Godless—A Review

A character and dialogue driven western, Godless presents a traditional plot with some fresh twists, served up with an appropriate balance of action. (Godless is a Netflix original mini-series.) A good script, excellent acting, appealing filmography, and a focus on storytelling makes Godless an excellent addition to the Western film genre.

Here's a good review at Columbus Underground

Western Fiction Review reviews Wanted II

New review of Wanted II by the Western Fiction Review. This is a U.K. based website and it's great to get some overseas exposure.

You don’t need to have read any of the previous tales to enjoy any of the stories found here, but you may well find yourself rushing out to read more about some, or all, of them.

Here you will find stories that range from the traditional approach to western storytelling to one that borders on the mystical. There is plenty of action, some shocks, animal stars, and humour to be found in these fast moving tales, so there should be something to satisfy every western reader.

The Western Writer's Group is back, bringing you brand new,
original stories from characters you love. 

The Magnificent Seven Ride Again

I was never a fan of signing cowboys. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and lesser lights were too goody two-shoes for me. I categorize heroes as wholesome, flawed, and anti-heroes. In my mind, this is not three distinct categories, but a continuum, with Roy Rogers at one end and Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men on the other.

I’m not an enthusiast for either extreme. As a youngster, I preferred Wanted Dead or Alive and Paladin to the Lone Ranger. (I admit I watched Rin Tin Tin. You can’t get more wholesome than a boy and his dog.) Steve McQueen’s Josh Randall and Richard Boone’s Paladin engaged in gray professions and rejected many societal norms. Both characters were portrayed as generally good, but conflicted people who did the right thing in the end.

In the fifties, western films mostly pitted a good guy (and frequently a sidekick) against bad guys. In 1960, The Magnificent Seven broke this mold to start a trend toward far more complex protagonists.  There were not only seven “good guys,” they were flawed to the point of tipping into the anti-hero class. The Magnificent Seven was not the first western with anti-hero protagonists, but its enormous success triggered the Hollywood trait to copy what worked in the past. One of my favorites was the 1962 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The complex, dark Tom Doniphon was one of John Wayne’s best roles, and James Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard certainly had reason for remorse. The Wild Bunch (1969), Silverado (1985), Young Guns (1988), and others employed crews of anti-heroes who seek redemption by righting wrongs.

The Magnificent Seven, directed by John Sturges led the pack. In its original theatrical release, the box office exceeded more than double the cost of the film and it has been considered a genre classic ever since. Anchored by movie star Yul Brynner, the cast included television stars and solid character actors.  Many emerged from the film as bankable Hollywood properties. The taut script moved the story capably forward with character-driven dialogue and memorable scenes. A great director, a seminal cast, and an exceptional script. That’s all you need to make a Hollywood classic.

Antoine Fuqua directed the remake. Hit or miss? Remaking a box office success seems safe, but taking another turn at a classic carries its own set of risks. Most remakes fall short because the audience already has a preset image of the story and deviations can be jarring. Why would a studio invest 9 figures on a risky venture? Who cares about a new Magnificent Seven? Evidently a lot of people. The teaser below has over 7.5 million views. That number fills a lot of multiplexes.

Some have expressed concerns about this version's adherence to the politically correct. That’s not my concern. I’m disappointed in the overreliance on pyrotechnics. The current Hollywood disease is mind-numbing computer-generated imagery that overwhelms the story. Fuqua's take on this classic didn't avoid this pitfall.

By the way, my favorite piece of trivia from the original film has to do with a little tension on the set between Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. McQueen kept upstaging Brynner, so Brynner supposedly told McQueen that if he did it one more time, he would remove his hat. It must have worked because Brynner is never seen without his black hat firmly snugged down on his bald head.

The Hateful Eight— Tarantino mailed it in

I like westerns and I like Quentin Tarantino films, so I had high expectation when I rented The Hateful Eight. Bummer. It's not only a crummy movie … punishment is compounded by its interminable length. Long is usually good for Tarantino, but it’s a bad sign if you ever consciously wonder when this thing will be over. The movie desperately needed editing by someone unintimidated by the grand master.

The Hateful Eight came across as a parody of a Tarantino movie instead of the genuine article. His good films are characterized by stylish cinematography, clever and incongruous banter, startling and extreme violence, and artful revelation of plot through time displacement. The Hateful Eight included all of these elements, but without charisma. It felt flat and uninspired. Tarantino dispassionately applied his formula without the artistic essentials that make it work.  Too bad. He’s tried twice to hit one out of the park with a western. Django Unchained was a ground-rule double, and he may have barely beat out an infield grounder with The Hateful Eight.

I have watched Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films many time. I’ve also re-watched other Tarantino movies. I can’t imagine spinning up The Hateful Eight again.

Final Episode of Justified

I watched the final episode of Justified last night. A little tardy you might think. Not to my way of thinking. I never watch any TV until the entire season is available on DVD or streaming.  That way I can binge-watch the series without ugly commercials or intervening days of holding my breath for the next episode. I get it all, and I get it the way I want.

Except … the sixth season of Justified has been available for nearly a year, so you might ask what took me so long. Justified is my favorite television program. (Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite authors.) I was heartsick when I heard the series had come to an end. As long as I never watched the last season, it was not really over. It was always there to look forward to.

Here is what I wrote about Justified in a previous post:

Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, and a host of other fine actors, is a character-driven modern day western based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. I believe bad guys and gals make heroes heroic, and Justified has a bevy of really bad characters. Our hero has sidekicks of course, but basically, it’s Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens against this cast of misfits, hoodlums, and felonious masterminds. Good actors portraying interesting characters in a tightly written drama presented with masterful storytelling. Who could ask for more?

