Ghost Dance Judgement (Golgotha #4) review

    I've very much enjoyed the Golgotha series and am very glad that I picked it up. I've since devoured all four books in the series and am eagerly looking forward to it continuing. If it were to end here, though, it would be a pretty good place to stop it. I am glad it returned to the Old West after the break for QUEEN OF SWORDS that, while I liked it, took it away from the setting I enjoyed.

    The premise is that a young Native American girl, Izusa, has decided to raise an army of the dead to scourge the world of the white man. The US government has sent an insane military commander to settle the "Indian problem" with all the period appropriate genocide and bigotry expected. Meanwhile, there's something wrong with Auggie and Gillian's baby due to the fact its father was a deadman. Harry Pratt is also caught in blackmail and being forced to do things against his conscience to keep his secrets safe. As a gay Mormon Elder and politician, he's pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place as he can either have his life ruined by exposure of a secret that would get him killed in most parts of the United States at that time period or be party to horrific political corruption that may result in the deaths of innocents he's sworn to protect.

    The story of Native American genocide and abuse by the United States is something that unfortunately hangs over the head of virtually every Western as well as the early history of the country. With the recent revelations about indigenous schools, it certainly was a timely book but perhaps weightier than it was meant to be. It's hard not to agree with the "villains" that Native American man is going to be nastily treated by history and that virtually anything is justified to avert that fate. Or, to put it another way, the "Buffy in the Old West" feeling of the books may not be something that is deep enough to properly grapple with the real life atrocities perpetuated by the US government. It attempts to be as respectful as possible but, man, this is some raw subject matter.

    Much of the book feels like it is putting the Wild West behind it, the opening set in the present day, but I hope that is not the case. The Golgotha series is the best Weird Western series I have read and I've read well over a dozen. We get a framing device that suggests what Golgotha's history will be for the 20th century and hints that it might move to the Modern Times. I hope that's not the case as I think much of the series' unique flavor depends on combing Deadwood with the Dresden Files. Unfortunately, I feel like any sequels that follow this book will almost certainly take place in different time periods. The Old West was not actually that long a time period and the book puts the a lot of storylines to bed.

    There's a lot of really good moments in this book with the best plots being Mutt and Harry Pratt's respective stories. Mutt is a man carrying a lot of anger to his people because of the way he was treated but is also aware that the United States military is nothing but a bunch of genocidal psychopaths toward natives. He is also someone who loves a white woman and has friends in Golgotha that will be killed if he doesn't stop Izusa. I'm not a big fan of moral equivalency being drawn in this particular story but I totally bought Mutt's conflict. Similarly, Harry Pratt is a man who has to go through the Daredevil: Born Again arc. A man with nothing to lose is a man without fear.

    Unfortunately, the book's central conflict is yet another plot to release the Darkling/start the apocalypse and while it was played out in THE SHOTGUN ARCANA, there's a lot more emotion here because of what a terrible tragedy this all is. We know the Darkling will destroy the world if released but for the majority of the villains, they trust their leader knows how to control it. While I wish they'd come up with something else to do other than the end of the world, I feel the central plot still worked. There's going to be no victory here even if the plot is thwarted because the antagonists are just trying to survive.

    In conclusion, I feel like this is probably my favorite of the series so far. It deals with weightier subjects and the consequences are bigger than any other. It also doesn't shy away from the ugliest features of the Wild West as well as the lies people tell themselves about it. Readers should be warned about that, though, since it is a heavier read than previous entries in the series and they weren't exactly light.

Available here

The Queen of Swords by R.S. Belcher review

    I am a huge fan of the Golgotha series by R.S. Belcher. I enjoyed both THE SIX-GUN TAROT and THE SHOTGUN ARCANA as I am a fan of Weird Westerns as well as genre mashups. A mixture of the Cthulhu Mythos, angels, demons, mad science and the Wild West made it into a unique book that I very much enjoyed. So, I was very excited about this latest book.

    THE QUEEN OF SWORDS is a very different book from the others since it centers primarily around Maud Stapleton and her daughter Constance as well as their ancestor, Anne Bonnie. It gives the history of the Order of Lilith as well as their relationship with the evil god Typhon. There's a lot going on in this book with many of the events following The Shotgun Arcana, which was a book I very much enjoyed. Sadly, most of it takes place outside of the town of Golgotha that is the true star of the series.

    The story is about how Maud's child Constance was taken from her by her well-meaning but foolish father, Martin, who now has the South Carolina legal system protecting him as her legal guardian. Maud wants to get her daughter back the "right" way and that means fighting the misogynist court system that will almost certainly rule against her. Even worse, she is being hunted by the Order of Lilith that maintains that Constance must be sacrificed to restore their waning powers. Oh and there's yet another horrifying demonic creature out to destroy the world.

    I enjoyed this book a great deal but miss the Western theme and other characters. The book barely has many of the characters that made the previous book so awesome like Mutt, Sheriff Highfather, and Biq the angel. While Maud is a great character and so is her ancestor, Anne Bonnie, there's a lot of the series' signature feel missing from the story since the majority of it takes place away from Golgotha.

