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Tag: Westerns

Great books for considering our strange western society

Authors read books? Why, yes! Here are a few good ones that raise some compelling questions about our society, with one that usefully explains how it got that way!

The Homesman

The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout

Swarthout is great at breaking Western genre tropes with his novels, and he doesn’t disappoint in The Homesman. Here, we learn of an untold history about the psychological costs of living on the frontier. Wolves, cold and disease take a toll on families out there. When a few wives go insane from the pressure, no one wants to take them back home to their families — except a tenacious woman named Mary Bee Cuddy. Delving into prejudice against the mentally ill, the novel moves quickly with colorful characters who stick with you long after the last page. If you like this, make sure you check out Swarthout’s The Shootist and other westerns on my list of favorites that inspired my novel, The Wanderer and the New West.

Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams

Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams by Philip K. Dick

A great entry into the work of Philip K. Dick, this book collects short stories adapted for the TV show of the same name. I haven’t watched the show, but found this to be a fun group of stories with compelling sci-fi ideas. As with any short-story collection, some tales are stronger than others, but all will leave one pondering the weird ways of society. The brevity of these stories forces Dick to get quickly to the point — and should be satisfying for those who struggle to find long periods of time to read. A couple of my favorites included “Exhibit Piece,” in which a future historian decides he prefers to live in the past, and “The Hanging Stranger,” a body-snatchers type tale in which no one in a town seems to be at all worried about a dead man hanging from a light pole. Dick’s work is definitely an influence on my novels, especially We, The Watched and Divided We Fall.

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard

If you’ve ever wondered how America got that way, this is the history book for you. Woodard challenges the notion that we’re just a bunch of blue and red states. Rather, he theorizes that distinct cultures and histories in eleven regional nations of America explain why swing states go red in certain elections but blue in others, among other intriguing insights. I’m not always excited to read a history book, but this one felt very relevant to today’s political situation. I’m sure to refer back to it in my own news reporting and fictional writing about this land we call the United States.

Roughneck

Roughneck by Jeff Lemire

Enough America! Let’s talk about Canada. Roughneck is another masterpiece graphic novel by Jeff Lemire. Beautiful, expressive artwork matched with another haunting story. Reading Lemire’s books is like watching a great indie film. I also really like the Canadian framing of the story — a washed up hockey player, a run-down Canadian town, trapping and an indigenous history create a great atmosphere. Don’t miss it!

View all my reviews on Goodreads and let me know in the comments if you have any recommendations.

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Striking Gold in the New West

When I finish writing something and put it out in the world, it’s often hard for me to conceptualize that people are actually reading it. It’s the same as an author and in my day job as a journalist. The work goes out into this kind of infinite void, and then it’s on to the next project.

Before gold sticker. Credit: Reedsy

So, you might say it’s pretty humbling to learn that not only are people reading my prose, but they actually like it enough to place a gold sticker on the cover!

Last weekend, The Wanderer and the New West won the gold medal for Dystopian fiction in the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Awards. It’s actually the second award for the Wanderer, who earlier this year snared best Western in the National Indie Excellence Awards.

Readers’ Favorite will officially hand out gold medals this November at the Miami Book Fair. I’m planning to attend, and will have a few paperback copies available to purchase at the show. I’m also planning to bring some gift codes for the Kindle edition, so please ask me for one if you see me at the fair!

Click here for more info about The Wanderer and the New West. Get the EPUB edition for 33% off at Smashwords from now until Dec. 1, 2018 with the coupon code KA58Y.

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The Wanderer visits the library…

Maybe you wouldn’t expect to find a couple of gunslingers holed out in a library. However, in a town taken over by the Red Stripe Gang, the library might just be the best place to plot one’s next moves.

The “library scene” from The Wanderer and the New West

That’s a scene from my dystopian western novel, The Wanderer and the New West. You can read a piece of it in the picture above.

