Fans pick 100 books like Dead in the West

I often ask what the nature of laws and authority is. In the "Old West," when there was no overarching central authority, the survival of the fittest was the law. I’m curious how the clash of the old world with the new becomes a never-ending cycle and where it may lead.

I loved how none of the characters were all good or all bad, they were just survivors. This book is not meant to be liked or disliked. It’s meant to be experienced and "danced with."

For me, the Dark Tower series is an easy first pick as it so thoroughly encompasses everything I love about speculative fiction: big ideas, compelling, at times mysterious but ultimately fully realized characters, and a healthy, rich, and potent dose of world-building.

Over the years, I’ve reluctantly come to accept that this book and series are not necessarily for everyone, but they are absolutely for me, and I always find myself feeling a sort of kinship with other readers who love them as much as I do.

Best known for creating Conan The Barbarian, Howard fathered the weird western genre with his seminal 1932 short story "The Horror From The Mound," collected here along with "The Thunder-Rider" and "Old Garfield’s Heart." Reading these early genre mashup stories of conquistador vampires, reincarnation, and Native American magic in high school was like tasting peanut butter and chocolate for the first time. They made new notions bloom like a field in my mind. You could take the gritty frontier of Lonesome Dove and introduce an element of the magical fantastic, and if you respected both genres, come up with something entirely new. I especially appreciated the culture clash of the frontier.

It’s something I explore a lot in my own work; that disparate peoples meet, mix, and come away changed by the encounter. This is an idea that Howard, who adored research and folklore, represents pretty well in "Old Garfield’s… show more.

Richard Matheson’s career was as prolific as it was varied. He’s best known for I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, and The Incredible Shrinking Man, to say nothing of his Twilight Zone episodes, but he also wrote the Spur Award-winning Journal of The Gun Years and its companion novel The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickock – huge influences on my own found document novel. A number of his western shorts are collected here. Most notable in terms of weird westerns is the cleverly titled "Gunsight," the story of a blind lawman preparing to defend himself from a band of approaching killers a la High Noon.

This rollicking set of whip-smart short stories through a supernatural Wild West is guaranteed to engage readers, with tales ranging from uncannily magical cards to steampunk bordellos to undead outlaws.

Delivering chaotic gunslinger fun from start to finish, Dead Man's Hand explores the intersecting worlds of the living and undead in many delightful and unforeseen ways. As a supernatural storyteller myself, I couldn't stop turning the pages to see what new fantastical creature or magical spell the authors would envision next.

It was my faithful companion through many late nights crafting my own novel, inspiring me with its spirited inventiveness of mysterious beings and magical mayhem. 

This book falls under the category “urban fiction” or “magical realism” or “western” or…something. At least, that’s what drew me to it in the first place. It takes place in America’s old west, features magic-using criminals leading a gang and draws on some Native American lore. The magic is terrifying, it’s a mix of environmental and mind-altering hoodoo. The most powerful antagonist is rugged, homosexual, unashamed, and a conflicted terror of a person. His partner in crime is simply terrifying. Together, they drive a trilogy that’s so well threaded through the old west you can taste the grit as you turn the page. Though the emphasis is on the pursuit of magic and the machinations it drives, the settings are a delight to experience. Files weaves a world in these novels that is equally fascinating and terrifying. Her prose and daring are an inspiration.

These fourteen essays explore the hybrid “weird west” genre, examining a range of texts including some by Native American authors, as well as TV series, films, fiction, roleplaying games, and comic books. It makes for an interesting read – and is thought-provoking in its conclusion that despite weird westerns challenging and destabilizing many of the old cliches, they have yet to “imagine an existence outside of colonial frameworks”. This has given me much food for thought, as it seems to me that frontiers (wherever found) are an intrinsic part of the western genre, and frontiers tend to imply conflict between the inhabitants and the invaders, between the new and the established. Maybe I’m wrong! In any case, this proves that we still have a long way to go before we’re done exploring all the possibilities of this intriguing genre! 

Sometimes I want a dense, fascinating world to unpack, and sometimes I want to open a book and have it punch me in the face with no-holds-barred action and adventure.

The main character of Let Sleeping Gods Lie is Porter Rockwell – a real person from the history of Utah Territory and the Old West. But this story takes place where, once again, legends of the area have come to life and evil has real, lethal fangs. It’s like a spaghetti western meets Die Hard meets a D&D campaign – which pushes every single one of my buttons.

This one has a hero that refuses to be stopped, action that isn’t afraid of pushing expectations, and an unabashed love of over-the-top set pieces that made me giggle in delight.

If you are up for a little journey into the Weird West, let Nettie Lonesome be your guide. She is anything but the traditional ‘Cowboy’ being a queer, biracial, young woman. This book is a different kind of coming-of-age story—a tougher one, which really takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride. For me, the biggest appeal of this book is the main character. Nettie is a special breed of Ranger who discovers there is more to this world than heaven and earth. There are monsters hiding in the shadows, and Nettie finds she has a particular talent for dealing with them. When it comes to queens of the Weird West, Nettie belongs to be among them. Even if she does prefer to dress as a man.

To quote Wernher von Braun, “research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.” In that spirit, I should mention I wasn’t just riffing off yellowed old paperbacks, but doing research into the specific setting and time period of my own book. Although this is a case where the research didn’t necessarily find its way into the first book, but was something I earmarked for a future installment. Nonetheless, The Texas Indians is a good read, giving a comprehensive overview of the Indigenous history of the region and providing many avenues for further research as I write the next book in the series.