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From the drought-plagued plains of Mars, to a post-apocalyptic Canada, to the familiar American West and Mexico, to other dimensions and other worlds weird and wonderful, an international cast of bestselling, award-winning, established, and emerging authors brings you 25 strange western tales: Robert Lee Beers: A hardboiled PI and his partner must find their way back to the present from 1906 San Francisco before the Big One hits, dodging gunslingers and the risk of changing history, with only a drunken misanthropic wizard to help them. James Blakey: A sheriff must question a colourful cast of characters to discover who has stolen a unicorn rancher's herd. Zach Chapman: A card-cheating Spellslinger must duel a mysterious Green Gunslinger to his damnation or salvation. Sara Codair: Two Martian sheriffs must stop a gang of outlaws from stealing a settlement's precious water, if they can keep their marriage together long enough to do it. Eric S. Fomley: A marshal comes to town seeking an outlaw, but neitherare the ordinary kind... Milo James Fowler: Heroic Coyote Cal, the witch Donna Jamieson, and faithful sidekick Big Yap must stop a monster from ravaging the livestock and people of a town in the western desert. Ron S. Friedman: A WWI pilot shot down over the Amazon must survive Germans, crazy scientists, the jungle and dinosaurs. Carrie Gessner: An elven veteran is called back to face her demons when a little girl is snatched to serve the army that destroyed her. Paul Alex Gray: The heir to the Bourbon Throne must earn coin in America to overthrow the French Republic and reclaim his birthright, so he builds a fantastic contraption to aid him. Jude-Marie Green: Sorceress Jane Smith knows her partner Donna Quick is quite mad, but she follows her anyway. Brent A. Harris: Marshal Bass Reeves has been asked for help by a desperate frontier settlement beleaguered by a dragon. Ethan Hedman: A wandering gunfighter inherits an enchanted weapon, but it's broken. Joachim Heijndermans - Two outlaws hole up in a quiet town full of terrified townsfolk, but all is not as it seems. Russell Hemmell: Two investigators must discover why an entire colony in the Kuiper Belt has disappeared, leaving an anachronistic western ghost town in its place. Liam Hogan: A young outlaw is hunted by an implacable mechanical foe. G. Scott Huggins: A blacksmith with ghostly allies receives an unusual and dangerous client. Sean Jones: The last Norse descendant in North America, who swears vengeance on the Comanche for killing his wife and village, is given supernatural aid by the Navajo. Mackenzie Kincaid: Junior died helping Pa maintain the fence against the Somethings, so now 12-year-old Jane must take his place. R. Daniel Lester: An old tap-dancing celebrity defaults on payments for his magical shoes, and a repo agent has come to collect. Diane Morrison: Two young elven Gunslingers must stop a cannibal spirit before it, or the blizzard it brings, kills everyone they know. Diana L. Paxson: A painter journeys to the Rockies to paint landscapes and stumbles upon an ancient mystery. Claire Ryan - Rollo is going to get her giant slug herd in to market, come hell or high water, monster or no monster. Ricardo Victoria: An ex-spellslinger has taken up a career as a travelling salesbeing of a newfangled weapon called a "rifle." Stanley B. Webb: A US Marshal must stop a notorious outlaw who may or may not be a dragon. We invite you to explore these stories in the grand pulp fiction tradition! Featuring a classic Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard.… (mais)
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Fantasy is probably the most broadly encompassing genre in fiction because you can create so many unique stories in a limitless number of settings. Mix that with the Western genre, and you get a wonderful blend of stories. Diane Morrison’s Gunsmoke and Dragonfire anthology pulls together twenty-five of these stories into a single collection that just blows me away. The variety of stories presented, and the skill of the authors (from well-established authors to those just starting out), really stand out in this anthology. There are stories here of gunslingers and spellslingers, stories featuring magic and myth, and those set in the far future on worlds that are like the Old West.
