Fistful of Credits- Mike Resnick’s Inner Frontier

"They say his father was a comet and his mother a cosmic wind, that he juggles planets as if they were feathers and wrestles with black holes just to work up an appetite.  They say he never sleeps, and that his eyes burn brighter than a nova, and that his shout can level mountains. They call him Santiago."

When I first started getting interested in westerns almost ten years ago I had a hard time finding westerns novels that I enjoyed.  I was looking for books that had the feel of the western movies that I liked- particularly Clint Eastwood films like Two Mules for Sister Sarah, Fistful of Dollars, and Unforgiven.  After a number of failed attempts I finally came across one collection of westerns that I loved, the Inner Frontier Stories of Mike Resnick.

Mike Resnick is a highly prolific sci fi writer who has won more awards than any other writer in the genre (he cranks out a lot of good short stories that win every year).  Resnick’s work is usually focused on some sort of frontier, sometimes in Africa, sometimes in the borders between genres, and most commonly in a far future space frontier.  The bulk of his novels take place in the Inner Frontier, thousands of years from now, where the Republic (or Monarchy, or Oligarchy, or Empire, depending on the millennia) of Man is expanding ever closer to the galactic core.  There is an ever changing border between the order of civilization and the wilds of unknown space.  In this frontier are outlaws, poets, revolutionaries, gunhands, gamblers, and of course the bounty hunters that ride herd over them all.

The first Resnick book that I read was Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future, perhaps his best work to this day.  When I told someone at a cocktail party full of English PhD students that I was reading a science fiction novel about bounty hunters in the future, he scoffed and looked down his nose at me.  “Look”, I said, “I could also call it an examination of American frontier culture and African post-colonialism through the lenses of a futuristic Grail Quest, but that seemed too pretentious for this party”.  But that’s what it is.  And it works fantastically. 

The Inner Frontier books are about half science fiction, a quarter western, and a quarter African safari stories.  As the internal mythology builds the space frontier starts to look a lot more like earthbound frontiers.  Man expands his control of the galaxy one planet at a time, with the violent, the outcasts, and the criminal being the first to hit the frontier.  Aliens are alternately subjugated then praised for their diversity.  There are booms and busts, and entire planets may have nothing but half played out mines and a few dusty trader towns.  Always there is the threat that the government is moving closer, pushing the narrow band of the Inner Frontier ever closer to the great black hole at the center of the Galactic core.

 Everyone here is larger than life. They drop civilized names as soon as they leave settled space and pick up new monickers like the Marquis of Queensbury, the Silicon Kid, Halfpenny Terwiliger, Manmountain Bates, Tyrannosaurus Barnes, the One Armed Bandit, Waltzin' Matilda, Giles Sans Pitié, and the Jolly Swagman.  It is a place where someone who would call themselves Slap Bookleather would fit in well.

Start with Santiago, which frames the books well.  From there The Outpost gets you into the idea that everyone is hero in the back of beyond.  The Oracle series is good, and the Widowmaker series will have you rethinking your entire relationship with your father.  Bounty hunters in space- sounds silly, works great.  Enjoy.

P.S.- Santiago was also done as aD&D 4th edition role playing game by Enworld.  The amazing Art Lyon contributed to the artwork.

McMasters- Ménage a Mexico

I will admit that I bought McMasters #5- Mexican Standoff strictly for the cover.  I was looking for a good beach read on a hot summer day, paging through the $1 paperback westerns of New England’s largest used book store.  I was looking for a steamy, blood & guts adult western, preferably from a series that I hadn’t seen before.  The usual suspects were there- Rough Justice, Edge, Spur, Buckskin.  My meanderings through these too often blurred the line between the sex and violence, very much not to my taste, so I wanted something different.  Eventually I found the McMasters series, featuring a stock detective out for justice.  That was a different idea.  Then I saw the cover to #5, with the title character and two senoiritas in bed.  A ménage a trios on the cover? I’d struck gold.

The next day at the beach, surrounded by Bosnians, Russians, and Jamaicans (if you can’t take multiculturalism then you really should stay the heck out of New England), I dug into the book.  Okay, there’s our hero, still recovering from the shock of seeing his wife murdered in Book One.  Ah, while riding to the vengeance trail his cowboy brother suggests that he use his guns for good and become a Stock Detective, taking the fight to rustlers.  Interesting, I’m not sure that being a hired gun for the Big Cattle (the granddaddy of Big Oil) is going to be turning to the good in everyone’s book, but I’ll buy it.  And there’s a ranch in trouble.  Always, there is a ranch in trouble.  And where there is a ranch in trouble, there is often a rancher’s daughter.  I could see the “adult” part coming in soon.

And so we were off.  First to the nearby town, barely taken back from outlaws and banditos.  There McMasters pumps the girl from the local hotel for information… with kind words.  Okay, he’s not a total lout.  Then it’s off to the ranch, to meet with the local players, including the ranch owner, his secundo, and the beautiful, young, perky rancher’s daughter… who drifts in and out of the scene fairly quickly, and fully clothed.  That makes sense, best not to piss off the boss in the first hundred pages.  From the ranch we chase the rustlers, following a stolen herd to a village in Mexico where the only honest man is a saloon owner with a feisty daughter.  McMasters and the daughter have a long, hard, hot… conversation about right and wrong.

