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Somehow, because of the kinds of books I usually read, I’m used to paranormal westerns being tied to horror literature. Because of that, I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this anthology, which is framed almost entirely within the boundaries of urban fantasy. But the selection completely blew me away. I think, aside from two stories, I loved pretty much everything.
“Desert Gods” by Aubrey Campbell
The collection opens with a bang: a wild story about witches and sand demons. Three women walk into a bar in a rundown frontier town—women who can fight sand demons. Each of them has her own powers and methods, and the battle ahead will be brutal, with a victory that comes at a terrible cost.
“Railroad” by Matthew D. Hockey
This one is classic speculative fiction set in the Wild West. A strong, atmospheric story that leaves plenty for the reader’s imagination to fill in. A stranger lives peacefully in a small town until two Pinkerton agents arrive looking for him. He hires two local kids to keep an eye on them and ends up forming a close bond with one of them. Soon we learn that both he and those hunting him come from a very, very distant place.
“Pixie Season” by Seanan McGuire
This reminded me of Charles de Lint’s stories, with its beautifully constructed desert mythology. On the farm where Dusty works, two new things appear: Celia, who somehow handles the cacti far better than anyone else, and an invasion of pixies. Dusty soon realizes someone is calling the pixies—and it might be Celia. Before long, the two share secrets, and we learn that neither of them is quite human.
“The Men with No Faces” by Alexandra Christian
This one plunges into horror very quickly, and deliciously so. A pair of young lovers—naturally, their love is forbidden due to an almost clan-like feud—have disappeared. The posse sent to find them soon realizes they vanished in a very bad place. A place where something not of this world abducts people in order to… I won’t spoil it.
“Lost Words” by David B. Coe
A mythological allegory with a pretty solid nod to Greek myth. There’s a shop in the middle of nowhere—a place where you can get whatever you want in exchange for words, a song, a poem, a story. The price is that you forget everything you give to the shopkeeper. What is “music,” really? Read it and you’ll find out.
“Boots of Clay” by Laura Anne Gilman
This is clearly part of a larger universe, but it stands well on its own. A Jewish colony lives in peace with the local Native population until a common enemy forces the settlers to use a bit of ancient magic—magic that clashes with the locals’ moral code.
“Trickster’s Choice” by Joe Gerard
A traveling carnival with an attraction guaranteed to scandalize Christian sensibilities. No problem—just tell us how the trick works. And what if it isn’t a trick at all?
“Wolves Howling in the Night” by Faith Hunter
This comes from an author’s universe whose books aren’t really my thing. Even so, the story itself is solid. A traveling pair—a white journalist and a Cherokee man, both with strange abilities—roam the West selling the stories they find along the way. This time they stumble into an ugly injustice and can’t just walk past it. But hey, it’ll make a great story.
“To Hear a Howling Herd” by Gunnar de Winter
A space story with a western flavor. A spacefaring Native tribe hunts cosmic rays for their energy. A kid with progressive ideas about the rays discovers they’re actually a sentient form of life.
“Calliope Stark: Bone Tree Bounty Hunter” by Edmund R. Schubert
Calliope herself felt a bit over-amped to me in terms of attitude and toughness—but honestly, the story works in part because of that. Calliope tangles with a gang of outlaws whose leader—or at least the apparent leader—has abilities like hers. It’s not a good idea to make her angry.
“Cards and Steel Hearts” by Pamela Jeffs
If this isn’t inspired by Zelazny’s Amber series, I’ll eat my hat. Another western–fantasy blend, where strange mechanical hearts reanimate magical monsters imprisoned in cards. With music.
“Bloodsilver” by A. E. Decker
This one is pretty bonkers, with its own quirky mythology that I found oddly charming. Or maybe I just really enjoyed the zombie-adjacent elements—there are several kinds. Ryder and his dead companion run into a massive number of Dancers. They’re going to need help to survive. That description says almost nothing, but trust me: walking dead, bone dancers, spirits of… yeah, it’s really good.
“Volunteered” by B. S. Donovan
A classic prisoner-escort plot, cleverly transplanted into a futuristic setting.
“The Stranger in the Glass” by Dave Benyon
This was a very well-played Exorcist-style story, but much more to my taste. Traveling glassblowers possess a special skill: they can trap entities that possess people inside specific bottles. Naturally, there’s a price to be paid—especially for the glassblower.
“Belly Speaker” by Nicole Givens Kurtz
Pure horror, and good horror at that. I won’t summarize it, because the whole story is tightly constructed and I’d inevitably spoil something. Still: a young enslaved girl may be able to free herself with the help of a terrifying doll. What’s the price of freedom? And is it freedom at all—or just trading one form of bondage for another?
“Walk the Dinosaur” by Jon G. Hartness
This one felt kind of ordinary to me. Not that there’s anything wrong with hunting dinosaurs—it’s just… that’s pretty much all it is.
“The Time-Traveling Schoolmarms of Marlborough County” by Barb Hendee
This one was delightfully odd. A new schoolteacher arrives in a backwater town after the old one has passed away. The young woman comes from a wealthy family and has no idea what she’s getting into with the western pioneers. She also inherits something strange from her predecessor—a medallion that… :)
“Rainmaker” by Margaret S. McGraw
A very polished piece of dark fantasy. The profession of rainmaker is the most cursed job on earth. Everyone wants you in their town during a drought, but once the rain starts, it won’t stop as long as you’re there—and the price of calling it down is enormous.
“Out of Luck” by Jeffrey Hall
A crazy shootout between a girl with powers and a gang of thugs. The most interesting part here was the world itself: talking, migrating Russian thistles, centaurs, mare-gods… absolute madness.
“Rollin’ Death” by Jake Bible
The plot might be straight out of a cheap western—which, by my standards, isn’t a minus—but a post-apocalyptic world with antagonists degraded into vampirism and a 30-meter combat robot? Who doesn’t love that stuff?