Clint Eastwood considers Josey Wales to be his career high point in the Western genre. He’s also the quasi-cover star to the reissue of the film‘s source material, Forrest Carter’s THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. If you’re only familiar with the movie, you are in for a treat, since the book is more a slow-burn character study, with the violence you remember being not in the same vein.
Josey Wales is a farmer whose life takes a major shift when a group of Union soldiers not only destroy his home, but brutally rape his wife, who is then killed, as well as his child. This forces Wales to swear utter vengeance on the men who did it, to the point he signs up with a Confederate outfit who are a sort of guerilla squad.
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One of the few authors still writing for the Western genre today is Robert J. Randisi. It always brightens my reading pile when I see a new title from him. GALLOWS is no different, and Randisi likes to get right into the action.
It opens with a drifter named Lancaster looking for water for his horse, but steps into a whole hornets’ nest of trouble. He finds water, but it’s located on someone’s property, so he knows he needs to ask permission first. When he heads to the homestead to do so, he finds three men dragging a woman by her hair and beating on her. He tries to avoid confrontation, but the men threaten him while they keep beating on her at the same time.
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THE PLAINS OF LARAMIE is another collection of old pulp Western stories reprinted for new audiences. Not being familiar at all with the writing of Lauran Paine, I had no idea what to expect. But I did see OPEN RANGE, which was based on his book, and that was one of those sleeper Westerns.
This rounds up two short stories and a novella, from which the title takes its name. The opening story, “Boothill’s Ferryman,” deals with a ferry owner who raises his prices, irking the townsfolk. But it also deals with the local sheriff, Jack Masters. For such a short story, it’s definitely packed with action that surpassed my expectations. It also has one of those great, unexpected endings that making reading Westerns a true joy.
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Time for another column of oats-eating reading, so grab your saddlebags and bedrolls. This time out, we feature two new strangers, while the third is an old standby. In the meantime, let’s set a spell while I write an angry e-mail to DC Comics about a certain Confederate soldier’s lack of a second SHOWCASE volume. Maybe this will get it all straightened out by the time JONAH HEX hits the big screen, which has two things going for it: Josh Brolin as Jonah and Mastodon doing the soundtrack. I bet you were expecting some cheap Megan Fox joke. Sorry, buckaroos, I can’t stand that second-rate Angelina Jolie. (I’m more a Rachel Weisz man myself.)
JIM STEEL #6: AZTEC GOLD by Chet Cunningham — Wow, look at that kick-ass cover! I mean, that dude looks like a total badass who’s about to shoot first and maybe ask questions later. This 1981 book just screams “read me!” Well, I read it and guess what? An episode of GUNSMOKE is more action-packed.
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Although pulp as a format may be long gone, pulp as a genre will never die … at least as long as it continues to be cared for, in good hands like those of Joe R. Lansdale and Keith Lansdale. The father/son team has a strong hold of the editing reins of Subterranean Press’ SON OF RETRO PULP TALES, a sequel to the 2006 original.
‘Tis fitting the elder Lansdale open the collection of 11 stories, covering everything from Westerns and jungle exploits to cold-blooded revengers. His “The Crawling Eye” is the weirdest — and arguably the best — of them all, with a well-armed reverend befriending a presumed half-wit kept caged in the aptly named town of Wood Tick. Involving rancid horsemeat and dimension-hopping monsters, it’s a joy to read, with dialogue as brisk as it is biting.
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