As with most anthologies that I read there are stories that stand out to me. And that’s the nice thing about an anthology; the stories that inspire me and really struck a chord with me may be different than the ones that do the same thing for you. Below are five of the stories from Gunsmoke and Dragonfire that really stood out to me.
“When the Bell Strikes Three” by Joachim Heijndermans is not only a great fantasy western, but a wonderful slipstream story as well. I had shivers reading it and honestly, somebody from the Twilight Zone needs to make this story into an episode.
“No-Sell” by Ricardo Victoria was a fun story that reminded me very much of Dragonheart, but in a Western setting and blending in a bit of Aztec mythology. I really enjoyed the slow reveal on this story and the twist at the end.
“The Burning Plains” by Brent A. Harris mixes fantasy and western with historical fiction to create a wonderful tale of pioneers trying to deal with a dragon aided by Bass Reeves, who was the first African American US Marshall. I really enjoyed the blending of facts with fantasy in this story that creates a fun alternate history tale.
“A Prayer for the Reaping Season” by Mackenzie Kinkaid is a great coming-of-age story as a young girl must step into her older brother’s shoes to protect the family farm from the monsters that stalk the land. This story blends western action with fantasy really well, while showing that whether in the real world or in fantasy life often forces young children to grow into adulthood sooner than they’d like.
Finally, “Riders of the Rainbow Ridge” by Diana L. Paxson blends a western with mythology to tell the tale of a landscape painter who stumbles into a quiet village with a secret. Being a fan myself of artwork by famous western painters such as Albert Bierstadt I enjoyed this story of an artist who starts to mistrust his own eyes, and then learns the truth. The mythology is revealed subtly and is more enjoyable because it is not in your face.
I enjoyed many of the other stories in this anthology beyond the five mentioned above, but those are the ones that spoke to me the most. I do have one quibble about the anthology, and it has nothing to do with the stories, but with the layout. While done very well, it was none-the-less tiring to read because of the small font size chosen to fit so many stories into a single volume. As a publisher myself I understand the need to balance readability with production value and costs, and at 372 pages in length, this is a massive anthology. I guess it’s a sign of my own age that I had to pace my reading to avoid eye strain. (If you pick up a copy as an ebook you will not have this problem.)
Gunsmoke and Dragonfire is an amazing anthology highlighting some of the best in fantasy westerns today. ( )
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From the drought-plagued plains of Mars, to a post-apocalyptic Canada, to the familiar American West and Mexico, to other dimensions and other worlds weird and wonderful, an international cast of bestselling, award-winning, established, and emerging authors brings you 25 strange western tales: Robert Lee Beers: A hardboiled PI and his partner must find their way back to the present from 1906 San Francisco before the Big One hits, dodging gunslingers and the risk of changing history, with only a drunken misanthropic wizard to help them. James Blakey: A sheriff must question a colourful cast of characters to discover who has stolen a unicorn rancher's herd. Zach Chapman: A card-cheating Spellslinger must duel a mysterious Green Gunslinger to his damnation or salvation. Sara Codair: Two Martian sheriffs must stop a gang of outlaws from stealing a settlement's precious water, if they can keep their marriage together long enough to do it. Eric S. Fomley: A marshal comes to town seeking an outlaw, but neitherare the ordinary kind... Milo James Fowler: Heroic Coyote Cal, the witch Donna Jamieson, and faithful sidekick Big Yap must stop a monster from ravaging the livestock and people of a town in the western desert. Ron S. Friedman: A WWI pilot shot down over the Amazon must survive Germans, crazy scientists, the jungle and dinosaurs. Carrie Gessner: An elven veteran is called back to face her demons when a little girl is snatched to serve the army that destroyed her. Paul Alex Gray: The heir to the Bourbon Throne must earn coin in America to overthrow the French Republic and reclaim his birthright, so he builds a fantastic contraption to aid him. Jude-Marie Green: Sorceress Jane Smith knows her partner Donna Quick is quite mad, but she follows her anyway. Brent A. Harris: Marshal Bass Reeves has been asked for help by a desperate frontier settlement beleaguered by a dragon. Ethan Hedman: A wandering gunfighter inherits an enchanted weapon, but it's broken. Joachim Heijndermans - Two outlaws hole up in a quiet town full of terrified townsfolk, but all is not as it seems. Russell Hemmell: Two investigators must discover why an entire colony in the Kuiper Belt has disappeared, leaving an anachronistic western ghost town in its place. Liam Hogan: A young outlaw is hunted by an implacable mechanical foe. G. Scott Huggins: A blacksmith with ghostly allies receives an unusual and dangerous client. Sean Jones: The last Norse descendant in North America, who swears vengeance on the Comanche for killing his wife and village, is given supernatural aid by the Navajo. Mackenzie Kincaid: Junior died helping Pa maintain the fence against the Somethings, so now 12-year-old Jane must take his place. R. Daniel Lester: An old tap-dancing celebrity defaults on payments for his magical shoes, and a repo agent has come to collect. Diane Morrison: Two young elven Gunslingers must stop a cannibal spirit before it, or the blizzard it brings, kills everyone they know. Diana L. Paxson: A painter journeys to the Rockies to paint landscapes and stumbles upon an ancient mystery. Claire Ryan - Rollo is going to get her giant slug herd in to market, come hell or high water, monster or no monster. Ricardo Victoria: An ex-spellslinger has taken up a career as a travelling salesbeing of a newfangled weapon called a "rifle." Stanley B. Webb: A US Marshal must stop a notorious outlaw who may or may not be a dragon. We invite you to explore these stories in the grand pulp fiction tradition! Featuring a classic Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard.
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As with most anthologies that I read there are stories that stand out to me. And that’s the nice thing about an anthology; the stories that inspire me and really struck a chord with me may be different than the ones that do the same thing for you. Below are five of the stories from Gunsmoke and Dragonfire that really stood out to me.
“When the Bell Strikes Three” by Joachim Heijndermans is not only a great fantasy western, but a wonderful slipstream story as well. I had shivers reading it and honestly, somebody from the Twilight Zone needs to make this story into an episode.
“No-Sell” by Ricardo Victoria was a fun story that reminded me very much of Dragonheart, but in a Western setting and blending in a bit of Aztec mythology. I really enjoyed the slow reveal on this story and the twist at the end.
“The Burning Plains” by Brent A. Harris mixes fantasy and western with historical fiction to create a wonderful tale of pioneers trying to deal with a dragon aided by Bass Reeves, who was the first African American US Marshall. I really enjoyed the blending of facts with fantasy in this story that creates a fun alternate history tale.
“A Prayer for the Reaping Season” by Mackenzie Kinkaid is a great coming-of-age story as a young girl must step into her older brother’s shoes to protect the family farm from the monsters that stalk the land. This story blends western action with fantasy really well, while showing that whether in the real world or in fantasy life often forces young children to grow into adulthood sooner than they’d like.
Finally, “Riders of the Rainbow Ridge” by Diana L. Paxson blends a western with mythology to tell the tale of a landscape painter who stumbles into a quiet village with a secret. Being a fan myself of artwork by famous western painters such as Albert Bierstadt I enjoyed this story of an artist who starts to mistrust his own eyes, and then learns the truth. The mythology is revealed subtly and is more enjoyable because it is not in your face.
I enjoyed many of the other stories in this anthology beyond the five mentioned above, but those are the ones that spoke to me the most. I do have one quibble about the anthology, and it has nothing to do with the stories, but with the layout. While done very well, it was none-the-less tiring to read because of the small font size chosen to fit so many stories into a single volume. As a publisher myself I understand the need to balance readability with production value and costs, and at 372 pages in length, this is a massive anthology. I guess it’s a sign of my own age that I had to pace my reading to avoid eye strain. (If you pick up a copy as an ebook you will not have this problem.)
Gunsmoke and Dragonfire is an amazing anthology highlighting some of the best in fantasy westerns today. (