The Prairie Martian in Get Reviews!

Oct 10, 2019 Raymond Elmo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Prairie Martian" is primarily a western. A small self-sufficient community in the badlands (Scablands) with a steampunk level of tech. Civilization ends at the town limits. At least ‘Civvie’ civilization. Out beyond are nomadic tribes of scavengers. The ‘Scabbies’ have their own norms, granted. It’s the year 2472; some 300 years after the Apocalypse. Just reminds you of 1830’s west of the Pecos. Pity horses are extinct.

The town of New Halchita is no dystopia, no troglodyte clan worshipping The Prairie Martian" is primarily a western. A small self-sufficient community in the badlands (Scablands) with a steampunk level of tech. Civilization ends at the town limits. At least ‘Civvie’ civilization. Out beyond are nomadic tribes of scavengers. The ‘Scabbies’ have their own norms, granted. It’s the year 2472; some 300 years after the Apocalypse. Just reminds you of 1830’s west of the Pecos. Pity horses are extinct.

The town of New Halchita is no dystopia, no troglodyte clan worshipping the last TV. They are a literate folk working to keep the walls of civilization secure, to run to stations when the alarm bell rings. They are no comic dullards, easily fooled by snake-oil salesmen. Nor are they cowering townsfolk depending on a few gunslingers to save them. No doubt that follows the truth of the real ‘Old West’ beyond our cowboy movies. Real Old West communities didn’t wait for Clint and Shane to come to the rescue.

Not that there are no special heroes in 2473. We have Sheriff Frank Westfall, rather too tall. A taciturn ex-scout who is a bit weary, a bit lonely. Dutiful, and no one’s fool. Not the kind to catch the ladies’ eye, but he will, soon or late, catch the perpetrator.

There; that’s the book report to give you the stage setting. But ‘Prairie Martian’ is flat out no gunslinger tale with a touch of sci-fi. It’s ven diagrammed to a genre called ‘weird western’, at home on the shelf with ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ or the works of Mike Resnick. Perhaps next to ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’; for that ‘post-civilization’ feel is always in the background. The folk of New Halchita are survivors, holding on to a flame of literature, law and tech they are shielding from the dark; and the threatening sky.

Chiefly, this is a character-driven story. We have an undramatic, lonely hero determined to do his best; a sly rogue of a villain who is masterful at manipulating civvie and scabbie minds alike; a sassy lady-doc who has made her choices. Add to that a pretty Martian schoolmarm with robotic mien and, possibly, a secret agenda.

Character-driven novels usually come at the cost of long scenes, backstory chapters and complex conversations that convey this attitude, that misunderstanding. Readers endure this while waiting for the exciting stuff. I was immediately struck that Mr. Eaton did not need to pay that price. For all we cared chiefly who saw through who, or who stood by who, each chapter ends with some event of adrenaline excitement or emotional satisfaction or shocked surprise.

Given that, it seems almost secondary to say the narrative quality is excellent, dialogue is first-rate. No one is delivering easy punches or easy lines; no cowboy cliché tobacco spitting. Not a single barroom fight.

I hope Mr. Eaton gives us a sequel. This is a rich setting he has established, with a terrific under-stated hero. I want to find out the truth of the GID war, and what is beyond the Scablands. If no sequel, then dammit, Eaton, do it again. ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Ginger Bensman rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, action-adventure, western

The Prairie Martian by Jonathan Eaton is an entertaining, often whimsical, yarn about Earth in a distant future when Martians, descendants of long ago Earthlings sent to create settlements on Mars, send a space ship back to begin the process of taking over the Earth. The novel blends genres (part western, part dystopian, part science fiction). The landscape is western-themed and post-apocalyptic, with characters that might have emerged straight out of a 1950’s western and they are uniformly well ...more

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Aug 13, 2019 Raymond Elmo rated it it was amazing

"The Prairie Martian" is primarily a western. A small self-sufficient community in the badlands (Scablands) with a steampunk level of tech. Civilization ends at the town limits. At least ‘Civvie’ civilization. Out beyond are nomadic tribes of scavengers. The ‘Scabbies’ have their own norms, granted. It’s the year 2472; some 300 years after the Apocalypse. Just reminds you of 1830’s west of the Pecos. Pity horses are extinct.

The town of New Halchita is no dystopia, no troglodyte clan worshipping "The Prairie Martian" is primarily a western. A small self-sufficient community in the badlands (Scablands) with a steampunk level of tech. Civilization ends at the town limits. At least ‘Civvie’ civilization. Out beyond are nomadic tribes of scavengers. The ‘Scabbies’ have their own norms, granted. It’s the year 2472; some 300 years after the Apocalypse. Just reminds you of 1830’s west of the Pecos. Pity horses are extinct.