    Indeed, this story can't be said to be a Western at all since the majority it takes place in either South Carolina or Africa. The Anne Bonnie sections have her escape her historical execution and seek out a vast treasure that she is only semi-convinced is real. I enjoyed this but much of it seemed to be based around overcoming the poor first impression she made in the first book of being a slave-owner who was obsessed with freedom for women. Here, it's retconned that she never owned slaves and just pretended to while actually being an abolitionist. I feel like that removed some of the character's believability even if it certainly makes her more redeemable.

    The villains are slightly less over the top this time around with Typhon having a bit more personality than the Darkling or even Raziel. He's still another baddie obsessed with unmaking the world but he's able to hold more coherent conversations with the heroes. I do think the series suffers from "all or nothing" baddies where there's not much room for nuance. Ironically, my favorite character in the book is Martin because he's an antagonist that thinks he's doing the right thing trying to keep Constance from Golgotha.

    The Order of Lilith is a good group as well because they manage to be completely wrong in their actions, planning a human sacrifice of a young woman, but are motivated by fear for their order dying as well as the end of their family legacies. It is a multicultural and interesting group that rejects gods as well as traditional structures while keeping heavily to their own rules. I actually would have appreciated seeing them as continuing antagonists but this just isn't that kind of series.

    In conclusion, I enjoyed this novel and am heading on over to the latest book in the series. It's a return to Golgotha and the Wild West with the characters that I felt were missing this time around. I enjoyed this book but it does feel a bit more like a spin-off than an actual continuation.

8/10

 Available here

Glass Rhapsody (The Songs of Sefate #2) by Sarah Chorn Book Review

    GLASS RHAPSODY is the second book for THE SONGS OF SEFATE series by Sarah Chorn. The original volume, OF HONEY AND WILDFIRES, was my pick for best fantasy book of 2021. No small praise since I read about 200 a year. The series is a fantasy steampunk one set in a sort of pseudo-Old West where instead of cattle barons, the economy is dominated by a corporation that owns all of the mines that extract the magic substance known as shine. Shine is a food additive, drug, and power source that just about everyone wants but has a drastic toll.

    In a very real way, the Frontier of this universe is more like the Gilded Age of Appalachia than it is the Wild West. The Shine Corporation has a pretty decent lock down on society so it wasn't particularly "wild" with the majority of towns dominated by the company's mercenaries and their abuses. All of that came to an end with the previous book where the company's owner was taken down and his vast wealth passed into the hands of his son, Arlen.

    Unfortunately, Arlen is psychologically unfit to be the leader of a massive corporate empire built on the backs of an exploited proletariat. Even if the people want him to be a leader since the absence of the Shine Corporation's rule, the even-worse Union are ready to annex the territory for its own use. Arlen just wants to treat his PTSD-ridden sister, Cassandra, and give up the Shine Corporation to the people even though no one can manage it. Really, it's fascinating as a deconstruction of the millionaire who gives away their fortune because it's clear that is just passing the buck versus improving the lives of the people directly.

    The book also adds the perspective of new character Grace and former villain Elroy. Grace is a former prostitute who was sold to the Shine Corporation's bordellos when she was a girl by her stepfather (I really wanted to see that confrontation but it's sadly not in the book). Now a single mother living in a boomtown, she's terrified that the collapse of the Shine Corporation will lead to a return of human trafficking as well as general chaos. Elroy is someone that Arlen desperately wants to save despite the fact that the former is suicidal with guilt over his actions as a Shine agent.

    Unfortunately, I will say that the book's biggest weakness is probably the Elroy plot. I'm a big fan of redemption stories but I also note that a lot of preclude the idea of justice. Elroy is guilty of atrocities and really should be punished for his actions. Arlen desperately tries to insist to both his sister, who Elroy murdered the adoptive family of, that Elroy was just a weapon but last time I checked, "Just following orders" wasn't a valid defense. I couldn't get into Elroy and Arlen's romance as a result as I was pretty sure he did deserve the rope and his self-hatred was fully justified.

    This is a character-heavy sequel and if you aren't heavily invested in the characters of the original book, then it is not going to be great. Also, you need to remember facts like Shine allows you to see ghosts if you're completely wasted on it. Still, I absolutely loved the first book and I was heavily invested in these characters. Sarah Chorn also makes LGBT issues front and center in this story in a way that is both a major part of the characters' identities properly explored as part of the worldbuilding versus simply thrown in.

    As such, I recommend Glass Rhapsody as a very different kind of fantasy. There's very little action that happens and, indeed, the protagonists are aggressively non-violent to the point the best thing they could do is impossible because they don't want to hurt anyone. That and the unique world Sarah Chorn has created makes this a solid and entertaining book. I will definitely be picking up the third installment.

Available here

The Shotgun Arcana by R.S. Belcher Book Review

    The SHOTGUN ARCANA by R.S. Belcher is the sequel to THE SIX-GUN TAROT that I very much enjoyed. It once more returns us to the town of Golgotha, Nevada where the town undertaker is a mad scientist and the Sheriff cannot die. I very much was interested in this book and picked up immediately after finishing the first. I was not disappointed but I do have some minor complaints about the book.