I’ve always loved libraries, that temple-like space where one can find a new book and–gasp–take it home for free! Growing up in Bucks County, PA, my favorite section was the 741s. I assume you’re up on your Dewey Decimal System? See, that’s where they kept all the comic book collections, including ancient tomes like Superman: From the ’30s to the ’70s (for the record, I read this in the late ’90s).

That’s why it’s so awesome to see my novel popping up in various libraries across the country. It’s thanks to the great Kirkus review (a favorite mag among librarians), my book’s distribution on library platforms like Overdrive, and most recently, an appearance at the 2018 American Library Association conference in New Orleans, courtesy of Booklife by Publishers Weekly.

The Wanderer and the New West at the 2018 American Library Association conference in New Orleans.
The Wanderer and the New West featured at the 2018 American Library Association conference in New Orleans, courtesy of Booklife.

As an indie author trying to get noticed, my hope is that readers will find my novels in libraries (eBook and print!) and give ’em a try. If they love one of my books, maybe they’ll recommend it to a friend! Sales are great, but I’d much rather know that more readers are getting a chance to enjoy the words I’ve written.

If you can’t find my novels in your library, please request them! You can refer librarians to this post or the official page for The Wanderer and the New West if they need more information. Please let me know in the comments below if you found my books in yours!

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Three classic Western novels that inspired The New West

Call it Western redemption. With my critically acclaimed novel, The Wanderer and the New West, I wanted to modernize a classic genre that’s high on action and adventure, but which has largely been stuck in the Old West.

It occurred to me that the Wild West is all about lawlessness and the absence of government — the very opposite of the kind of dystopian fiction I’d written before about totalitarian governments. And yet, couldn’t that be a kind of dystopia, too? With American gun violence increasing and continued calls for reduced government, this seemed like a startlingly current subject.

But while my novel aims to reinvent the Western, it owes a lot to the classics. If you’re interested in exploring the genre, here are a few books that influenced mine.

The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout

A short but very sweet tale of an expert gunslinger who learns he has cancer and decides he wants to end things on his own terms. The vultures fly in to take advantage of him, but J.B. Books stays strong.

Gripping from start to finish — I read it in about a week! Great characterizations and exciting action. Look out for the rather surgical descriptions of what a bullet can do to the body!

This book really gave me confidence that the Western genre can be much more than Cowboys vs. Indians.

Valdez is Coming by Elmore Leonard

A gang of bandits beats up Roberto Valdez and leaves the constable for dead. But Valdez survives…and seeks bloody revenge!

I loved how compact and straightforward this Western was. It’s got everything you want from the genre — a character seeking justice, a power-mad cowboy, gun fights and chases through the desert.

My only complaint is that the love story is a bit thin and not so compelling. Overall, this is a blast and a good choice if you’re just getting into the genre.

Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey

Riders, rustlers, gun fights and runaway cattle — it’s all here. A legendary gunslinger must save a fetching rancher from having to marry a Mormon elder against her will.

The duels are riveting and I love the awe with which characters revere the dangerous gunslinger, Lassiter (who happens to be the inspiration for the name of the gun that the Wanderer carries in my novel).

The book does drag a bit in the middle, but there’s no denying its status as a classic.

And now, a Dystopian Western!

The Wanderer and the New West reinvents the Western novel with a dystopian outlook on a possible America that fully protects the rights of armed citizens to stand their ground. Click the cover below to read a free sample!

In the near future, the government leaves it to the American people to protect their own communities from the threat of mass shooters and motorcycle gangs. When a marksman known as the Wanderer opens war against injustice in the state of Arizona, his violent actions attract the attention of journalist Rosa Veras, writer of a subversive blog about America’s return to the Wild West.

As Rosa tracks the movements of the Wanderer, she exposes the new American folk hero’s past sins and quest for redemption. But after making waves with a blog post connecting the nation’s top gun manufacturer with its most violent gang, the reporter finds her life in danger and the Wanderer at her door. Rosa realizes she must join forces with the vigilante gunman if she is to live long enough to tell his story.

Available now in paperback and eBook!

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Adam Bender | adambenderwrites.com | watchadam.blog