The town of New Halchita is no dystopia, no troglodyte clan worshipping the last TV. They are a literate folk working to keep the walls of civilization secure, to run to stations when the alarm bell rings. They are no comic dullards, easily fooled by snake-oil salesmen. Nor are they cowering townsfolk depending on a few gunslingers to save them. No doubt that follows the truth of the real ‘Old West’ beyond our cowboy movies. Real Old West communities didn’t wait for Clint and Shane to come to the rescue.

Not that there are no special heroes in 2473. We have Sheriff Frank Westfall, rather too tall. A taciturn ex-scout who is a bit weary, a bit lonely. Dutiful, and no one’s fool. Not the kind to catch the ladies’ eye, but he will, soon or late, catch the perpetrator.

There; that’s the book report to give you the stage setting. But ‘Prairie Martian’ is flat out no gunslinger tale with a touch of sci-fi. It’s ven diagrammed to a genre called ‘weird western’, at home on the shelf with ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ or the works of Mike Resnick. Perhaps next to ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’; for that ‘post-civilization’ feel is always in the background. The folk of New Halchita are survivors, holding on to a flame of literature, law and tech they are shielding from the dark; and the threatening sky.

Chiefly, this is a character-driven story. We have an undramatic, lonely hero determined to do his best; a sly rogue of a villain who is masterful at manipulating civvie and scabbie minds alike; a sassy lady-doc who has made her choices. Add to that a pretty Martian schoolmarm with robotic mien and, possibly, a secret agenda.

Character-driven novels usually come at the cost of long scenes, backstory chapters and complex conversations that convey this attitude, that misunderstanding. Readers endure this while waiting for the exciting stuff. I was immediately struck that Mr. Eaton did not need to pay that price. For all we cared chiefly who saw through who, or who stood by who, each chapter ends with some event of adrenaline excitement or emotional satisfaction or shocked surprise.

Given that, it seems almost secondary to say the narrative quality is excellent, dialogue is first-rate. No one is delivering easy punches or easy lines; no cowboy cliché tobacco spitting. Not a single barroom fight.

I hope Mr. Eaton gives us a sequel. This is a rich setting he has established, with a terrific under-stated hero. I want to find out the truth of the GID war, and what is beyond the Scablands. If no sequel, then dammit, Eaton, do it again.
Five of five stars. ...more

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Mar 20, 2020 I.M. Redwright rated it it was amazing

This western set in an post apocalyptic world was really fun to read.

Witty, and with an adequate pacing. The plot was quite original and clever while the world building was detailed and coherent.

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Oct 15, 2021 William Cook rated it it was amazing

Nope, we’re not in Kansas anymore, or Wichita for that matter. We’re in New Halchita, not much more than a carbuncle on the back of the western plains. The dusty little town would have gone completely unnoticed for another century had it not been for the visitation of the “giant cast-iron cockroach the Martian (if that’s what it was) rode in on.”

Author Jonathan Eaton’s novels are not “your grandfather’s westerns,” as his later books, A Good Man for an Outlaw and Outlaws and Worse, so definitivel ...more

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Mar 03, 2018 Kathleen Garlock rated it really liked it

You can almost hear the narrator’s drawl as he spins a very tall tale involving a very tall sheriff who might be his post-apocalyptic town’s best defense against roving bands of scavengers, mutated ticks, and a visitor from the planet Mars who goes by the name of Nancy.

The story begins with the after-the-fact arrival of an insect-shaped vessel captained by a young woman who claims to be a descendant of humans sent to colonize the planet Mars. She comes in peace, or so she claims, but it’s up to ...more

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Jul 16, 2017 Michael Gardner rated it really liked it

Overall I thought The Prairie Martian was a fun read. I never thought I’d describe a post-apocalyptic western as ‘fun’—one tends to expect a tense, grim, edgy, dirty, desperate drama from the post-apocalyptic genre—but The Prairie Martian sways more to the side of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash than Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It might seem a small thing to mention in a review, but I particularly appreciate that the setup for ‘why the world is the way it is’ was done in about three sentences.

Jonat ...more

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Dec 18, 2019 Robert McCarroll rated it really liked it

Shelves: indie-reviews

Going into this book, I expected a postapocalyptic western, and was not surprised. The world is populated largely with gray hats, not too many saints left after the end. Most of the characters are hiding something, however major or minor, and possess identifiable flaws and foibles. These recognizable characters live in a fortified bubble of civilization in a very hostile world surrounded by mutant wildlife and nomad scavenger clans. Though it is not as dire as that descriptor might sound, as peo ...more

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May 26, 2018 Kyle Adams rated it it was amazing

The Prairie Martian was, in short, a lot better than I thought it would be.

When I picked up the book, the cover didn't inspire me, and the first chapter didn't catch me immediately. The prose seemed overly windy and drawn out. But when the moody narration of the book set into its groove, time began to fly by, and before I knew it I had consumed a third of the tale. The pacing drew me in, and not a chapter went by without something happening that made me wonder what was next.

The Prairie Martian a ...more

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