    The premise is that the events of the first book have passed but things have not entirely gotten back to normal. The town has not so much changed as it's participants have been hardened by the events of fighting the Wurm. Unfortunately, life going on has not been kind to some. Poor Auggie the shopkeeper has found himself in debt to the fallen angel Biq, Mutt is threatened with lynching for dating a white woman, and the Mayor finds himself even more immersed in the politics he's desperate to escape.

    Unfortunately, things are about to get even worse as a mysterious man named Ray Zeal is coming to Golgotha to retrieve the First Murderer's Skull. He has a army of serial killers, rapists, and psychopaths that he is leading down on the town in order to acquire it. The fact he's a fallen angel like Biq makes it especially difficult to stop him.

    I liked the story and all of the various twists and turns it employs but I also note that it's somewhat similar to the original book. There's a bunch of excessively evil monsters out to destroy the entire world. The story also plays out mostly the same sort of way. This isn't necessarily a crippling flaw but it was a noticeable one. I initially liked the relationship between Constance and Jim developing, though I didn't when I remembered he was sixteen and she was fourteen. That made it all sorts of squick. 

    Much of the book's midpart is devoted to the fact that the position of women in the Old West was, shockingly, not great and no one initially cares when one of the doves gets killed by a client. Even our otherwise progressive lawmen. I liked how Maud and new character, Rowan, set about to do their best to establish protections for the local working women. I found this plot more interesting than the actual apocalypse story.

    In conclusion, this was a very fun book and had a lot of development but I didn't like it as much as the Six-Gun Tarot. I think the stories are at their best when dealing with smaller scale adventures and character development rather than trying to stop the end of everything. The villains are all very one-dimensional and I think that hurts the conflicts. Still, I'm definitely picking up the rest of the series.

9/10

Available here

The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher Review

    SIX-GUN TAROT is a book that I wished I'd written, which is one of those praises that only writers get to throw out or would-be writers (or anybody) but it still has a lot of meaning. Basically, it has everything I love in a novel from the Wild West to monsters to antiheroes to the Cthulhu Mythos (but set up against supernaturals of Heaven and Hell). They even manage to put some nice social commentary in the book about race relations and homophobia.

    The premise of the book is that a boy named Jim is attempting to cross the 40 Mile Desert a.k.a. Lahontan Valley, Nevada. It is a somewhat suicidal action for a boy with just a horse and no supplies but he manages to survive thanks to the efforts of Mutt, a Native American Deputy for the town of Golgotha. From there, he becomes embroiled in a billion-year-old conflict between God, the Devil, and a primordial evil drawing inspired from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

    I like the town of Golgotha because it is basically a 19th century version of Sunnydale, California. There's angels, demons, mad scientists, evil cults, demigods, shapechangers, and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm very much of a fond of fantasy kitchen sink settings (thank you, TV tropes) and I suspect it may be do to the fact that I'm a huge superhero fiction fan. Golgotha is very deliberately ridiculously over the top and is all the more fun for it.

    "Harry, it was right before that trouble with the giant bat thing swooping in and carrying people off?" 

     "How could I forget that? We lost the best barber this town ever had."

    The book makes the wise decision of not focusing on any specific single character but making the book an ensemble piece. If you don't like one or two of the characters, you're bound to like others. The protagonists are also archetypal but fairly deep and the author is not afraid to give them flaws either. Sometimes flaws that make you believe they aren't good people at all. That doesn't make them boring, though, and that is a much better thing for a reader.

    Mayor Pratt, for example, is a Mormon with supernatural responsibilities and the struggle of being a closeted gay man in the 19th century. However, Pratt is terrible to his youngest wife and also racist against Native Americans. Maud's grandmother was a protector of women and supernatural heroine but she also ended up a plantation owner, which makes a lot of her dialogue about freedom and justice ring hollow. The book doesn't revel in the racism and sexism of the period but it also acknowledges it exists and that is the best way to handle Western fiction in modern times.

    The book perhaps takes on a little more than it can chew. Parts of the book deal with the War against the Dark at the beginning of the universe, the Fall of Lucifer, and other things that distract from the quirky little town that is the most interesting part of the book. While I appreciate the ambition, I tended to prefer the supernatural plots that were grounded in reality. Whether revenge murders, loveless marriages, racism, and mourning the loss of their recently departed spouse.

    In conclusion, I think this was a very solid work and is probably my second or third favorite read of the year. It's a nice mixture of fantasy, horror, and the Wild West. The characters are fun and the world is set up for what I hope will be a fairly long series. I should note that in addition to reading the Kindle version of the book, I also listened to the graphic audio production of this. I really enjoyed the narration and suggest picking that up instead of the book version. The production value was fantastic.

9/10

Available here

 

Bulletproof Witch: Beginnings by F.J. Blair review

 
    BULLETPROOF WITCH: BEGINNINGS (Book 1-4) by Francis James Blair is a collection of the first four novels of the Bulletproof Witch series. I know, what a surprise. I really enjoyed this book collection, which is on the lighter side of reading with each book being just under two hundred pages and very easy to finish in a single day. As such, I encourage readers to just buy the collection and read it as a single volume rather than picking up each individual one.

