The Buntline Special - Mike Resnick

   2010; 295 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Weird West Tale” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Steampunki; Alternate History; Western.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    It’s the 1880s Old West in a parallel universe, one where the western boundary of the United States is the Mississippi River.  The lands to the west of there are controlled by the Apache medicine man, "Geronimo", aka “Goyathlay”, and his Cheyenne counterpart, "Hook Nose", aka “Que Sul-La”.  Together, they weave powerful magic that keeps the White man from invading their lands.

 

    The exclusion of the Americans from Indian territories is not absolute.  A few towns and cities are allowed; they promote trade and cooperation between the two empires.  One of these is Tombstone, Arizona.

 

    As is true in our dimension, this alternate Tombstone seems to attract both the best and the worst breeds of gunslingers.  Wyatt Earp is the marshal there; his brothers are his deputies and Bat Masterson is one of his allies.  On the “black hat” side is the infamous Clanton clan and the McLaury brothers.  Into this tense stand-off rides the gunman who can gives the Earps the upper hand.

 

    Doc Holliday.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Buntline Special is the reimagining of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in a steampunk world.  In addition to the historically accurate participants, Mike Resnick includes others who were bystanders, such as Kate Elder, plus some interesting persons that weren’t there, such as Thomas Edison and Ned Buntline.  But there is no doubt that the main protagonist of the tale is Don Holliday.

 

    The presence of Edison allows for some marvelous inventions to come into play.  Things such as electric stagecoaches, lie detector machines, fluoroscopes, a super-hardened brass alloy, and, possibly the most intriguing one of all: robotic hookers.  Magic also figures into the storyline (useful hint: do NOT piss off a Native American medicine man!), and a couple of paranormal creatures are added to make things interesting.

 

    For the most part, the story is set in Arizona, in the greater Tombstone area.  The book includes five drawings strewn throughout the text; I thought they were a marvelous addition.  Since I’ve lived in Arizona for quite a while, it was neat to see one of our lesser-known tribes, the Hualopai, play a part in the story.

 

    There are some nifty “bonus sections” at the end of the book, including a Bibliography, a historical news article about the O.K. Corral gunfight, a Cast of Characters, and an “About the Author”.  The text abounds in witty dialogue, ingenious contraptions invented by Edison and manufactured by Buntline, and the goings-on at the bawdy house.

    The O.K. Corral gunfight is the highlight of the book.  But it’s not the “final ending”; there’s another 50 pagers after that happens, mostly resolving the paranormal challenges of the plotline.  All the plot threads get tied up, and if this adventure tickles your fancy, there are three more books in the series . 

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 88 ratings and 48 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.49*/5, based on 1,334 ratings and 210 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Geronimo wants to know who he is facing.” said Obidiah.

    “Bat Masterson and John Henry Holliday,” replied Holliday.

    “Doc Holliday?”

    “The very same.”

    Obidiah turned to Geronimo and spoke to him in the latter’s native tongue.  Geronimo stared at Holliday and then said something to Obadiah.

    “He wants to know if you really killed seven men in a card game in Mexico.”

    “Probably not,” answered Holliday.  (pg. 55)

 

    “I don’t like you much, Holliday,” said Frank.

    “Well, you have that in common with a lot of other men,” said Holliday easily.

    “Oh? Sounds like they’d be interesting men to know.”  He looked around the saloon.  “Where are they?”

    “Buried in graveyards from here to Texas,” said Holliday.  “And a few in Colorado, just for good measure.”

    “You don’t make friends real easy, do you?” said Tom.

    “Let’s just say I’m choosy.”  (pg. 224)

 

“The government didn’t ask for me because of my winning smile.”  (pg. 34)

    There’s a small amount of profanity in The Buntline Special.  I noted ten instances in the first 10%, all of which were the mild epithets involving hell and damn.  Later on, there are a couple of f-bombs, an excretory product, and an SOB.

