Blog Posts - Western Fiction

If you’re hankerin’ for a new-fangled Old West Christmas, it’s available right this minute in The Christmas Journey, the latest Blaze! adventure by series creator Stephen Mertz.This one has everything anyone could want in a Christmas story: San...

I'm a long-time fan of B Westerns. For me, the stand-outs from the 1930s - judged on personality and humor - were Ken Maynard and my father's favorite, Hoot Gibson. So I was pleased to receive a press release from author/artist Darryle Purcell, annou...

When Steve Mertz pitched this entry in the Blaze series to Rough Edges Press publisher James Reasoner, James told him: If you're going over the top, go WAY over. And that's what he did!Zombies Over Yonder takes the husband and wife gunfighting team o...

(Editor's Note: An always-popular feature of Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine is the "No Comment Department." Following that noble tradition, I'm going to kick back and let Mr. "Sharpe" speak for himself.)     He slowed down so...

I've been enjoying W.C. Tuttle's Hashknife Hartley books for a a long time, and extolled the virtues of five of them HERE as Forgotten Books. But I hadn't gotten around to meeting Tuttle's number two hero, Sheriff Henry Conroy, until now. And I picke...

The first character we meet in Medicine Show claims to be Kit Carson, but he isn't. His boss, the Colonel, isn't really a colonel. The Colonel's wife, the Indian squaw Ro-Shanna, and his daughter, the Indian maiden Banju Ta-Ta, are not really Indians...

When I reviewed the new Stephen Mertz western Blaze! (HERE), I mentioned it was not Steve's first rodeo. That distinction, I believe, falls to West Texas Uprising, published way back in 2002. Near as I can figure, of the fifty-odd novels authored by...

When I reviewed the Black Dog Books collection Hard Guy here last month (HERE), I threatened to post "Too Many Mavericks" by the same author, a guy calling himself James A. Lawson. At the time, I wondered who Lawson might really be, and Mr. Jame...

After mentioning this book last week, I plunked down my $2.99 (cheap), had it delivered via lightning bolt to my iPad, and dived in. And damn, I had a rollicking good time. J.D. Blaze and his wife Kate are just possibly the Old West’s first husband...

Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens, the self-styled "Cowpunchers of Disaster," are at it again in this novel from 1942. In most of the other adventures I've read, the stage is well set, often consuming a quarter or third of the book, before our her...

 This new eBook is ready for instant download from Amazon, and I'm sure as shootin' looking forward to reading it. The series, featuring husband and wife gunfighters J.D. and Kate Blaze, was created by Steve himself, and next two books...

From March 26, 1983.

Whoooo-eeeeee. This one has everything. It starts in Dodge City, with trouble between cattlemen and nesters. and escalates into a cowman throwing a knife into his boss's back. Wyatt hits the trail in pursuit, and his troubles multiply. The...

Yep, it's another adventure of those Cowpunchers of Disaster, Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens. Near as I can tell, this one first appeared as a pulp serial in 1929 and '30 (probably in Adventure) and was published in book form as The Santa Dolor...

The Proud Riders is the fourth installment in Brian Garfield's saga of Marshal Jeremy Six, and the most complex story (so far) in the series. This time we get three protagonists and three major plots all rolled into one book. And all that sold, back...

(Note! For this book, I am indebted to Mr. Mike Britt, in whose collection it once resided. Thanks Mike!)Near as I can tell, W.C. Tuttle wrote at least two dozen novels starring Hashknife Hartley and Speedy Stevens, and shorter adventures (many later...

A pattern has emerged in the western fiction of Mr. Richard Prosch. 1. His characters are not fictional constructs, but real people leading real lives. They have genuine human emotions and converse in real genuine dialogue.- and - 2. No matter w...

Jimmy Legg,  a San Francisco bookkeeper, suddenly gets fed up with his job and gets the itch to become a cowpuncher. He pulls out an atlas, and some instinct draws him to the town of Blue Wells, Arizona as a place where he could make his start.

Many Brian Garfield westerns feature a world-weary gunfighter with a bad reputation. Everyone expects the worst of him, and - while no candidate for sainthood - he is partially redeemed by demonstrating a sense of honor lesser badmen could never unde...

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