    The premise is that in a Wild West fantasy setting, Temperance Whitecloak is a Pistol Witch. Pistol Warlocks are individuals similar to hexslingers from Deadlands. They use magically engraved bullets that allow them to produce a variety of mystical effects on their enemies. Unlike the hexslingers of Deadlands, all the Pistol Warlocks are supposed to use their hand-engraved bullets to hunt daemons. Temperance is quite appalled to discover that her orthodox way of living the life of a monster hunter is not practiced as universally or as devotedly as she, herself, does.

    In typical fantasy revenge story fashion, Temperance's hometown of Cold Valley is massacred by an army of daemons with her as the only survivor. Climbing on top of her talking horse, Astor, she sets out on a mission to hunt down and destroy the daemons' leader, Varconis, and avenge her family. It's just somewhat hurt because no one but a handful of demons have seemingly ever heard of Varconis and it's not like he's left a forwarding address.

    Each of the novels within the omnibus is a self-contained adventure with the premise of Temperance trying to inch closer to her goal of revenge. Most of the time, she's less concerned with progressing her quest than the ever-present issue of money. Hexbullets cost a lot of her job is either a feast or a famine in terms of how much she's paid for bringing in slain daemons. This adds a nice level of grounding to the story as her goals remain strictly pragmatic.

    I like the idea of doing a fantasy Western in a world divorced from our own and Francis James Blair does a good job of replicating the Wild West without strictly following Earthly history. There's some areas that I'm not 100% down with like the fact that there's no Native American equivalents and the continent was abandoned when the settlers arrived. Still, it is a pretty detailed but not obtrusive history that talks about the settlement of the world as well as its frontier-esque population.

    THE DELIVERY OF FLESH is a story about how Temperance gets recruited to guard a warlock prisoner as he's transported across country to a more secure jail. This has the most Western style feel and reminded me a bit of True Grit with Temperance playing the Mattie role as contrasted to a more greenhorn Ranger. It's a pretty basic story but nicely eases you into the universe as well as its conflicts.

    CURSE OF THE DAEMON BEAST is about Temperance visiting an outlaw squatter town that is being harassed by daemons but carries a bunch of secrets that prevent our heroine from investigating. I particularly liked this one because there's a lot of Twin Peaks-esque nastiness lying under the surface of small town life. It also calls into question some of what Temperance has been taught about daemons.

    ARKTON AT HIGH NOON is the least Western of the omnibus and is a fish out of water story. After getting herself in serious trouble with the law after a drunken fight at a casino, Temperance gets dragooned into investigating the death of a foreign ambassador in the big city. Part of the humor is that she has no idea what she's doing and is utterly terrible at espionage but it kind of makes you wonder why she was recruited for it in the first place. I also miss the Wild West motifs.

    DEATH RIDES AT SUNSET is the fourth book in the series that introduces vampires to the series. Temperance is doing her best to try to prevent a young man from becoming the victim of a vampire lord. There's a lot of build-up in this book for future events in the series but it comes across as very organic. We also get flashbacks to Temperance's training as a pistol witch and dealing with her early trauma/alcoholism.

    The books have good action, good world-building, and fun characters. They also include a lot of LGBT content even though Temperance, herself, is straight. One thing I liked that was only in the individual copies of the books is that they were illustrated like light novels with manga-style art. Sadly, this disappears in the omnibus for what I presume was probably cost-related issues. Do I have any complaints? I feel the books are a bit on the short side, though each successive book is longer than the previous, but that isn't a problem when you read them all as one big collection. So if you like fantasy and like Westerns, you'll probably enjoy this.

8/10

Available here

 

Dead Acre by Rhett Bruno, Jaime Castle, and Roger Clark review

    DEAD ACRE is an audiobook is written by Rhett Bruno (The Roach) and Jaime Castle (Sidekick) while narrated by Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption 2). It's an exceptional pedigree as I love the work of all three individuals. It's a short work of about only three hours long but it's also free with my Audible subscription so I'm hardly going to complain about its length vs. price.

    The premise is a outlaw gunslinger is gunned down after turning on his gang due to what's implied to be their habit of being a bunch of murderous rapists. A better reason than most betrayals in Westerns, I suppose. Raised by God as a undead bounty hunter, James Crowley goes from town to town to kill the supernatural while working off his debt. If he's successful, he won't go to Hell but he probably won't be allowed into Heaven, which is a really bad deal from a religious perspective.

    This is the kind of premise that would be at home in a Deadlands game and even has some similarities with Crowley being somewhat similar to a Harrowed. It's more likely both were inspired by Clint Eastwood films Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter, though. Two very different movies that deal with cowboys sent by supernatural forces to unleash the wrath of God (or the Devil). Given I'm a fan of both movies as well as Red Dead Redemption, this is something I found quite interesting and would be interested in a whole series from the man's perspective.

    Crowley has the biggest benefit of a 1st person urban fantasy (albeit Weird West 19th century) protagonist in that he is immensely likeable. He's not laden down by a desire to do pop culture quips nor is he aping the overused film noir detective. Instead, the adjustment of a classic Western plotline, "hero rides into town to solve the problem" to supernatural forces is one that breathes life into a tired genre. I also appreciated that Crowley is, uh, incapable of returning affection as a revenant so that precludes any sort of sexual tension.