 

    My bigger criticism of The Buntline Special is with the pacing.  Far too many pages are devoted to discussing Doc Holliday’s terminal illness: tuberculosis, or as it was called in those days “consumption”.  Ditto for the repartee between the White Hats and Black Hats.  One of the baddies, Johnny Ringo, has it in for Doc, and a lot of ink is expended on those two taunting each other.  Bat Masterson’s sudden handicap, which we’ll not detail here, also is drawn out far too long.  On the other hand, the part I found really interesting, the roles played by the Native Americans, is given short shrift.

 

    Despite all this, The Buntline Special kept my interest, as did Book Two of this series, The Doctor and The Kid, which I read seven years ago, and is reviewed here.  I attribute that Mike Resnick’s writing and storytelling skills.  Book Four, The Doctor and the Dinosaurs, is on my TBR shelf.  I can’t wait to see how Resnick works T-Rex into this storyline.

 

    7 Stars.  Add ½ Star if you read this series in its proper order.  I have a feeling I should’ve done that.

Gasher Creek - J. Birch

   2011; 323 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Western; Murder-Mystery; Natural-or-Supernatural.  Overall Rating: 6½*/10.

 

    Last night started out pretty good for Jack Devlin.  He was winning at the card table and the liquor was flowing mighty fine at the whore house in Gasher Creek called The Ham.  True, he got into a shouting match with Sally earlier, one of the establishment’s “girls”, but they’ll work it out.  He’s kinda sweet on Sally.

 

    Jack doesn’t remember much after that, but apparently things did get even better, since the morning light found him in bed with Sally.  Alas, that’s when everything fell apart.

 

    Somebody has beaten the crap out of Sally, as evidenced by those nasty bruises all over her head and face.  Sally’s dead, and the number one suspect is the guy she was in bed with.  Jack can’t remember anything about that part of the evening, but surely he didn’t kill her, no matter how things look now.

 

    But the sad thing is, Jack has inner rage issues and was on a black-out drunk.  Even he’s not sure he didn’t do it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Gasher Creek is equal parts Classic Western and Murder-Mystery genres, with a dash of natural-or-supernatural? (or more precisely, normal-or-paranormal?) thrown in to spice things up.  The chapters are short, 52 of them in all, and they switch back and forth between the two protagonists: the suspected murderer fleeing for his life, Jack Devlin, and the tough-but-honest sheriff determined to bring Jack in and give him due process before hanging him, Tom Tracker.

 

    There are a bunch of interesting characters to meet along the way, including the half-breed, “almost-preacher” Charlie Sewell who teams up with Jack in his flight to freedom, a trio of homesteaders, and a number of hard-working whores.  It was fun to watch as the relationship between Charlie and Jack developed: which one was the more educated?  The more civilized?

 

    The sheriff’s investigation of the sudden uptick of deaths in Gasher Creek was well-paced and handled nicely.  To say more would be a spoiler, but I always enjoy “historical" and "scientific" sleuthing”, and here the facial-bruising and throat-slashing aspects of the crimes quickly warranted further study.  I also liked some of the seldom-encountered vocabulary J. Birch used, a couple examples of which are given below.

 

    The ending successfully ties up the main plot thread – who was doing all those killings, why, and in some cases, “how”.  The perpetrators all get their just desserts.  Some of the meeting-ups out on the trail seemed a bit too convenient to me, and some of the confessions seemed to come a bit too easily, but this did make for a concise conclusion to the tale.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 28 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.35/5 based on 20 ratings and 6 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

B’hoys (n., plural) : young men of the rough-&-tumble working class culture in the late 1840s and beyond.

Others: Fustigate (v.); Capall (n., Irish), Soddy (n.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    “[He] won’t talk,” the Doc said.  “Most days he barely says a word.”

    “I’ve dealt with worse,” Tracker said.  “I once coaxed a confession out of a man they called Tweel the Tattler.”

    “So?” the Doc said.  “What’s so difficult about that?”

    “It was after they’d cut his tongue out.”  (loc. 5237)

 

    “Devlin!”

    Troy Plymouth approached him.  “A glorious day,” he said.  He reached Jack and nodded at Emily’s wagon as it rumbled down the trail.  “She looks pretty, doesn’t she?  Like a white flower, one of those—well, whatever white flowers are called.”

