had to acquire it: PulpWork Halloween Special 2017. The book arrived in my mailbox today, and I must say these five stories it features look absolutely amazing. The second story in the collection is "Don Cuevo's Legion", twenty pages I am very much looking forward to. Curiously, the first story in the book is a Lone Crow story by Joel Jenkins (see my #2 above): "Day of the Undead". I read the first few paragraphs of the story and am happy to report that my prediction was correct; Jenkins developed into a better writer. Those paragraphs read as much stronger material.
Thomas Deja has published twenty or so speculative fiction short stories, no novels yet. The one that looks the most intriguing to me personally is his 2002 X-Men novella, one of the stories that appears in Five Decades of the X-Men.
5) 3 Stars. "The Town with No Name" by Mike McGee. A western town hires a gunslinger to face a menace no one in town is willing to confront. The story turns out to be about the character of the gunslinger in relation to the character of the town. The menace is all but forgotten until the end. This story has a lot of pages and is told so slowly that it's hard to track the plot all the way through, particularly if, like me, you put the story down for a day and pick it up later to finish. On my second read, I read the entire story straight through. It made good sense and has an interesting if not riveting point: be careful who you hire to protect you; you may end up requiring protection from your agent. Speed readers will get the most out of this too-wordy but still good story.
Mike McGee is the smallest name in the book. He only published one other short story so far, "Terror in Toyland" (2011). It appears in the next volume: How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2: Twenty More Tales of the Weird, Wild West.
6) 4 Stars. "Sins of the Past: An Adventure Starring the Rook". This story was a surprise. During my teenage years I read and greatly enjoyed a Warrren Comics series titled The Rook. This can't be an episode in that series. It is written over thirty years later. But it has some amazing similarities in that both protagonists are time-travelling adventurists who call themselves The Rook. This Barry Reese story is one in a series of Rook stories (I'm not sure how many; ISFDB is strangely unhelpful this time) by this author and was a lot of fun to read. The Rook leaves his time (1943) to travel back to a small western town stuck in 1884 that is causing problems for people in 1943. The Rook has a mystery to unravel and a time bubble problem to resolve. I'm would enjoy looking for more Barry Reese to read. Recommended for people who enjoy time travel stories with emphasis on protagonists' characteristics.
The first two of the last three stories were really good.
7) 4 Stars. "You Need to Know What's Coming" by Ian Mileham. A woman hires a guide to lead her to a pit that contains mysterious gemstones similar to opals. How did the woman come to acquire these opals? As we learn more of their origin and the features of the country around the pit we learn this story is about more than a simple treasure hunt. The story starts out slow, but once it gets going becomes quite exciting. Well worth the ride for the final answers.
Sadly, Ian Mileham wrote only this story and one more for its sequel, How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2: Twenty More Tales of the Weird, Wild West. Nothing more is listed in ISFDB. Oh well, needless to say I will be reading the sequel.
8) 4 Stars. "Of All the Plagues a Lover Bears" by Derrick Ferguson. This is a well-told zombie story set in the Wild West. A man bit by a zombie, therefore due to turn into one soon, wants to hire a zombie slayer to rescue his daughter who was kidnapped by a zombie. It feels like we're in a world Ferguson has set others of his stories in, but this one stands alone well. I'm not really into the zombie phenomenon at all, but this story was okay by itself. Ferguson does a good job of explaining his premises as he goes without data dumping and tells a fun story. Zombie story fans will of course get even more mileage than me unless this is all cliche. I wouldn't know.
Okay, I just looked it up and I see this story is the second of Ferguson's three Sebastian Red stories. Sebastian Red is the zombie slayer who is hired to rescue the daughter. I enjoyed Ferguson's writing enough that I would seek out the other two in the series at some point. Ferguson has written several other stories as well, usually containing a known character, Frankenstein, Sinbad, Odin, for example. His The Madness of Frankenstein looks interesting since I like Frank.
9) 1 Star. "Out South of Borachon Creek" by Bill Kte'pi. This story seems like it was written as a vehicle for the author's 17 gratuitous f-bombs. The plot is a dude goes wandering out of town on a horse, finds a demon scarecrow, and decides on a bet to give it his soul. The End. That actually sounds better than it is. The writing itself is puerile, dipping into second person "you" for a slangy feel that fails utterly, for example. The swearing is to shock and shows the authorial sophistication of a middle schooler. Awful. What an odd choice to end the anthology with. Surprisingly enough, this author has written two novels and about a dozen short stories.