    The actual storyline is simple and to the point: our hero has been drawn to the town of Dead Acres where there's been some evil afoot and a man has gone missing. There's also been some bodies that have been disturbed. Our hero eventually figures out the mystery and does some business with the big iron on his hip (thank you, Fallout: New Vegas). Telling you anymore would probably spoil the story and the investigation is entertaining throughout. The final confrontation with the baddie is lacking something, sadly, because their personality does a complete 180 but that's a small flaw in an otherwise excellent book.

    Roger Clark is someone that any fans of the aforementioned RD2 will know is a fantastic voice actor. Crowley has a lot of Arthur Morgan-esque qualities and a cynical detachment from life as well as fatalism due to, you know, being a damned soul given only a quasi-reprieve. I'd say his acting is leagues above most among narrators and what really brings the book to life. Still, it feels a bit like a taste rather than full-course meal and I hope they do more of these. It's not trying to reinvent the wheel and is more like a pilot for an hour-long episodic television show. It's just a show I would have watched.

8.5/10

Available here

Blood Riders by Michael P. Spradlin review

 
    BLOOD RIDERS by Michael P. Spradlin is one of the rare books that I am very upset is a one and done. Published in 2012, I'm pretty sure that there's not going to be a sequel but this is a work I probably would have continued to read over a dozen novels. It has very strong Dresden Files energy and while utterly ridiculous in places is hardly a turn off for someone who absolutely adores that. I have some minor complaints about it but wish this had many a sequel after all the build-up of the first book.

    Jonas R. Hollister is a Union soldier and Civil War veteran who has had quite enough of the Army after serving under George Armstrong Custer. However, it is not that man's vainglorious ways that destroy his career but a chance encounter with a pack of vampires. Unfortunately, even in the 19th century, claiming undead horrors killed your unit is enough to get you labeled a madman. Thankfully, sort of, the vampires keep killing and Ulysses S. Grant provides Jonas with a pardon as well as a mission to exterminate the undead in the Wild West.

    This is both a profoundly silly and entertaining book without ever getting into camp. If I were to compare it to anything then I would say it is closest to a better version of Will Smith and Kevin Kline's Wild Wild West. John is recruited to join a task force of steampunk adventurers using modern 19th century technology to hunt down the undead. Doctor Van Helsing, John Pinkerton, a mixed race man who can talk to animals, and the protagonist that stubbornly clings to his atheism despite holy water burning vampires. Oh and they have a beautiful female vampire helping them because of course they do.

    I was genuinely surprised we didn't see Quincy Morris in this book and am actually kind of disappointed we didn't. Seriously, once you have it established they're traveling on a super-train with far more advanced locomotive power than available in this time, you understand this book is about a vampire-hunting Western Justice League. Still, it's nice to see the government overreact by recruiting a bunch of super people and give them unlimited resources to fight monsters rather than ignore the problem until its ready to take over the world.

    Opposing our antiheroes are the vampires who want to rule over our kind that don't get much characterization. Malachi is pretty one-note while his followers are closer to zombies than they are to actual people. This isn't bad because there's a Walking Dead siege of the undead in a nearly-deserted town that is one of my favorite parts of the book. Zombies and Westerns need to be combined more often than in just Deadlands. There's also a ruthless United States Senator and his chief henchman who are stock characters from the John Ford days of filmmaking. They're not very developed either but they don't have to be, just hateable.

    I'm a little iffy about the romance between Jonas and Shaniah. It's developed fine but it's never quite clear what either sees in the other beyond being really hot. I also have trouble believing the only person who would have a problem with Jonas being with one of the things they're sworn to exterminate would be the mixed race member of the group. You'd think Van Helsing, of all people, would think it was an unhealthy romantic choice.

    This is a book full of action, adventure, and fun. I would give it a higher ranking but for the fact that it really should have been a trilogy and knowing it's not continuing makes me sad given how the book ends with some shocking twists. I also feel like Chee, a multiracial man, is a bit of a magical Native stereotype as well as a Chinese one (since he can talk to animals as well as use kung fu!) but he's a likable character regardless. In short, this is definitely worth picking up.

8.5/10

Available here

Of Honey and Wildfires by Sarah Chorn review

    OF HONEY AND WILDFIRES by Sarah Chorn is a steampunk fantasy novel that is a marked contrast to her previous novel, SERAPHINA'S LAMENT. The latter novel was a dark and foreboding story set against a fantasy version of the Ukrainian famine engineered by Joseph Stalin. The former is a fascinating story about company mining town where the poor are forced to labor daily in order to extract a magical liquid called Shine. Of the two, I think I like this one better but both are ones I strongly recommend.

    This novel is told from my multiple perspectives with my two favorite characters being Cassandra, a young girl recently abandoned by her father to live with her aunt, and Arlen, the son of the company that owns everything in the region. Cassandra has been raised in the wilderness her entire life and is practically feral with many practical skills of survival but almost nothing that would help her survive as a civilized lady. Arlen is a mature and dapper gentleman who is given the opportunity to be governor of the Shine mining territory. This is despite the fact he is disgusted by the conditions that the miners and their families are forced to endure but are the key to their immense profits.

    The world-building was something very familiar to me and while they comment on it being the "Wild West", the region actually felt much more like the Wild East. Having grown up in Appalachia, I'm very familiar with the concept of Company Towns and the various methods people were kept in near slave-like conditions to mine coal. Some good details about how Shine infects everything from clothes to food, just like coal did in towns devoted to its extraction, helped make the world believable to me.

