(Guest Post) Our Man Clint: The Gunsmith Continues - Robert J. Randisi

OUR MAN CLINT
The Gunsmith Continues
By Robert J. Randisi, aka J.R. Roberts

It was a bloodbath, probably fitting, given how long adult westerns and mens adventure paperbacks have been spilling blood within their pages.  But in one fell swoop publishers, with seeming disregard for the readers—or the readers that were left, anyway—cancelled all the Adult Western series—notably the long running Longarm and Gunsmith series—and mens adventure series—most notably, the Mack Bolan series.  This move, as of April of 2015, will not only rob loyal readers of the adventures of Custis Longarm and Mack Bolan, but will also put entire stables of writers out of work. Both series, along with many others, were written by multiple writers, having supplied work for many working writers for a good 40 years.  In fact, the Adult Western genre not only invigorated the western genre and kept it alive,but provided income for dozens of writers over the years. And now it’s the end of an era for all of them . . .

. . . except The Gunsmith.

Why?

Very simple answer. For the most part, the Gunsmith was created and written by one man. When Charter Books contacted me in 1981 and asked me if I could create an Adult Western series for them, I jumped at the chance.  I created a bible and, when it was approved, signed a two book contract.  Then a contract for a third.  And then they called me and said they wanted to go into the genre whole-heartedly, and could I write a book a month.  I was 30 years old, had no idea if I could write a book a month, but I said “Yes!”

I started writing under the pseudonym J.R. Roberts.  When I attended my first Western convention I discovered what anomaly the Gunsmith and I were. There were several other monthly adult westerns running at the time, and they were being written by three or four writers under a single house name. A “house name” is a name used by many authors on one series.  My “J.R. Roberts” nom de-plume was a pseudonym used by one person, not a house name. (It was only after Berkley Books purchased Charter Books and wanted to keep the Gunsmith going that they asked if they could hire two more writers, just to build up an inventory. The writers were to be approved by me, and I was to own even those books which I did not write, and receive a royalty. It made me even more of an anomaly in the genre. Once we had built up a one year inventory, I went back to writing all the books.)

And I have done so since then, for over 32 years.  Gunsmith #1: Macklin’s Women came out in January of 1982, and there has been a Gunsmith every month since then.  Berkley Books decided to end the run in April of 2015 with #399, and I was given enough warning so that I was able to place the series elsewhere and assure that Gunsmith #400 would appear in May of 2015, with no break in the action.  They will appear with a new cover design in ebook for from Piccadilly Publishing, and in paperback from Western Trailblazers.  And Our Man Clint will go on appearing in a book a month for as long as my flying fingers can flex.

So to those loyal Gunsmith readers who pick up up each and every month, you may continue to do so, with heartfelt thanks from me, and from Our Man Clint Adams.

I should also thank Charter Books, where it all started, and then Berkley Books, which has kept the series going all these years, as we all move on to the next bend in the road. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, May 7, 1938

At first glance, this issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY has a pretty run-of-the-mill cover by A. Leslie Ross, illustrating one of Walker Tompkins' Tommy Rockford stories. Then you see what Tommy's carrying, and the cover suddenly becomes more creepy and effective. That's the way it struck me, anyway. I've read only a few of the Tommy Rockford stories but liked them all quite a bit. Maybe someday somebody will do a collection of them. Also in this issue is a Silver Kid story by T.W. Ford (another series that could use collecting), along with stories by Charles M. (Chuck) Martin, Lee Bond, J. Allan Dunn, and Philip F. Deere, a house-name that was usually either Lee Bond or Walker Tompkins, although other writers used it, too. To me, WILD WEST WEEKLY is one of the most consistently entertaining Western pulps.

Forgotten Books: Rocket Robinson and the Pharaoh's Fortune - Sean O'Neill

This graphic novel came out in 2013, but I'd never heard of it until I came across a copy at Half Price Books and was intrigued by the look of it. It reminded me a lot of some of the adventure novels I read as a kid, books that were called juveniles then. I don't know what they're called now. Judging by the acknowledgments, it was a Kickstarter project. It certainly reads like a labor of love by the author/artist Sean O'Neill.

ROCKET ROBINSON AND THE PHARAOH'S FORTUNE is set in Cairo in 1933. The protagonist is Ronald "Rocket" Robinson, the son of an American diplomat who's been posted to Egypt. Nothing is ever mentioned about Rocket's mother, but it's pretty obvious that his dad is a single parent. Rocket has a pet monkey named Screech and a habit of getting into trouble because of his curiosity. When he has an unpleasant encounter on a train with a bald, eyepatch-wearing German named Count Otto von Sturm, you know it's not going to turn out well, especially when Rocket finds a mysterious note that von Sturm drops. It's written in what appear to be Egyptian hieroglyphics, but when Rocket gets to Cairo he finds that nobody can translate it. Even worse, when von Sturm discovers that the note is missing, he figures out that Rocket may have it and sends a couple of goons after him. (Of course he has goons working for him.) Rocket gets away from them with the help of a Gypsy girl named Nuri, and the fact that von Sturm wants the note so badly just makes our intrepid young hero even more determined to find out what it means.

