Devon Monk’s Dead Iron, published in 2011, is yet another interesting example of the steampunk genre. Like most novels from the Era of Peak Steampunk, it’s of the historical kind, something we don’t see nearly enough of lately. It takes place in the 19th Century American West, featuring elements of the supernatural: witchcraft, spirits, and […]
Category: Western Fiction
Mistborn’s Wild West: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
Here’s an interesting variation on an epic fantasy series: a world that transitions from primitive to steampunk as it progresses. Brandon Sanderson’s “Mistborn” novels take place on Scadrial, a world settled by humans with strange powers. Centuries after some cataclysm, people are rediscovering steam power and electricity. This is the setting of The Alloy of […]
Peter Grant’s “Brings The Lightning”
When I was a kid, Westerns were still a big deal, not just in books, but in movies and television. In retrospect, it was quite strange how quickly they disappeared from the American landscape. That’s why I was really glad to see a new writer like Peter Grant continuing this tradition. Surprisingly, he’s not even […]
Review: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Lately, I’ve been reliving my childhood by renting classic Westerns from Netflix. I’m always looking for something new, so when I saw this movie characterized as a modern-day Western I had to see it. Furthermore, it won some major awards at Cannes in 2005. I was disappointed when the DVD arrived in a damaged […]
Sci-Fi with a Western Flavor — Kepler’s Cowboys
Lots of folks like to mix up literary styles, such as horror and comedy, or mystery and romance. You all know I’m partial to both sci-fi and westerns. For the longest time, the big-city critics called this combination the lowest of the low. Yet when a fellow named Joss Whedon dreamed up a show called […]
Call Me “The Space Cowboy”
(With a shout out to Steve Miller.) The Western genre, so popular in my youth, has fallen out of favor in recent years. It survives mainly in “shoot ’em up” video games like Red Dead Redemption. Yet it has had a lasting influence on other genres, especially science fiction. Though despised by sci fi purists, […]
Incident at Dragoon Pass, Part 4
The following is the conclusion of the origin story of the Clockwork Caballero, by Vaughn Treude. Earlier installments are part1, part2, and part3. The Captain spat out the chewed-up cigar he’d had clenched in his teeth and replaced it with a fresh one. From his pocket, he pulled out a match, struck it on his […]