    Sarah Chorn is a progressive writer and there's some solid representation in the book that helps make a more diverse cast. One of the protagonists is a trans character and another biracial as well as dyslexic. These details are incorporated fluidly into their narrative. Neither of these qualities help them become socially acclimated in the pseudo-Gilded Age where corporate loyalty is a literal matter of life and death. Life is cheap in the region and the highest duty is to be willing to labor for your family to eat until you drop over dead. "Your family" is a constant excuse for doing whatever the corporation wants even though they get only pennies from your labor.

    I especially like Cassandra's journey as a child of an outlaw and wild girl into acclimated member of the miners' society. Her father committed an act of terrorism in order to cripple the Shine Company's supply of Shine, only to accidentally get a lot of workers killed. That hangs over her head along with the fact she's ethnically apart from the other families. Watching her struggle with these mundane things in a fantastic context really worked for me.

    I very much enjoyed the seemingly low-stakes nature of the conflict as well as the fact this is a work that is primarily a character study of its protagonists. Too many fantasy novels are only interested in saving the world and defeating the Dark Lord. This is more an example of people dealing with an all-consuming capitalist culture that contrasts strongly to our present day (and reinforces all too many other present day flaws to society). The villain is more Mr. Potter than Sauron and its stronger for that. We get to explore the sense of control, desperation, and force that drives our protagonists forward.

    In conclusion, this is a really solid and entertaining fantasy novel. I love the Shine Company as an antagonist and the strange world that Sarah Chorn has crafted that is simultaneously new as well as extremely familiar to this descendant of coal miners. Family is at the center of this but also the desperate circumstances that society can enforce on both the poor as well as the rich.

9/10

Available here

 

Hallowed Ground review

    It's basically Needful Things in the Wild West. That's the short review of this book by David Niall Wilson and Steven Savile. The book's premise is a mysterious traveler comes to a sleepy little town in the Wild West which is full of secrets, feuds, and hatreds. By the end of the conflict, the town has torn itself apart with the traveler's true supernatural evil having been exposed for the world to see.

    There's significant differences in the story, especially as it becomes increasingly clear the traveler is subordinate to a much more malevolent entity, but the Stephen King influences definitely jumped out at me and that's not a bad thing. The book is fairly thick on metaphor, symbolism, and hints of things to come which may bother some readers but I found enjoyable.
   
    Interestingly, the authors seem to be worried about how the book would be received since they felt the need to put a Foreword in the beginning which warns it's not a shoot-em-up bang bang sort of Western. I don't think this was necessary, albeit I never dislike a good shoot em up, since the idea of a supernatural meditation on sin and evil isn't a bad thing.

    The world of Hallowed Ground is a spooky and subdued place where all of the sins of the townsfolk are hidden under a respectable, albeit paper thin, veneer. There's the town prostitute who more than anything wishes to be a mother and a nurturer. There's the man who would do anything to raise his dead fiance and thinks he can out-think the Devil in terms of deal-making. There's the mysterious Deacon serving as Randall Flagg and Leland Gaunt figure but perhaps not so happy being the Devil's handyman as he may appear.

    Overall, I think I was most impressed with the character of the Deacon who provides the book with most of its energy. I think the book is always at its most enjoyable when he's dancing around, making promises and prayers which aren't necessarily going to the same God everyone else claims as their own. I buy he's a strange and charismatic figure to the people of Rookwood, who would potentially sell their souls to him simply because he's that charming.

    The book stumbles a few times with its symbolism and metaphor as I got a little lost toward the end with the five way feud happening between the Devil, Deacon, our heroes, Lilith, and an angel. I think the book might have benefited a bit by scaling back to only be focused on Deacon, the Devil, and our heroes but that's just me. Despite this, I like the book's ending and think it's set up for a sequel or even series.

    A warning that the book is a slower and more methodical read where you have to take time to soak in the atmosphere. The book is about fifty percent mood and another thirty-percent metaphor so that it you really are missing something if you try to plow through it. This is a book which should be read at night with your complete concentration. I also think the book uses too many pronouns versus proper names, which is the weirdest complaint I've ever made about a book.
   
    In conclusion, I recommend Hallowed Ground to those who enjoy Weird Westerns and more cerebral horror. The fact I wanted to read a second book starring the surviving heroes immediately after the end of this volume should tell you I enjoyed it.

9/10

Dead West Omnibus vol. 1 review

    The Weird Weird West. You know, it's kind of strange but the Pirates of the Caribbean movies successfully grafted ghost stories and pirates together into a massive franchise but the Weird Western has never really gotten its niche despite the 20th century being utterly drenched in the genre. Deadlands, Cowboys vs. Aliens, Jonah Hex, and a few others exist but they've never gotten the kind of signature piece they deserve.

    I suspect this is because the Weird Western requires creators who are willing to confront the inherent contradictions in the genre. It's a period lionized by the American psyche but with a dark underbelly we're only beginning to confront even a century later. There's a reason Django Unchained was made in the 21st century despite the fact a black man shooting up Confederates is something I was a 1st day moviegoer for.