Where was the “adult” part?  It came along eventually, with one steamy scene involving the girl from the hotel and her friend, but that was the only such scene in the book.  It came along 120 pages into this slim 183 page paperback.  Was I disappointed?  Not at all.  While not great literature, it was a good story.  Westerns rarely get involved in the cattle trade, the heart of the cowboy image.  McMasters was embedded in cowboying, while carrying a mandate to preserve the stock of his employers by whatever means were at his disposal.  Cowhands and gunhands, all in the same book, with a crime writers eye on criminal conspiracy and betrayal.  McMasters wasn’t the book that I was hoping it would be, but it turned out to be much better.

Finally, back to cowhands, gunhands, and the ranch in trouble.  I liked the idea so much that they are framing my own first novel, now just over 10,000 words.  Thanks, McMasters!

Midnight Theater- Zorro Edition

When I was in college I picked up a suede Zorro mask at role playing game convention.  I took it back to my dorm room and hung it from the wall above my bed.  There isn’t much space in a dorm besides above your bed, so that’s just where it naturally landed.  My suite mates and friends would all come in look at it. 

“You wear that thing, don’t you?” they would ask.  “Nope, just sits there on the wall,” I’d say.

“Come on, you put that thing on and chase your girlfriend around with a whip, don’t you!”

“Really, you think this room is big enough to chase someone in?” I would reply.  In truth I never did wear that mask in that kind of way, something that I do regret now.  The Zorro look is hot, as clearly shown by the many erotic (or outright pornographic) Zorro films shown below.  Welcome to Midnight Theater, a look at the intersection of westerns and erotic film.  Stay tuned for more editions in the weeks to come.

10,000 Hits

It seems like just a few months ago that I was proud of getting 5,000 hits.  Wait, it was just a few months ago.  I still think a lot of visitors are just in it for the pictures, and at some point I’ll have to be okay with that. The long view is that writing this blog has gotten me in the habit of writing regularly.  That’s important, and here’s why.

I have been pretty successful in life.  At age 36 I have a great career, make a ton of money (by my admittedly small standards), have a nice home that I have put a lot of work into, and I have a fantastic partner in life.  I have been surprised by how many friends in the last year have said that I have the life they hope to achieve some day.  But for all of that, there is one thing that is lacking.  I have never written a novel. 

I first decided to become a novelist when I was around six years old, and I was sure that was what I was going to do until around age 17.  Somehow I got significantly sidetracked.  It always bothered me that I never could write more than a short story periodically, and always for my own benefit rather than for publication.  When I recently was off work for a few months following heart surgery I thought I would use that time to write one mediocre western and get it published, but it turns out that open heart surgery is more draining that I thought.  I started a sweeping drama, The Ballad of the Circle K, and after writing the opening and closing pages I realized that it was way too big a story to approach my first time out.  I set it aside, hoping to get back to it one day.

Then I read and wrote a review of Zombie Ranch that proved to be inspirational.  Through that review and the correspondence with the creators I learned that it is okay to jump into creative work as an amateur and trust that as your craft improves your art will improve as well.  I decided that I should crank out one tawdry e-book, the kind that I like to download, read, and review in one day once in a while.  I came up with an idea while cutting the grass, fleshed out the plot on a bike ride, and sat down to write it.  It turns out that writing my trashy e-book is tons of fun.  The whole thing is outlined, I am about a third of the way done the first draft at 9,500 words, and I hope to have it out and to publishers by the end of September.  If no one will publish it, that is what self-publishing through Smashwords is all about.  I plan on using a pen name, and may or may not share it here in the blog.  It’s really dirty, and I know some of you in real life.  Thanks, Zombie Ranch, for inspiring me.

In the mean time I have a lot to catch up on, including Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey’s Trailblazer, Robert Parker’s last western, Blue Eyed Devil, the “adult westerns” McMasters #5: Mexican Standoff and the Captain Gringo Renegade series, the e-romance Keeping of Greg Wilson, Alaska’s final frontier history in The Floor of Heaven, visiting manga-land with Stallion, the fabulous film Winchester ’73, revisiting Zombie Ranch, and a new (to me) web comic called Next Town Over. 

Via con dios!

Highest Grossing Western Movies

I recently stumbled upon an interesting list of the highest grossing Westerns since 1979.  The list is out the same week that Cowboys and Aliens premiered, so I expect the numbers will change over the next month.  The top ten include some great films, like Dances with Wolves, True Grit, Unforgiven, Brokeback Mountain, and Open Range.  It’s interesting to see that Jonah Hex made less than the Legend of the Lone Ranger and American Outlaws, two dismal films.  Even ticket price inflation couldn’t help that terrible movie.  I was also surprised to see that Rustler’s Rhapsody made only $6 million.  Eventually I will write about that great film.  It runs periodically on Showtime, and is well worth your time.  See the rest of the list here.