But good things can’t be put off forever, so I watched the last season of thirteen episodes in four nights. The final episode did not disappoint. It echoed the pilot in a well-crafted conclusion that sets a high standard for future finales. Good writing starts with good plot decisions and Graham Yost and crew did a masterful job. It’s hard to imagine a different ending that would leave viewers as satisfied.

Here is an excellent Entertainment Weekly explanation of the final episode

Here is Variety’s description of the finale

And for fun, here Entertainment Weekly links to the Top Ten best Show Downs

For the impatient, here is the #1 Showdown!

Fastest Growing Book Format?

Audio is now the fastest growing format for books. Most people walk around with a smart phone, tablet, iPad, or ebook reader, all of which can present audio. Amazon now offers Whispersync, which allows readers to seamlessly switch between electronic book formats. You can read on a Kindle at home and pick up exactly where you left off when you jump in the car.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

• The first five books of the Steve Dancy Tales are in audio.
• The Shopkeeper audio  has 74 Audible.com ratings for 4.2 stars. The non-audio versions have 524 reviews for 4.4 stars.
• Leadville has 35 Audible.com ratings for 4.6 stars. The non-audio versions have 158 reviews for 4.5 stars.
• Murder at Thumb Butte has 26 Audible.com ratings for 4.4 stars. The non-audio versions have 106 reviews for 4.4 stars.
• The Return has 18 Audible.com ratings for 4.3 stars. The non-audio versions have 111 reviews for 4.5 stars.
• Jenny's Revenge has 9 ratings for 4.3 stars. The non-audio versions have 79 reviews for 4.5 stars.

Amazon and Audible.com offer a steep discount if you have previously bought the Kindle version. (Hint: this is true for many Kindle books, not just the Steve Dancy Tales.)

Visit with friends while you drive, run, or walk. Steve Dancy, Jeff Sharp, and Joseph McAllen would love to hear from you.

Buy from Audible.com

Buy from Amazon

Buy from iTunes

Best Selling Novelist of All Time?

Agatha Christie as a Young Woman

Agatha Christie is often listed as the bestselling novelist of all time. If the list is for fiction writers instead of just novelists, then Shakespeare takes the top spot. Even with a four hundred year head start, Christie may be catching up with The Bard because royalties from her books are estimated to still exceed £5m a year. In a 2002 relaunch of the 1939 And Then There Were None, the book became a surprise bestseller.

Christie wrote 85 books and sold well over two billion copies. And Then There Were None sold 100 million all by itself. The success of the 1965 Hollywood remake of the story caused subsequent editions of the book to be retitled Ten Little Indians. Her works have been translated into every major language and UNESCO named her the most translated author in the world.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became annoyed with Sherlock Holmes so he killed him. Never fear, he used a novelist's magic powers to bring the famous detective back to life. Similarly, Dame Agatha Christie grew tired of Poirot, once describing him as "insufferable" and "an egocentric creep".

Christie invented the classic murder mystery structure. A murder is committed with multiple suspects and secrets are gradually revealed with a surprise twist at the end. Murder mysteries are active reading, with the reader knowing all the clues uncovered by the investigator. The fun is guessing the guilty party. There have been truckloads of murder mystery written but few compare with "The Queen of Crime."

I studied Agatha Christie and other mystery writers before I started Murder at Thumb Butte. I wanted to use the Steve Dancy characters in a traditional murder mystery, albeit in the Wild West with gun play, horses, rowdy saloons, and celebrity frontiersmen like Doc Holiday and Vergil Earp.

I haven’t sold nearly as many copies as Christie, but I’m happy that the novel has found a large audience. 159 Amazon readers rated the book 4.4 stars, and 434 Goodreads fans gave the book an average score of 4.2. C. K. Crigger in Roundup Magazine wrote, "This is a well-plotted mystery, as well as a terrific Old West story. Best has a great character in Steve Dancy, and has created an excellent cast of secondary characters." 

If you like murder mysteries, westerns, or historical novels, Murder at Thumb Butte should be your next book. The novel has been available in print, ebook, and large print. Recently Jim Tedder did an exceptional job narrating the audiobook version. 

As Tedder says, “Go on now, get to it.”

Print, eBook, Large Print & Audio Formats

A Milestone of Sorts

Today I hit a milestone. I received my 1,000th customer review. Those are reviews where the reader actually wrote at least a few words. Barnes and Noble, Goodreads and others allow a simple rating on a scale of 1 to 5. I have over 1,600 of the ratings variety of criticism, but I prefer reading about why the reader liked or disliked my book.

The 1,000 word reviews are across all eight of my books, so the nicely rounded number doesn’t allow me to open a good bottle of Champagne. (Don’t have one, anyway.) 718 of the reviews are on Amazon for a 4.4 average rating. That made me feel good until I wandered over to Goodreads. There I found 245 reviews for an average of 3.8 stars. Actually, this doesn’t bother me at all. Goodreads always trends lower than Amazon. Besides, I trust Goodreads reviews because they made an effort to visit the site without a prompting email. (The remaining reviews appear on Barnes & Noble and Apple iBooks.)

What have I learned from reading all these reviews? Gosh, maybe not a thing. I certainly haven’t changed my writing. As I think back, the middle-of-the-road reviews have been the most useful to me. They usually liked the book, but had a reservation about one thing or another. Those reservations have tilted my writing to a degree.

I like reviews. And I appreciate readers who take the time to give me some feedback. So … thank you to all who read my books and an extra thank you to those who post a review.