    I don't think Dead West is going to reach the millions of readers necessary to turn the genre's expectations the way Sergio Leone's movies did for the idea, "Hey, maybe cowboys weren't a bunch of really moral nice guys" but I do think it's a piece which nicely combines a zombie novel with the ugliness of the Wild West. It's a novel which sometimes too much shows just how ugly a current of racism there was in the Wild West (albeit I've yet to see any media, novel or otherwise, which illustrated just how many minorities worked alongside whites as historically).

    The Dead West Omnibus vol. 1 collects the novels Those Poor, Poor Bastards and The Ten Thousand Things. It collects the adventures of Nina Weaver, a half-Native American woman and her father Lincoln. After narrowly avoiding being assaulted for her heritage in a nearby town, she's ironically saved by the arrival of a zombie cattle horde.

    Escaping with a group of survivors which can barely contain their loathing for each other, they arrive at a fort protected by a Jesuit priest with miraculous powers. From there, it becomes a siege where each of the survivors' personalities threatens to turn them against each other. While they eventually escape, the horror behind the zombie horde pursues right into the largest city in the West.

    Much of the narrative thrust is about how, even in the face of supernatural evil and with supernatural good at their side, most of the humans can't resist falling on their own prejudices. Nina's life is endangered simply because of her Native heritage, Jasmine the prostitute is subject to constant sexual harassment, and money is more important to the majority of them than helping each other. It's a common theme in zombie apocalypse stories the real enemy is man but Dead West transplants this to the Old West and the struggles then.

    There's some areas I feel could have been handled better like the fact everyone continues to hold the priest in disdain despite not only his verifiable miraculous powers but also the fact they are holding the zombie army at bay. I found myself thinking Richard Dawkins would re-evaluate his position on Christianity if it could hold back the living dead. Still, I enjoyed Nina's own antagonistic relationship with the faith which makes sense given her heritage.

    I enjoyed all of the supporting cast and give credit to the authors for representing the diversity of the Wild West in real life. My favorite characters in addition to Jasmine and Lincoln was Strobridge. The railroad baron is responsible for ninety-percent of the problems in the story but everyone keeps siding with him because he's charismatic and rich.

    While I think the omnibus focuses a bit too much on the conflicts among them versus the supernatural threat, I really enjoyed the characters' interaction. I particularly enjoyed Nina's relationship with Jasmine, even though that didn't end up going anywhere. I also felt the final resolution was a bit of an anticlimax which left a lot of unanswered questions. Still, it was a fun crazy adventure from beginning to end.

    In conclusion, if you like Weird Westerns and zombie apocalypse stories then you'll probably like this. I do, so I did.

9/10

The Testament of Tall Eagle review

    There is a serious problem in fantasy, albeit it's kind of a minor First World problem which only exists for privileged geeks who are snobby about their literature tastes (like me), and that is a lot of fantasy is kind of samey. As a friend of mine who is an author said, the vast majority of fantasy literature looks like some variant of The Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons. He said this, despite the fact that he was writing a Dungeons and Dragons-esque novel, to me, who had written a novel deconstructing some of the The Lord of the Rings' themes.

    Which  means what I'm about to say comes from a place of massive hypocrisy.

    Specifically, there's too much Medieval European fantasy and not enough set in other settings.

    History is full of various interesting times and places to be inspired by. Ancient Rome, Napoleonic France, Czarist Russia, mythological China, and so on. Part of what makes the Witcher so good is that it's inspired by Medieval Eastern Europe, which is pretty different from Western Euope. Even moving fantasy to modern day has resulted in a gigantic thriving subgenre from The Dresden Files to my own Esoterrorism.

    So what about Native American fantasy?

    Written by a white guy?

    I was cautious but optimistic.

    One of the biggest things which has plagued the First Nations of the United States has been the "Magical Native American" stereotype. White people plundering their cultural heritage for New Age beliefs, very often against tribes' will, and using them as stock characters. This, despite the fact Native American mythology is incredibly rich and diverse. Full of awesome tales of gods, heroes, fun, and humor. Could John R. Furtz write a novel whcih avoided all of the baggage which accompanies the past 300 years of exploitation and cultural appropriation?

    I think he did, yes.

    The Testament of Tall Eagle follows the adventure of the titular character as he goes through his rite of manhood, proceeds to discover his affinity with Eagles, finds out the world is being threatened by monsters from another dimension, meets a race of humans from another world, and proceeds to deal with the more personal problems of tribal politics. It is very much a fantasy novel and while issues of dealing with the White Man and ancient tradition are there, they are minor issues to the larger epic storyline.

    The fact this isn't set on Earth anymore than Drizzt's adventures in the Forgotten Realms gives the author a bit more freedom and you can't really say a magic-using character is a "Magical Native American" when every other character is a Native American. Hell, they're not even Americans since this is a fantasy world like Toril or Krynn. Readers can and should judge Tall Eagle as an awesome fantasy protagonist on his own without predisposition, the same way Conan is a Cimmerian but this gives no insight into real-life Celts.

