The Weird Wild West: A Penny Dreadful Review
I love a
bit of magic and weirdness in my frontier towns. Last December, eSpec Books
released an anthology that delivers that in spades. The Weird Wild West, edited by Misty Massey, Emily Lavin Leverett,
and Margaret St. Graw, contains many, many great tales of odd goings on.
There are a
great many stories in this anthology, so you will not leave disappointed, no
matter what you’re looking for. Aliens, vengeful ghosts, shapeshifters, mad
science, and necromancy run rampant across the weird wests of the authors’
imaginations.
If I had to
pick a favorite, it would be a toss up between “Blood Tellings,” by Wendy
Wagner, and “Frank and Earnest,” by Tonia Brown. The first is the tale of a boy
mature beyond his years. He speaks with the spirits of the dead. The local
sheriff needs his help solving a murder in a house haunted by a malicious
entity. The ending is beautiful. The second story involves the worst outlaws in
the west and a kitten who defeats a mad scientist.
The variety
in this anthology is fantastic. I highly recommend The Weird Wild West for bite-sized adventures in a frontier that
isn’t quite ordinary. I rate it four gears out of five.
Your Correspondent from the Bookstore,
Penny J. Merriweather
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