All in all, this was a wonderful anthology. It has a breadth wider than I expected with different levels of writing talent and widely different ideas of how to tell a weird western story. I'm glad there is such variety. I could have dealt entirely without the last story, and was not that impressed with the second, but the other seven were good, certainly worth my time, and I recommend each for certain audiences. I'd be happy to try another story by the first eight of these nine authors any time.
Want to read
October 16, 2014Warum ich dieses Buch kaufen musste? Wegen der ersten Sätze der ersten Story CAMAZOTZ von Joshua Reynolds:
"1915. Cuilchui, Mexico.
Three figures sat around a rough table in a run-down cantina. One was an American. One was a Mexican. The third was dead."
"1915. Cuilchui, Mexico.
Three figures sat around a rough table in a run-down cantina. One was an American. One was a Mexican. The third was dead."
March 2, 2023
A pretty neat anthology containing some rather entertaining stories from various genres.
1. Camasotz by Joshua Reynolds ***
A very colorful weird/supernatural story involving some Aztec(?) skeleton, From the first word onward you just *know* the skeleton is bad news. Grab popcorn.
2. Wyrm over Diablo by Joel Jenkins ***
An even MORE colorful story, very much like the show Supernatural, with very - not to use the word cliché - but well - iconic archetypical characters, from a super sexy diablesse lady to some old Indian guy who's like the right Dean Winchester, only older and stauncher and Indian. A very very cool demon thing and lots of BOOM.
3. Space Miners by Ian Taylor ****
Straight-up sci fi story about the realities of living in a frontier town and dealing with some high -positioned kids of another Galaxy's bosses. Loved it.
4. Don Cuevo's Curative by Thomas Deja ****
Demon possession stuff. Also very colorful.
5. The Town with no Name by Mike McGee**
What the heck! This is very much weird fiction, features truly horrible everybody, at the center is the worlds' literally worst man ever, I did NOT like this story! I mean, it might not be a bad story, but a super unpleasant one!
6. Sins of the Past by Barry Reese ****
cool
7. You need to know what's coming by Ian Mileham ****
Yeah! Another super colorful story of adventure and treasure hunt and fighting monsters!
8. Of All the Plagues a Lover Bears*****
Somehow, this story of zombies and love really moved me.
9. Out South of Borrachon Creek by Bill Kte'pi ****
This story reads like - not much. Then it reads like - well, we know what's happening here. Then it's like OH MY GOD WE KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE BUT THE STUPID IDIOT PROTAGONIST - OH NO DON'T DO THAAAAAAAT! And it all makes sense. The awful casualness of it!
1. Camasotz by Joshua Reynolds ***
A very colorful weird/supernatural story involving some Aztec(?) skeleton, From the first word onward you just *know* the skeleton is bad news. Grab popcorn.
2. Wyrm over Diablo by Joel Jenkins ***
An even MORE colorful story, very much like the show Supernatural, with very - not to use the word cliché - but well - iconic archetypical characters, from a super sexy diablesse lady to some old Indian guy who's like the right Dean Winchester, only older and stauncher and Indian. A very very cool demon thing and lots of BOOM.
3. Space Miners by Ian Taylor ****
Straight-up sci fi story about the realities of living in a frontier town and dealing with some high -positioned kids of another Galaxy's bosses. Loved it.
4. Don Cuevo's Curative by Thomas Deja ****
Demon possession stuff. Also very colorful.
5. The Town with no Name by Mike McGee**
What the heck! This is very much weird fiction, features truly horrible everybody, at the center is the worlds' literally worst man ever, I did NOT like this story! I mean, it might not be a bad story, but a super unpleasant one!
6. Sins of the Past by Barry Reese ****
cool
7. You need to know what's coming by Ian Mileham ****
Yeah! Another super colorful story of adventure and treasure hunt and fighting monsters!
8. Of All the Plagues a Lover Bears*****
Somehow, this story of zombies and love really moved me.
