In his rather humble introduction to THE BLOOD RIDER, Mark Tarrant seems to apologize for not being an English major. No need! I, for one, don’t want to read a vampire Western dressed up in flowery prose, laden with weighty metaphors and given – well, y’know – meaning. I just want it to ride; luckily, this one is meant to be nothing more than an escape from reality.
RIDER literally begins in motion and rarely lets up. Ezekiel Carson is traveling with his preacher father and the rest of their family in covered wagons toward a town called Bear Creek, where they hope to preach the word of the Lord. Those hopes are dashed when gunmen slaughter the entire party … except Ezekiel, who barely pulls through.
He wishes he were dead, however, when a vampire then comes along and bites him, turning him into one highly adverse to sunlight.
Twenty years later, a mild-mannered school teacher named William Hamilton arrives in town, searching for his preacher brother, who has disappeared. His kind isn’t exactly welcome in a town of sinning outlaws, but Ezekiel eventually – however reluctantly – agrees to help him locate his missing sibling.
That journey takes them to a New Mexico mine where Asians are slave labor and demons lie inside. Along the way, William is terrified Ezekiel will bite him, until the vampire assures him he only kills people who deserve it. And that he does, to great effect.
If RIDER reads like a pilot to a weekly television show, so be it. After all, it is the start for a planned BLOOD AND SPURS series – FORT DOOM soon will follow – and by the time this adventure comes to an end, our two main characters are finally settled into a partnership that promises more to come. Fans of oddball Westerns – and this is far more Western than horror – will want to see that.
Tarrant’s sentences adhere closely to the noun/verb/direct object formula, but this helps speed the read with only a little complication: A tendency not to attribute quotes sometimes trips you up as to who is saying what. Still, it’s easily deciphered in this delightfully pulpy genre mishmash, with a cool cover illustrated by Michael Graham. –Rod Lott
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Sounds good.
I just finished reading Steve Vernon’s LONG HORN, BIG SHAGGY, so I’m really in the mood for more bizarro western horror action. Might look this one up.
If you want a neat mix of fantasy and horror with an adventure story thrown in, read CS Friedman’s Dark Sun trilogy. It’s an odd combination of sci fi, fantasy, vampires and a western, but it really worked for me.
Gal