Why Do We Write Westerns?

Steve Hockensmith, the author of the Holmes on the Range series (I really should check that out) interviews ten western writers and asks them why they chose westerns.  See the results here. 

Assassins Stalk the Mohawk Valley

The long running Assassin’s Creed video game series has jumped across centuries with each new game.  I tried my hand at one of the games set in 15^th century Italy, but couldn’t get into it.  There was a whole mechanic around how to move stealthily through a crowd by hiding in a group of prostitutes.  That just seemed like way too much to remember.  Now, however, the series is moving to the 18^th century American frontier, specifically the Mohawk Valley during the Revolution.  Time to live out your fantasies of being Mel Gibson with a tomahawk from The Patriot.  I look forward to scalping some Redcoats.

Lone Ranger Video Game

It looks like this came out in 1991, and was based on the 1981 Legend of the Lone Ranger movie.  Anyone remember playing it?

All-Star Western Wraps Up Its Stay In Gotham

With issue #6 out, it looks like All-Star Western is finally leaving Gotham City.  It ends on an interesting twist, in which Jonah Hex emerges from a journey through a cave system below Gotham City to find stately Wayne Manor of Batman fame- Jonah Hex discovered the Batcave!  This cave system, by the way, was inhabited by child slavers, prehistoric barbarians, and giant flying bat gods.  Let me get this straight- the great grandparents of the world’s greatest detective (aka Batman) built a mansion on top of this crazy land of terror and never knew it?  I suspect there was an adoption somewhere along the lines, because intuition and deductive skills sure don’t run in that gene pool.

Next month All-Star Western picks up and moves to New Orleans to meet up with classic DC western heroes Nighthawk and Cinnamon.  Let’s hope Hex returns to form.

The Celebrity Cowboy- Erotic Failures in Western Fiction

Early in my blogging career I wrote a post about eroticism in westerns.  It is one of my top ten most visited posts, although I suspect that is because there is a somewhat pornographic clip from the video game Darkwatch embedded, and not because of my erudite writing.  I still like looking for westerns that not only capture the primal feeling of making one’s way through a wilderness landscape, but also the primal feeling of warm bodies in a passionate embrace. 

I occasionally have a moment of weakness and look this type of writing by grabbing a cheap ebook from the Barnes & Noble Nook store.  I browsed through my Nook today and found one story called The Cowboy Celebrity by David Shaw.  I don’t recall when I bought this, or why, but I apparently laid out $2 of cold, hard electric cash for it.  It is a short story that features a Wild Bill double that meets two married women on a steamboat trip and entices them back to his cabin, ostensibly to have them “model” costumes for a new show.

“Sweet Jesus, Clara, your tits are so big a man could stake out a claim on them under the Homesteading Act.”

So-called erotic westerns are often filled with loose, groan-worthy analogies to historical western events, like the one above.  We are also usually treated to fascinating details of penis size, like this:

“Oh, God, Georgina,” Clara moaned in shock.  “It belongs in a cage!”

The two women spend most of the rest of book talking about how big the man is, and how worried they are about fitting it within their demure forms.  I’m assuming that at some point they try it out, but I gave up before that point. 

Surely there is a novel out there that is well written AND has engaging scenes of eroticism.  Any suggestions?

Joe Abercrombie- Fantasy Author's Take on Genre and Westerns

I’ve made a lot of grumpy comments over the last year about the failure of genre fiction, particularly the western genre.  As a fantasy reader I find the same true over in that neck of the bookshelf.  One writer that I have come to enjoy, Joe Abercrombie, seems to agree.  This is good news, as it looks like he is moving the timeline of his low fantasy (ie no dragons and little magic) First Law series up a couple centuries of technology to “combine fantasy with some western influences. Expect narrowed eyes, expansive skies, tough one-liners, and lots of dust...”

Can’t wait to read that one.  Below are Abercrombie’s thoughts on breaking genre fiction loose from its shackles.

Epic fantasy. It’s all the same, no?

There’s a grumpy wizard, a deadly barbarian, a jumped-up nobleman and some feisty girl, more than likely. They’re all engaged in a mysterious quest to bring that from there, and they’re all made out of cardboard. Probably there’s a dark lord of some kind involved. They talk like extras from a bad soap opera. They fight like extras from a bad cop show. Probably there’s a prophecy, and a farmboy with mysterious parentage, and if not a magic tower, then certainly a strange tall building of some kind. There’ll be battles, there’ll be intrigue, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a magic sword came up somewhere along the way.

I don’t need to read that again.

I want to read a fantasy with all the grit, and cruelty, and humour of real life. Where good and evil are a matter of where you stand, just like in the real world. I want dialogue that actually sounds like people talking, and action that actually feels like people fighting. I want magic and adventure, sure, but I want it to hurt. I want blood, sweat, and tears, and plenty of them. I want to read about characters as selfish, as flawed, as complicated, and as unpredictable as real people. I want a fantasy that can shock and surprise, amuse and horrify, delight and excite me, all at once.

I spent a long time looking, and I couldn’t find a set of books quite like that. So I thought I’d write some.

You like your fantasy with the edges left on?

Try The First Law.