    Which ones?”

    “That’s it,” Troy said, clapping Jack’s shoulder.  (loc. 5915)

 

Kindle Details…

    Gasher Creek presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon, and is only offered in e-book format.  Amazon does not list any other novels by J. Birch.

 

“A man should be able to fight and fart as he pleases.”  (loc. 2308)

    There were some nits to pick in Gasher Creek.  Firstly, the book screams for another round of copy editing.  Typos, misspellings, compound words separated into individual components, and comma abuses abound, to the point where they were a distraction.  Some examples: gun powder/gunpowder, peak/peek, sun up/sunup, solider/soldier.  There were many more.

 

    Secondly, the whole “big, black coyote” angle was a letdown.  Another reviewer called it “confusing”; I’d call it a missed opportunity.  Without the beast, Gasher Creek is just another run-of-the-mill Western.  With it, and supplemented by Charlie’s mixed heritage to justify it, it could put this book in a fascinating "paranormal western" literary niche.

 

    Thirdly, the perpetrator is caught way too easily.  Some sort of tension-building device would’ve worked well.  For example, the perp could've gotten the upper hand against the Sheriff, whereby fugitive Jack is faced with the dilemma of whether he should intervene.

 

    Fourthly, a bit of research could’ve helped enhance the story.  A Google search for “Chewak” and “singultus planta” didn’t yield any pertinent hits, so I’m going to presume these sprang from the author’s imagination.  How much stronger would it have been to reference a real tribe and plant?  For instance, the Chumash tribe would ’ve been a great choice for the former; and something like Jimson weed would’ve worked well for the latter.  I really get hooked on historical fiction books when they also educate me about the History aspect.

 

    Despite all this, I still found Gasher Creek to be a fast-paced page-turner that struck a nice balance between action, mystery, and human-interest.  I think that's indicative of J. Birch’s innate writing ability.  Alas, this appears to be a one-and-done project (a bucket list item, perhaps?) even though the ending leaves open the possibility for a where-does-Jack-go-from-here sequel.

 

    6½ Stars.  The time-setting of Gasher Creek was curiously elusive.  Per the text, baseball had already been invented, and was being played recreationally, which infers the storyline took place sometime after the Civil War.  A referenced song, “Paddy Works on the Erie”, along with several others penned by Stephen Foster, dates the setting at some point after 1864.  So far, so good.

    But a player-piano also makes a cameo appearance, admittedly as a new-fangled device, and Wikipedia indicates those weren’t available until shortly after the start of the twentieth century (1900).  That's well past the age of the Wild, Wild West.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

   1985; 351 pages.  Full Title: Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Westerns; Historical Fiction.   Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    Perhaps now's a good time for our protagonist, "the kid", to heed the advice of Horace Greeley and “Go west, young man”.  It’s 1847, and he’s only fourteen years old, but Tennessee holds no future for him, and anywhere west of Memphis sounds like the Land of Opportunity.  So he opts to run away from home.

 
    Somehow the kid survives, and two years later he joins a band of mercenaries led by a man named Glanton, albeit mostly to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison.  Glanton’s gang makes its money by collecting bounties on Apache scalps of any kind: male or female, young or old, warrior or civilian; and it’s kind of hard to tell an Apache scalp from any other Indian scalp, or even a Mexican scalp for that matter.

 

    So saddle up, kid, and be sure to practice your shooting.  Scalp-hunters aren't very popular with anyone, and if the locals won’t sell you their food, you’ve no choice but to forcibly take it from them.  You do what you have to in order to go on living, and you get used to leaving piles of corpses in your wake.

 

    Don’t let it bother you that the line between right and wrong often becomes very blurry.

 

What’s To Like...

    Cormac McCarthy is best known for his 2006 post-apocalyptic novel The Road.  Blood Meridian is an earlier effort, published in 1985; it originally got a lukewarm reception but with time gained literary respect, to the point of where many now view it as the McCarthy's magnum opus.

