Review: John Standon of Texas - Johnston McCulley

Johnston McCulley is mostly remembered, and rightly so, as the creator of Zorro, but he wrote all sorts of pulp yarns, including a five-part serial called “John Standon of Texas” which appeared in WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE in September and October 1920. It was reprinted in a hardcover of the same title by Chelsea House, Street & Smith’s book publishing arm, in 1924. There was also a British edition from Hutchison in 1934. I have the Chelsea House edition and read it recently. Since my copy is coverless and is just a very plain-looking brown hardcover, I’ve used images I’ve found on-line of both covers.

John Standon, the hero of this one, is an American adventurer who has been prospecting in the mountains of Mexico for several years. As the story opens, he’s on his way back to Texas, having given up on finding gold. Before he can cross the border, though, he finds himself caught up in a revolution as he helps rescue some aristocrats from a gang of bandits led by a self-styled revolutionary who’s really just after loot and power.

Standon’s efforts to help these people escape from the bandits is really all this books amounts to. The plot is very simple. But there’s a ton of action, the characters are colorful and interesting, the bandit leader and his second-in-command, an American gunslinger, are suitably villainous, and McCulley plays out the whole thing in exciting, fast-paced prose. While the style is slightly old-fashioned now and then, for the most part you wouldn’t guess that this novel was written and published more than a hundred years ago.

Also, while it was published originally in WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE and the hardcover edition even says “A Western Story” on the title page, it’s not a traditional Western but rather is set in the early 20th Century. Standon packs an automatic pistol and there are mentions of airplanes. I like this setting and am always glad to come across a story that makes use of it.

My copy also has the names of a couple of previous owners written in it. So I have to thank Howard D. Lindamood of Atkins, Virginia, and Slaylin M. Kittredge, address unknown, for passing along this book until it finally wound up in my hands. Because I really enjoyed JOHN STANDON OF TEXAS. If you’re a Johnston McCulley fan or just enjoy good adventure novels, it’s worth reading.

Review: Twisted Bars - Max Brand (Frederick Faust)

Frederick Faust, better known as Max Brand, is one of those authors I’ve been reading for more than 60 years, and I suspect I’ll continue to read his work for as long as I’m around. TWISTED BARS, currently available from Amazon in e-book and paperback editions, reprints three pulp novellas: “The Duster”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 2, 1929; “Twisted Bars”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 16, 1929; and “The Duster Returns”, WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE, November 30, 1929.

Although they were published originally as individual novellas, these stories flow right from one into the next and actually form a novel. It’s narrated by a middle-aged cowboy named Baldy Wye, who works on a spread near the town of Christmas. When he hears that the notorious outlaw known as The Duster has shown up in town, Baldy indulges his curiosity and goes to see the famous desperado. The Duster has come to Christmas not to commit some daring crime, though. Instead, what he wants is to bury the ashes of his former partner, Hector Manness, in the local cemetery. Manness, mortally wounded by a posse, had asked The Duster to have him buried there. Unfortunately, the local minister is adamant that a criminal like Manness will never be laid to rest in the church’s graveyard.

The Duster sets out to change the minister’s mind, and the result is a dramatic story but one that’s almost totally lacking in action. That lack is a continuing problem in this book. There’s a bank robbery in the second story that’s very well done, and of course, everybody blames The Duster, but is he really guilty? In the third story, The Duster and the minister’s daughter have fallen in love, but in order to win her hand in marriage, he has to prove that he’s actually gone straight and given up his outlaw ways. There’s a twist that most readers will see coming, but it’s still effective and raises the stakes nicely.

The stories in TWISTED BARS are very well-written. Faust could turn a phrase with great skill, and he was one of the best at tormenting his protagonists and creating a lot of psychological drama. But most of this book consists of people sitting around and talking, and there’s very little of the action for which Faust is also famous. I think this is a very minor entry in his work, and if you haven’t read him before, I sure wouldn’t start here. If you’re a fan and just enjoy the way he writes, it’s worth reading, but don’t expect it to be in the top rank of his yarns.

Forgotten Books: Gunman's Gold - Max Brand

 

Several times a year, I get the urge to read a Max Brand novel. Frederick Faust, the man behind the Max Brand pseudonym (and many others), had such a distinctive style, really unlike that of anybody else who wrote Westerns, that I have to space them out. But by doing that, I nearly always enjoy his books quite a bit.

GUNMAN’S GOLD was published originally as an 8-part serial in the pulp WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE from April 22 to June 10, 1933, under the name John Frederick, one of those pseudonyms I mentioned earlier. Honestly, because of that distinctive style I mentioned, I have a hard time believing that readers of the time didn’t realize Max Brand, John Frederick, George Owen Baxter, Peter Henry Morland, and all the other Faust pen-names were really the same author. But maybe they didn’t, and the ones who did, didn’t care. Anyway, it was later reprinted in hardback by Dodd, Mead and went through numerous paperback reprints from various publishers, always under the Max Brand name.

Not surprisingly, considering the title, the plot revolves around the discovery of a fabulously valuable gold mine. The villain of the piece, an Easterner named Lee Swain who has come west, finds out about the strike, kills the two prospectors who discovered the gold, and frames the man who grubstaked them for their murders. Having done that, Swain figures he can get his hands on the mine, but first the man he framed has to be caught and lynched by a posse.

A wealthy old friend of the fugitive’s father gets wind of this and hires a freelance adventurer named Sam Shannigan to rescue the young man from this predicament and clear his name. Shannigan gets some help in this mission from a beautiful young woman who’s the daughter of his housekeeper and his unofficial ward. So, off they go to rescue the innocent lad, stay one step ahead of the posse, wear disguises, orchestrate jailbreaks, fall in and out of love, and figure out who really killed the two old prospectors, and why.

Faust sets all this up pretty quickly, and as a result we’re left with a book that’s a little thin on plot but that has a lot of action and character development. Shannigan is a good protagonist, not everybody turns out exactly as you might expect, and as always the writing is excellent, with Faust coming up with a lot of lines that make it clear why he considered his real calling to be as a poet, not a pulp writer. He was never very successful in that, but he left us with a lot of mighty good pulp yarns. I wouldn’t put GUNMAN’S GOLD in the top rank of his work, but it’s a solid second-tier yarn and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If you’re a Faust fan and haven’t read it yet, it’s worth picking up. Used copies of paperback reprints, print-on-demand editions, and e-book versions are readily available.