9. Out South of Borrachon Creek by Bill Kte'pi ****
This story reads like - not much. Then it reads like - well, we know what's happening here. Then it's like OH MY GOD WE KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE BUT THE STUPID IDIOT PROTAGONIST - OH NO DON'T DO THAAAAAAAT! And it all makes sense. The awful casualness of it!
March 19, 2020
I was expecting something more dark(or I wasn’t sure what I was expecting), but this collection ended up being a great mix of the creepy weird tales I was expecting and the fun action adventure stories I didn’t know I wanted. I will definitely seek out more work by several of these authors.
April 2, 2020
Fun read, but nothing that truly surprised me. Good aanthology still.
August 21, 2016
Weird Western, a sub-genre within the phylum fantasy, dealing with horror, science-fiction, fantasy, supernatural, and everything else, juxtaposed onto and enmeshed with the landscape of the once wild American West, had caught me in its vicelike grip ever since I encountered the special Avatar of Jonah Hex created by Lansdale. However, unlike Lansdale, who can spin a yarn out of practically anything, and then can infuse it with a humour that’s side-splitting and pathos that’s stunning, most of the practitioners of that sub-genre featured in this collection had decided to play it safe, restricting themselves to horror, and very rarely to science-fiction.
The menu thrown to you by the barkeep mentions:
1. “Camazotz” by Joshua Reynolds: A grim, relentless, suspenseful horror story, which would keep you on your toes till the end, and then end abruptly! Can we expect a sequel? Or, (gulp!) can we truly expect a novel arising out of this tapestry that was hinted at?
2. “Wyrm over Diablo” by Joel Jenkins: A “Lone Crow” story that fittingly combines a lot of elements, shuffles & cuts them at a furious pace, and then allows us relish the ending.
3. “Space Miners” by Ian Taylor: This story was special, and stands tall by virtue of being the only sci-fi story that entirely dispenses with the American West, replacing it with wilderness along the final frontier, and filling it up with an adventure, with some black humour as well.
4. “Don Cuevo’s Curative” by Thomas Deja: The BEST story of this collection, with a depth that’s surprising, and deft handling of horror, humour and pathos, which is indeed a rarity.
5. “The Town with No Name” by Mike McGee: What a waste! The author had created a beautiful setting where the reader can pleasurably expect to be fascinated by all the nasty things can happen to nastier persons, in the tradition of the late great Robert Bloch, but then the whole thing was reduced to an idiotic nothing.
6. “Sins of The Past” by Barry Reese: A brilliant ghost story that seeks to exorcise some of the worst ghosts of the racist past & present through action and atmosphere, this one should be savoured.
7. “You Need To Know What’s Coming” by Ian Mileham: Another SOLID story, which unfolds at a furious pace, mixing atmosphere, characterisation, horror, action, and possibilities of more horror together brilliantly.
8. “Of All the Plagues a Lover Bears” by Derrick Ferguson: SUPERLATIVE! That’s all that I can say about this one. And yes, I would be definitely searching for more stories dealing with our protagonist, i.e. Sebastian Red.
9. “Out South of Borachon Creek” by Bill Kte’pi: Utter crap, and should be avoided like poison, if you wish to retain the otherwise pleasant taste & aroma of this book.
Overall, out of the nine stories in this book, at least four are really-really good, while 3 are definitely readable with some re-read value. One is rubbish, and one deserves a beating. But if you treat them as the town-idiot and the town-redneck respectively, even then this is one place where you would be able to find a bit to eat, some music to fill the watering hole, and a warm bed, definitely.
Welcome to this town of the weird west, then.
The menu thrown to you by the barkeep mentions:
1. “Camazotz” by Joshua Reynolds: A grim, relentless, suspenseful horror story, which would keep you on your toes till the end, and then end abruptly! Can we expect a sequel? Or, (gulp!) can we truly expect a novel arising out of this tapestry that was hinted at?
2. “Wyrm over Diablo” by Joel Jenkins: A “Lone Crow” story that fittingly combines a lot of elements, shuffles & cuts them at a furious pace, and then allows us relish the ending.
3. “Space Miners” by Ian Taylor: This story was special, and stands tall by virtue of being the only sci-fi story that entirely dispenses with the American West, replacing it with wilderness along the final frontier, and filling it up with an adventure, with some black humour as well.
4. “Don Cuevo’s Curative” by Thomas Deja: The BEST story of this collection, with a depth that’s surprising, and deft handling of horror, humour and pathos, which is indeed a rarity.