    The overall timespan of the book is 1847-1878, the majority of the book covers a single year: 1849.  It is a pivotal year in the kid’s life, and most of the action takes place south of the border, often around the city of Chihuahua.  I liked the "feel" that Cormac McCarthy’s descriptions create for northern Mexico in those tumultuous days.  The three warring factions – the Apaches, the Mexicans, and the American guns-for-hire - are about equal in fighting strength and none of them trust the others one bit.  McCarthy portrays them all in an equal moral light, and I liked that.  When others are trying to kill you and food is scarce; there is no room for noble qualities, no matter what your ethnicity.

 

    Wikipedia says the theme of Blood Meridian is “the warlike nature of man”, and I’m inclined to agree.  There’s tons of violence in all sorts of forms: rape, murder, torture, scalping, fighting, starving, and even decapitation.  This is not a book for the squeamish.  The dying is not limited to the combatants – women, children, and babies are slain alongside the men, and any animal that wanders into this story is almost certainly about to die.

 

    Scalp-hunting is a dangerous profession and a lot less lucrative than you’d think.  Casualties run high in Glanton's militia and the remnants of the gang eventually drift north into the present-day American Southwest, making stops at Tucson, the Yuma ferry crossing, and San Diego.  By the end of that trek, the gang no longer exists; it’s every gunslinger for himself.

 

    The book is a wordsmith's delight – McCarthy sees no reason to use an everyday word when a high-falootin’ one is available, and it works quite well here.  Unsurprisingly, a lot of the dialogue is in conversational Spanish, given the settings.  McCarthy rarely supplies a translation of it, but I was usually able to suss out what was being said.

 

    I chuckled at the “Better Living Through Chemistry” lessons - when the gang runs out of gunpowder, a batch is made from the surrounding elements, and later on, when a medical knock-out agent is needed, the new wonder-drug of the times, ether, is used.  The fortune-telling scene involving tarot cards was interesting, and while I already knew about Fredonia, I had to look up Gnadenhutten in Wikipedia.  Finally, for the second time this year and my life, “charivari” showed up in the book I was reading.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Jornada (n.) : an arduous usually one-day journey across a stretch of desert.

Others: Parricide (n.); Sprent (v); and dozens more.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 3,949 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.16*/5, based on 113,698 ratings and 10,215 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “I said are you quits?”

    “Quits?”

    “Quits.  Cause if you want some more of me you sure as hell goin’ to get it.”

    He looked at the sky.  Very high, very small, a buzzard.  He looked at the man.  “Is my neck broke?” he said.

    The man looked out over the lot and spat and looked at the boy again.  “Can you not get up?”

    “I don’t know.  I ain’t tried.”

    “I never meant to break your neck.”

    “No.”

    “I meant to kill ye.”  (pg. 10)

 

    “So what is the way of raising a child?”

    “At a young age,” said the judge, “they should be put in a pit with wild dogs.  They should be set to puzzle out from their proper clues the one of three doors that does not harbor wild lions.  They should be made to run naked in the desert until…”

    “Hold now,” said Tobin.  “The question was put in all earnestness.”

    “And the answer,” said the judge.  “If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now?  Wolves cull themselves, man.  What other creature could?  And is the race of man not more predacious yet?”  (pg. 153)

 

“I was afraid I was goin’ to die and then I was afraid I wasn’t.”  (pg. 74 )

    Blood Meridian was a slow, difficult read for me.  Cormac McCarthy has a unique writing style that you’ll either love or hate.  The use of quotation marks, apostrophes, and hyphens is taboo; and capitalizing proper nouns is arbitrary.  For the sake of clarity and my own grammar OCD-ness, I added them in the excerpts above.  Run-on sentences proliferate; and each chapter starts with a bunch of little notes that annoyingly (for me, anyway) give away any surprises that are about to occur.

 

    Then there are the lengthy landscape descriptions.  Yes, they set the scene, but the plotline stagnates while you read about the countryside, and this got tedious after a while.  There’s only so many new ways you can describe the Sonora desert and the mountains that surround it.