    Tall Eagle is a likable character who, if a bit on the stately side, is no more so than Connor Kenway from Assassin's Creed 3. He can and does a great number of stupid things in his desire to do the right thing with these flaws making him a more likable protagonist. Watching his empathic and sensitive nature clash with his own people's beliefs as well as those of other cultures is an enjoyable read. I also responded well to his very human desire to continue loving a woman he wanted to take as a wife but who was taken by another man. That is a plotline which transcends cultural boundaries.

    I also approve of John R. Furtz giving us a series of villains and complications for our hero to deal with. Tall Eagle has to deal with rivals inside the tribe, rival tribes, the expected evil Europeans (though they're, again, not European), giant monsters, and his own self-doubt. The author crafts a rich world full of strangeness and oddity that, nevertheless, feels quite grounded.

    I could easily see more books set in the setting without feeling like it was played out. The fact he managed to introduce concepts like aliens, alternate dimensions, and Cthulhuoid monstrosities without overwhelming poor Tall Eagle also shows he was pretty good at conveying information in a culturally appropriate context. When confronted with the fantastical, Tall Eagle reacts with astonishment but rolls with the punches.

    One area I was surprised by is that I really enjoyed the love story between Tall Eagle and White Fawn. We don't get to spend much time with either but their longing is conveyed in the few scenes they get together before things go to hell. I was actually surprised to find I didn't know where the story was going with them, especially when Tall Eagle's other love-interest was introduced. While I continued to root for Tall Eagle and White Fawn, the story kept me guessing and props for that.

    A small complaint I do have about the novel is the use of scalping by Tall Eagle's tribe as a method of dishonoring defeated enemies as well as ensuring their ghosts do not haunt them. The history of that particular technique has a long and ugly sort of history which I think would have been best avoided in this book. Otherwise, I have almost no complaints about his conception of his Fantasy World Native Peoples.

    This is a good book and while I would have preferred a more causal, less formal set of interactions for the characters, I note that actually wouldn't have been true to the practices of the tribes which inspired Tall Eagle's people. If you want a change from your usual fantasy diet of goblins, elves,, and guys in platemail you could a lot worse.

9/10

Husk: A Maresman Tale review

    Husk is a fantasy Western taking place on another planet far in the future where demons, called Husks, now menace the world. Much like dhampyrs or Witchers, Maresmen are supernaturally-powered inhuman warriors who prowl the cities in search of these monsters.

    Jebediah Skayne is one of the most formidable Maresmen alive, the only one better being his mentor Mortis, and he's tracked a particularly foul Husk to a small port-side city on the edge of civilization. This Husk is more cunning and powerful than most of their kind, having killed a number of Jebediah's fellow Maresemen, and is currently hiding amongst the hundreds of citizens around him.

    Jebediah must unravel the secrets of the community, from corruption to sex to supernatural shenanigans, in order to determine who the hidden Husk is. He must also figure out if he's going to pursue it at all once he discovers that the creature may have a far more intimate tie to him than he ever expected.

    Husk lives and dies dependent on the perspective of Jebediah Skayne and I very much enjoy what a complete bastard our protagonist is. He's ruthless, cunning, and kind of a scumbag. Yet, he's also incredibly observant as well as well-realized. We understand why he's the way he is as well as why he looks down on the whole world--which is the mark of good writing. I also like that while he's incredibly tough, Jeb's crap at his job.

    For all of Jebediah's skill, he's not all that motivated to kill Husks due to having been recruited at gunpoint as a child by the sociopathic Mortis. As a result, he oozes contempt for the townsfolk who impede his investigation into the Husk's activities and you can tell he'd just as soon let them deal with the murdering beast themselves.

   I've seen many a ruthless capable antihero in fiction but it's actually kind of awesome to see one who'd rather play cards and have sex with the local women than hunt demons. Jeb is a lazy hunter and that attitude makes him go unexpected directions when you'd think he'd follow the typical heroic path. No, that would require him to care about the townsfolk and, honestly, given how they treat him, it's no wonder he's barely on humanity's side.

    D.P. Prior has a gift for prose, making the act of reading about his world a lush and intriguing experience. Jeb may not be the most likable protagonist but having dumped yourself into his head, you experience what it's like to live in this world in ways both big and small. The Western feel is everywhere despite the fact D.P. frequently sees when a typical one would saw. It takes place in a smelly wet fishing village versus a dry desert, guns are useless versus swords, and the hero's skill with cards is non-existent.

    Yet, a Western it is.

    A fantasy Western that manages to give us insight into how the people live, their government operates, and their attitudes on just about everything. We learn about what they believe in the future and how they deal with demons. I also like the fact that all of this is done with a minimum of exposition. D.P. Prior doesn't tell you facts about his world, they arise organically from his character interaction.

    The book isn't without flaws. I think it would have been stronger if he'd skipped the first chapter, which is from the perspective of a small chapter rather than Jeb, and gotten to our antihero. I also think the ending was a little uneven due to the fact we're expected to sympathize with a character I really think Jeb would have just killed and called it a day with. I am curious where the story goes next, though.

    This is a fun story with a lot of atmosphere. The plot moves at a slow, somewhat language pace, but the whole appeal of the book is that it is transporting you to another planet. As such, I'm willing to take my time. A warning for those of sensitive natures, Jeb is kind of a pig when it comes to women but at least the book acknowledges it.

9/10

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