5. “The Town with No Name” by Mike McGee: What a waste! The author had created a beautiful setting where the reader can pleasurably expect to be fascinated by all the nasty things can happen to nastier persons, in the tradition of the late great Robert Bloch, but then the whole thing was reduced to an idiotic nothing.
6. “Sins of The Past” by Barry Reese: A brilliant ghost story that seeks to exorcise some of the worst ghosts of the racist past & present through action and atmosphere, this one should be savoured.
7. “You Need To Know What’s Coming” by Ian Mileham: Another SOLID story, which unfolds at a furious pace, mixing atmosphere, characterisation, horror, action, and possibilities of more horror together brilliantly.
8. “Of All the Plagues a Lover Bears” by Derrick Ferguson: SUPERLATIVE! That’s all that I can say about this one. And yes, I would be definitely searching for more stories dealing with our protagonist, i.e. Sebastian Red.
9. “Out South of Borachon Creek” by Bill Kte’pi: Utter crap, and should be avoided like poison, if you wish to retain the otherwise pleasant taste & aroma of this book.
Overall, out of the nine stories in this book, at least four are really-really good, while 3 are definitely readable with some re-read value. One is rubbish, and one deserves a beating. But if you treat them as the town-idiot and the town-redneck respectively, even then this is one place where you would be able to find a bit to eat, some music to fill the watering hole, and a warm bed, definitely.
Welcome to this town of the weird west, then.
November 23, 2011
Although one of the stories is futuristic and set in space instead of the historical Wild West, the environment is still not unlike the old west (it does deal with rustlers). Most of these stories are set in the old west and are at least marginally in the western genre. However, each has something more, whether a paranormal twist (vampires and zombies make appearances) or a supernatural element of some kind. None of them is going to be mistaken for Zane Grey.
Although it has been several decades since I last read something in the Western genre and many would claim the genre is dead (despite John Locke’s "Emmett Love" Western series proving there is a market among Kindle readers), I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. As you can expect with an anthology, some of the stories resonated more than others, but the strange genre blending was weird in a way I liked. If you like westerns or paranormal, taking a walk on the weird side should feed your normal craving while adding a little of that spice that some call variety.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
Although it has been several decades since I last read something in the Western genre and many would claim the genre is dead (despite John Locke’s "Emmett Love" Western series proving there is a market among Kindle readers), I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. As you can expect with an anthology, some of the stories resonated more than others, but the strange genre blending was weird in a way I liked. If you like westerns or paranormal, taking a walk on the weird side should feed your normal craving while adding a little of that spice that some call variety.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
March 28, 2012
A wonderful collection of weird western fiction spanning not only the standard fare of cowboys and zombies/creatures/werewolves but also a nice helping of modern day and futuristic stories as well, something a lot of people forget is ALSO part of the weird west genre.
After setting this book down I thought back to all the stories within it and have to say that none really struck me as sub-par. Even the final story set in modern times, though less interesting and lacking in a lot of the weird west theme, is still a wonderful story to read. I had found myself coming back to this book again and again as I read it, unable to put it down as I promised myself one more story.
This is a superb collection of weird west stories and if anyone has any interest in this genre you can't do wrong by adding this to your collection of fiction. Well done stories, edited with skill, and overall left me with a satisfied feeling. I recommend this collection.
After setting this book down I thought back to all the stories within it and have to say that none really struck me as sub-par. Even the final story set in modern times, though less interesting and lacking in a lot of the weird west theme, is still a wonderful story to read. I had found myself coming back to this book again and again as I read it, unable to put it down as I promised myself one more story.
This is a superb collection of weird west stories and if anyone has any interest in this genre you can't do wrong by adding this to your collection of fiction. Well done stories, edited with skill, and overall left me with a satisfied feeling. I recommend this collection.
May 28, 2014
Having read some Derrick Ferguson and wanting to read some Thomas Deja I purchased this collection. I thoroughly enjoyed it, in fact this is the short story collection I have enjoyed the most. Some are stronger than others as is always the case but a romping good read. Some I wanted to read more of and others I want to see on the screen! Highly recommended and I will be reading volumes 2, 3 and campfire tales!
June 3, 2015
Too bloody, too many guns, not for me.
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