 

    After more than 250 pages being devoted to the events of 1849, the next three decades of the kid's life are squeezed into a mere 30, and the story grinds to a rather ambiguous ending.  The kid runs into an old acquaintance in a bar in Texas; a philosophical discussion ensues; and a mess is made in the outhouse.  Exactly what that mess consists of is not disclosed; the reader is left to draw his own conclusion.  Things wrap up with an epilogue that even Wikipedia doesn’t try to explain.

 

    7 Stars.  If you can make it through all the gore and tedium of the scalp-hunting campaign in Mexico, you'll arrive at the Yuma ferry crossing, where the pacing picks up nicely, and the storyline becomes very interesting.  Alas, even that blessing is relatively short-lived, nevertheless I'd still call Blood Meridian a worthwhile read.  I’ve never been keen on the traditional "Hollywood western" genre, and here the setting and time period were refreshingly different.  The book's back cover blurb notes the story is “based on historical events”, and since I’m a history buff, I ended up enjoying it, despite the weird writing style and interminable descriptions.

Dragon Teeth - Michael Crichton

   2017 (1974, actually); 333 pages.  New Author? : Of course not.  Genre : Coming-of-Age; Action; Western Adventure; Archaeology.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    William Johnson has it made.  He’s 18 years old, from a well-to-do family, and a freshman at prestigious Yale University.  Like most freshmen, he is shy around girls, and prone to doing stupid things in his spare time, such as making idle bets with other, equally well-off students.

    Othniel Charles Marsh is a professor at Yale and a leading expert in the new field of paleontology.  Dinosaurs, or to be more exact, dinosaur bones, are a recent discovery and are all the rage in archaeology right now.  Marsh’s hobby during summer break is to fund a trek by a select group of Yale students out into the wild and untamed west in search of dinosaur bones.

     Johnson has no interest in joining in on such an adventure.  His goal for summer break is to lay around the mansion.  But a thousand-dollar bet with a rival classmate over whether he’s too chicken to go along on Marsh’s expedition changes things.  That’s a lot of money, even for a spoiled rich kid.

    Which is why, William Johnson, writing in his journal, remarks that, “I realized that, through no fault of my own, I would now spend the entire summer in some ghastly hot desert in the company of a known lunatic, digging up old bones.”

What’s To Like...

    Dragon Teeth was published in 2017, nine years after Michael Crichton died.  This may seem preposterous, but he actually wrote it in 1974, and it languished as an early effort that he chose not to have published.  Sixteen years after penning this tale, Jurassic Park was published, and I'm pretty sure Crichton forgot all about this manuscript.

    Genre-wise, this is first and foremost a coming-of-age tale.  Johnson starts out as a spoiled brat, and comes back a mature man.  Wikipedia calls it a “forerunner to Jurassic Park”, but if you read it in hopes that velociraptors will go stomping around, chomping on puny humans, you are going to be sore disappointed. Instead, it is a tale of an adventure out West, with some paleontology thrown in as an added bonus.

    This may be a rookie effort, but Michael Crichton’s writing skills are already evident.  You get a nice “feel” for frontier life in the 1870’s, and his descriptions are blended smoothly with his research about the wild West, digging for dinosaur fossils, and boom towns springing up anywhere that gold was found.  The Sioux are still on the warpath, and Custer is about to be made aware of that fact.

    The chapters are short, of James Patterson-ish length.  They are neither numbered nor listed in the front, but each one has a descriptive title to clue you in as to what’s about to occur.  There’s a map at the front of the book, which helped me keep track of where the fossil-hunters were traipsing around, although its resolution is poor.  There are a couple cusswords, but that’s about it for R-rated stuff.  Both Johnson and I enjoyed meeting Emily Williams, or whatever her name really was.

    I really liked the photography sections of the story.  There was no such thing as film, a store nearby that would develop your pictures, or digital cameras.  My father had his own darkroom, and I used to assist him in developing film into slides.  My grandfather had some ancient photographs, on old sepia-colored glass plates, which are referenced here.  This brought back some great memories for me.

    Michael Crichton weaves his insights about some subtle topics into the storyline, most notably some thoughts about Science-vs-Religion (pgs 132-35), and blind faith (pgs 174-5).  And if you're a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist, Deadwood Gulch is your kind of town.  Imagine living in a place where there are no rules, laws, and/or enforcement agencies.  Surely, this is Anarchist Paradise.

