Emma Bull was heralded as an innovative author of urban fantasy before she first published TERRITORY in 2007. It remains her best-known work. Now Tor has reissued it as a trade paperback for those who missed this beguiling fantasy Western the first time around.
In 1881, Jesse Fox arrives in Tombstone, Ariz., which is full of people yearning to get rich from the veins of silver that run under the town, but that’s not what brought Jesse here from back east. A horse trainer by profession, he has been following an odd friend, Chinese physician Chow Lung, who insists that Jesse possesses a talent for magic.
Chow Lung has been teaching Jesse about this power for several years, but Jesse still refuses to fully believe, convinced the power drove his sister insane years ago, and fears it might do the same to him.
Another Tombstone resident is Mildred Benjamin, a young widow who works as a typesetter for a local newspaper, but longs to become a writer of adventure fiction for the popular pulp magazines. Mildred, like Jesse, occasionally experiences strange visions and moments of precognition. But unlike Jesse, she has no knowledge of what such experiences mean.
Jesse and Mildred eventually meet Wyatt Earp, Earp’s brothers and their tubercular friend, Doc Holliday. A recent failed stagecoach holdup has left two men dead, and there is speculation that Earp and his family were involved in the robbery. Earp already has a strange hold over most everybody in Tombstone, and fears that the speculation might interfere with his ambitious plans. Then Jesse discovers that Earp is himself a sorcerer, and that magic is at the root of his domination over his friends, his family and the entire territory.
Bull exercises a great deal of restraint in her use of magic throughout the novel. There are no cowboys carrying wands in their holsters, or any conjuring duels at sunset. Rather, the power is alluded to and spoken of in hushed tones, especially in the conversations between Jesse and Chow Lung. The actual moments of magic are equally subtle and sparse.
One almost wishes there were a bit more of it. Once acknowledged, its presence colors almost every thought and event that follows. When magic does take place, it becomes among the strongest and most memorable moments of the novel, displaying Bull’s prose talent at its absolute peak.
Yet the author also impressively and realistically presents the entire ambience of the Old West, along with its people, their manners and customs. She every so often finds ways to incorporate the magic presence into this setting, most notably when Jesse comes upon a troublesome, silver talisman and rids himself of it by having it cover his bets in a poker game.
Moments like this easily allow you to forgive the several slower episodes and the novel’s seemingly unresolved ending. Indeed, the blending of convincing western fiction realism and the oh-so-subtle magic are why TERRITORY remains a notable work, and why it is so fortunate to have it available again.
Whether you follow fantasy fiction or not, it will cause you to quietly reconsider one the most enduring legends of the American West. —Alan Cranis
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