Cowboy Steampunk Sci-Fi Fantasy To Please The Western Mind

Dead Iron by Devon Monk
I like a good Western
I like good Steampunk
I like the promise of Romance
You know I like Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Cedar Hunt is an educated cowboy
Cedar is a sad, lonely boy
I liked him a lot
Even with the Pawnee wolf curse
The three days of the full moon are a B!*%#
First installment of The Age of Steam
Left me looking for more
I want to hang some "devised" iron on my hip
I want to hunt the Strange
A delightful mash-up of genera
MS Monk also writes Urban Fantasy
The Allie Beckstrom novels
She tells a good story

A necessary aside on Ravenwood by Lowell
I gave the book to my wife
Knowing she would truly appreciate the prayers
Seeing she had been burning through the book
I asked, "Do you think he got her voice right?"
She replied, "This book is written by a man?"
Great job Nathan Lowell
Another story well told

Intriguing new music
Also a mash-up
Revelator by Tedeschi Trucks Band
Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks
Married solo artists, making music together

Something New In Sword And Sorcery

Saladin Ahmed has my full attention
Throne of the Crescent Moon
Book 1 of The Crescent Moon Kingdoms
Reads full and complex, Just what I needed
I was looking for something to fade away in
I found it, so will you
The world is well created, properly aged
The characters are complex and diverse
The action, thank goodness for moments of rest
The pages just keep turning
The finish is complete, but leaves you thirsty
I await book 2
Corkscrew in hand, ready to decant

Something old, Something new
Jeff Bridges, Jeff Bridges
Good Music

Nathan Lowell; I Should Have Known

If you have read my previous blogs
You know I am an over the top fan
Nathan Lowell Solar Clipper series,
I Love the series
Surprise, surprise, perhaps no surprise at all
Nathan Lowell writes delicious fantasy
Ravenwood: A Tanyth Fairport Adventure satisfies
Tanyth, a middle aged woman
Has lived alone, on the road, for over twenty years
Learning her herb lore, learning the art of healing
Her compassionate heart belies her strength
Strength of Mind and Body
The road has tempered her mettle
Tanyth is forged of strong Spirit
She has traveled alone after all

Tanyth is on her way to learn something new
She is delayed.
The story begins


Best news of all
There will be more
I want more, Now!

Another CD from a songwriting, songsinging, master
John Haitt, Dirty Jeans And Mudslide Hymns
Can't tell you how many times Mr. Haitt
Has soothed my spirit

Thought Flash: Cry Love
I'm going to go home to find it on YouTube
I need to hear it today

Peace be with you,
Richard

Two To Scar The Brain And Be Slow To Forget

Will McIntosh has my full and undivided attention
I read his latest first, Hitchers
The dead start hitching rides with the living
One to a customer, so to speak
The inventiveness, the brilliance
Is who hitches with whom
The dearly loved dead wife
Riding in the soon to be girlfriend
The protagonist burdened, overburdened really
With the cantankerous, selfish, mean spirited
Full tilt alcoholic grandfather
The emotional conflict as we get to know each player
We really care about the dead and the living
We flipping hate the nasty little grandfather
This is new emotional turf we are reading
The story doesn't let up
You already know a bit too much
Trust me, I'm a guy; okay, don't trust me
The book is nothing short of brilliant.

The disquiet and satisfaction of Hitchers
Led me strait to last years model
Soft Apocalypse
The title says it all
Walking through this slowly developing hell
Opens and Slams Shut every nerve in the body
Opens and Slams Shut every emotion you have
Disquiet doesn't fit here
Full fledged dread hints of where you are
I love a good post apocalypse story
This one is skim cream
It rises quickly to the top and congeals
It's thick and rich and may not be good for you
But you just can't put it down
You just can't leave it alone
Two day read, tops

Your going to need something from the roots
You will want to settle the mind
Exposed Roots: Best of Alt-Country
2 CDs with 12 songs each
A very rich selection of artists
Old and New, Twang and Twitch
I harp about Alt-Country enough
This will give you a broad perspective
I've included the artists lineup
Disc 1.  Lucinda Williams --  Blue Mountain
Gillian Welch --  Whiskeytown --Golden Smog
Jimmie Dale Gilmore -- Freakwater
Meat Puppets --Gourds -- BR5-49
Tangletown --  Cheri Knight
Disc 2.The Jawhawks -- Kelly Willis
Steve Earle --  Southern Culture on the Skids
Johnny Cash -- The Handsome Family
Vic Chesnutt -- Honeydogs -- Alejandro Escovedo
Marlee MacLeod -- Lampchop -- Gram Parsons

Such a great display of what it is
I donated it to the collection
I wanted to share what I love

Bacigalupi's YA Story Satisfies

Windup Girl By Palo Bacigalup was so good
I had to read his YA entry Ship Breaker
I was not disappointed
I was rewarded, gloriously rewarded
Bacigalupi really gets Dystopia
His not too distant futures are gritty places
The divide between the haves and have nots
Well, It is enormous
Impossible to scale
Ship Breaker's are low on the totem poll
Salvaging the ships littering the California coast
Nailer is a standup young guy trying to survive
Rescuing a wealthy young woman
May well be his undoing
She is but a pawn in her families' finance game
Nailer's sure to be short, brutal life
May be much shorter and much more brutal

The bottom tiers of Bacigalupi's futures
Would insure an understanding of the Blues
Son House, The Original Delta Blues

It's Not Too Late; Two Long Running Series You Can Still Enjoy

I've been meaning to talk to you about this
It's okay, you're not in trouble
Its just a couple of series
Both quite enjoyable
Both for different reasons
We have recently filled in the gaps
We have the entirety of both series

Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett
39 books and counting
Discworld is good satire
Playing on Literature, old and new
Classic and Popular fiction
Often throwing in current events
Social, Political and Scientific
No one, no idea, is safe

Xanth by Piers Anthony
35 books and counting
As fates would have it
Book 13 is out of print and missing
It would be foolish of me
To try to explain Xanth
You have to take the trip
You have to visit Xanth
You will probably want to visit again and again

The online communities for both series are flush
A good place to start, if interested, is the Wikipedia
You can easily be led astray from there

 After a giddy trip into either of these worlds
You might enjoy something to carry you away
The Harrow & The Harvest by Gillian Welch