    The ending is satisfying, albeit not overly exciting.  Appended to the story are a couple neat extra sections:  a Postscript, in which Crichton tells you what happened to some of the real-life figures encounters in the story; an Author’s Note, where he separates fact from fiction, and a touching Afterword from his widowed wife, giving some background about Michael and this book, and leaving a lump in my throat.

Kewlest New Word ...

Nymphs du pave (n.; phrase) : a streetwalker; a prostitute who solicits in the street.  (French for “nymph of the pavement”)

Excerpts...

    “You are saying this Neander skull is human?” Morton said.

    “I don’t know,” Cope said.  “But I do not see how one can believe that dinosaurs evolved, and reptiles evolved, and mammals such as the horse evolved, but that man sprang fully developed without antecedents.”

    “Aren’t you a Quaker, Professor Cope?” (…)

    “I may not be,” Cope said.  Religion explains what man cannot explain.  But when I see something before my eyes, and my religion hastens to assure me that I am mistaken, that I do not see at all … No, I may no longer be a Quaker, after all.”  (pg. 169)

    “And me?”

    “You’re different,” she said.  “You’re brave, but you are also refined.  I bet you kiss real refined, too.”

    She was waiting.

    “I learned,” Johnson wrote in his journal, “one immediate lesson, which was the unwisdom of kissing aboard a bucking stagecoach.  My lip was deeply bitten and the blood flowed freely, which inhibited, but did not stop, further explorations of this nature.”  (pg. 303)

I still regard three months in the West in much the same way I would three months forced attendance at the German Opera.  (pg. 20 )

    The quibbles are minor.  The thrills and spills don’t really start until about halfway through the book, so after a hundred pages or so, I was beginning to wonder if all we were going to do was ride around the countryside and dig up fossils.  Yet Michael Crichton can make even that interesting, whic is no small feat.

    The pacing is moderate, which is okay for a coming-of-age story.  And a glaring deus ex machina popped up when our protagonist, having lost all his photographic equipment and having no useful skills with which to earn some money in Deadwood Gulch, has the good fortune to learn that a previous resident, also a photographer, had perished in the wilds, but miraculously left all of his equipment behind in the town.  The townspeople, who rob and steal and loan-shark without a second thought, have conveniently left all those photographic plates and chemicals untouched, and now give them to Johnson for fre.

    But I pick at nits.  Dragon Teeth was an extremely quick and easy read, with a catchy plotline and a well-researched setting.  It may not be Crichton at his best (that wouldn’t happen for another 16 years), but it was still a delightful read.

    7½ Stars.  I rarely read Westerns, but if it's written by Michael Crichton, I'll make an exception.

The Doctor and the Kid - Mike Resnick

   2011; 323 pages.  Book 2 (out of four) of the “Weird West Tales” series.   New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Steampunk; Western; Alternate History.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    There are so many things that are different in this Alternate History of the Old West.  Unfortunately for Doc Holliday, his terminal illness – tuberculosis, or as they called it back then “consumption” – is not one of them.  He has a year or so to live, if he’s lucky, and he’d like to spend his final days in peace at a sanitarium in Colorado.

    That takes money, something which he doesn’t have much of anymore, thanks to one of his vices, gambling.  Ah, but there’s a $10,000 bounty on Billy The Kid, dead or alive, which is more than enough to cover the sanitarium costs.  And Doc’s a retired (or so he says) gunslinger.

    But Billy The Kid’s mighty fast on the trigger, and some say he can even outdraw Doc.  To boot, there are rumors that he’s protected by some medicine man magic that renders all weapons used against him useless.

    Maybe it’s time for Doc Holliday to get some magic of his own.  And who better to seek out and ask for it than that great inventor, Tom Edison?

What’s To Like...

    I liked the world-building.  In this alternate timeline, the US Army is prevented from crossing the Mississippi River due to the powerful magic spells laid down by two Native American medicine men, Geronimo and Hook Nose.  Some towns apparently are allowed – among them Tombstone, Denver, Leadville (Colorado), and Lincoln (New Mexico).  But nary a single soldier can cross over.

    Mike Resnick likes to namedrop, and I mean that in a positive way.  So in addition to the O.K. Corral boys: Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, we meet Oscar Wilde, Susan B. Anthony, Billy the Kid, Sheriff Part Garrett, Geronimo, Kate Elder, Ned Buntline, and Thomas “Tom” Edison.  Those last two are buddies of our protagonist, Doc Holiday.

    This is also a steampunk novel.  Think The Wild, Wild West – either the old TV series, or the more-recent movie version.  Tom Edison and Ned Buntline supply a bunch of really neat inventions, among which are robotic bartenders, horseless stagecoaches, monorails, robotic cooks, tasers, and last but not least, robotic hookers.  I’m not quite sure how the latter work, but customer satisfaction is high.

    There are some kewl drawings scattered throughout the book, which I really liked.  There is some cussing, which is certainly realistic, but I didn’t think was absolutely necessary.  More on that in a moment.  There are also five appendices in the back, to wit: a list of “further reading”, movie stars who played played the various characters we meet in the book, some brief, “non-alternate” biographies of the main characters, an account by Pat Garrett concerning Billy the Kid’s  escape, and an account by Bat Masterson about his acquaintance with Doc Holliday.  Of the five, I liked the biographies one the best.

    The ending is okay, but not very twisty.  Doc squares off against Billy the Kid; and Geronimo and Hook Nose do the same.  This is a standalone novel, as well as part of a series.

Excerpts...

    “Are you the notorious Doc Holliday?” asked the man.

    Holliday checked to make sure the man was unarmed.  “I am,” he replied.

    The man extended a hand.  “I am the notorious Oscar Wilde.  I wonder if I might join you?”

    Holliday shrugged.  “Suit yourself.”

    Wilde sat down opposite him.  “I didn’t see you at my lecture last night.”

    “Good.”

    “Good?” repeated Wilde, arching an eyebrow.

    “It means you’re not hallucinating.”  (loc. 57)

    “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said.  “All I have to do is destroy men and buildings that are impervious to arrows, bullets, cannonballs and fire, and in exchange for that, a sick, dying man gets to face the greatest killer in the West on even terms, is that your offer?”

    “That is my offer.”

    “Give me a minute to think about it,” said Holliday, staring down at the ground.  (loc. 692)

Kindle Details...

    The Doctor and the Kid sells for $9.99 at Amazon right now.  The other three books in the series all go for that price as well.  Mike Resnick has been writing Sci-Fi stories for a long time, sometimes alone, sometimes as a co-author, and sometimes as a contributor of short stories for sci-fi anthologies.  So there are a slew of e-books at Amazon that bear his name, usually in the $0.99-$9.99 spectrum.

 “(T)he next argument I win with a woman will be the first.”  (loc. 2487)

    The Doctor and the Kid isn’t perfect.  There are some annoyingly repetitive themes, such as Doc reminding everybody that he’s terminally ill, everybody wanting to hear him tell about the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Billy the Kid mentioning to Doc how much he likes him.

    Also, while there’s an adequate amount of action, the plotline itself doesn’t progress much.  For most of the book, Doc keeps tabs on Billy, and Edison tries to figure out how to combat the medicine man magic.  The “Science vs. Magic” theme may be realistic: keep trying ideas until one of them works, but in a storyline, it makes for a lot of spinning of one’s wheels.

    I was confused as to the target audience.  The story was simplistic enough to make me think it was aimed at teenage boys, but then why have all the cussing?  Finally, for all the kewl appendices, why not also have one with a map of the settings?

    7 Stars.  Don’t get me wrong, The Doctor and the Kid was still an enjoyable read, and part of my problems with it may be the fact that I didn’t realize it was book 2 of a series.  I struggled to understand the details of the alternate history, and perhaps all this was already given in the first book, The Buntline Special.  I’ve added that to my TBR shelf (which has a couple hundred other books), and will probably read it in the next few months.