This barely scratches the surface of a long, dangerous adventure that takes Rocket, Nuri, and Screech all over Cairo, into a set of sinister catacombs under the city, and out to Giza for more danger involving the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Khufu. There's a lot of stuff about code-breaking and Egyptian history worked into the story, but O'Neill handles it very well without really slowing down the pace.

If I'd read this as a novel when I was twelve years old, like Rocket, I would have thought it was one of the greatest books ever. As a cantankerous old geezer, I thought it was still pretty entertaining as a graphic novel. It seems obvious that O'Neill was trying for sort of a Young Indiana Jones/Rick Brant/Jonny Quest feeling in his story and art, and for the most part he succeeds. There were a few anachronisms that bothered me (comic books as we know them now didn't exist in 1933, and I don't think anybody would have used the phrase "good cop/bad cop routine" back then, either), but those are minor quibbles by, as I said, a cantankerous old geezer. With its kid protagonists, there's really not a lot of violence despite the perilous situations in which Rocket and Nuri find themselves, so it's pretty much safe for all ages.

I really enjoyed this one, and I think anyone who grew up on a steady diet of such adventurous, exotic yarns as I did probably would, too.

Terms of Enlistment - Marko Kloos

I'd read good things about TERMS OF ENLISTMENT, the debut novel by Marko Kloos and the first novel in a new science fiction adventure trilogy called Frontlines. I decided to give it a try and am glad that I did, because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(Minor spoilers ahead, but not as much as you'd get from reading Amazon reviews of this book.)

The narrator/protagonist Andrew Grayson is a so-called "welfare rat" who escapes his life in the dangerous urban slum that Boston has become by joining the armed forces of the North American Commonwealth. Set about a hundred years from now, the NAC is taking tentative steps out into space, having discovered an FTL drive and started a few colonies on distant planets. Andrew hopes to get to go to one of those colonies, but instead when he finishes basic training, he's assigned to help keep the peace on Earth, a job that proves to be not peaceful at all. After a violent incident that turns into a PR disaster for the military, Andrew is transferred to a spaceship that's headed for one of the colony worlds, but unknown to anybody there are even worse things waiting out there.

TERMS OF ENLISTMENT takes some familiar SF elements—the near-future dystopia, the basic training novel, the first contact/alien invasion yarn—and blends them together. But while the elements are familiar, Kloos handles them very well and has the storyteller's knack that really made me want to keep reading. It takes a while for the aliens to show up, but when they do, they're not the same-old, same-old aliens, and I really liked Kloos's fresh take on them. TERMS OF ENLISTMENT is just good solid military SF, and I had a great time reading it. The second book in the trilogy is already out (and already on my Kindle), and the third one is supposed to be released later this spring. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Bring Me the Head of Chaz Savidge! - Peter Brandvold

Bounty hunters Lou Prophet and Louisa Bonnaventure (aka The Vengeance Queen) are two of Peter Brandvold's best characters, and they're back in his latest novel BRING ME THE HEAD OF CHAZ SAVIDGE! This one is subtitled "The Bounty Poacher", and that's an accurate description of the plot. Prophet and Louisa capture outlaw Chaz Savidge after a shootout that leaves the rest of Savidge's gang dead. They set out to get him from Dakota Territory to Denver so they can turn him in to the U.S. Marshal there and collect the reward on him.

But along the way they find out that a politician whose granddaughter ws raped and murdered by Savidge has also placed a bounty on the fugitive's head, and that's meant literally: all anybody has to have to collect is Chaz Savidge's head. That temptation is too much to resist, so Prophet and Louisa find themselves running a gauntlet of bounty poachers who want to take their prisoner away from them and chop off his head.

The situation is complicated by an encounter with a young woman who has problems of her own, and it starts to look like Prophet and Louisa will be doing good to escape from this mess with their own lives...

As always with a Brandvold novel, BRING ME THE HEAD OF CHAZ SAVIDGE! is fast-paced and full of gritty, well-written action as well as colorful characters. If you've read the rest of the Lou Prophet series, you'll definitely want to read this one, too, and if you haven't, it would make a fine place to start. Mean Pete's one of the best in the business and never fails to entertain.

Now Available: Li'l Tom and the Pussyfoot Detective Bureau - Angela Crider Neary

Someone is stealing the parrots of Telegraph Hill! San Francisco is plagued with a rash of exotic birdnappings, and it's up to Li'l Tom and Lola of the Pussyfoot Detective Bureau to track down the culprits and put an end to this sinister scheme. With the help of a motley crew of cats, one rat, and a dog, they'll venture into the dangerous back alleys of Chinatown to rescue the brilliantly plumaged captives! 

LI'L TOM AND THE PUSSYFOOT DETECTIVE BUREAU: THE CASE OF THE PARROTS DESAPARECIDOS is a whimsical, all-ages mystery featuring a pair of charming feline detectives. Packed with action, humor, colorful characters, and vivid settings, it's a delightful reading experience for young and old!

(I helped a little with the editing on this book, and I can tell you it's a lot of fun. This is one of those rare books that truly is great for young and old alike. Check it out!)

Tuesday's Overlooked Movie: I'm Reed Fish

(This series is going to be in rerun mode most of the time for a while, but I'll try to get a new post in whenever I can. This post originally appeared on March 14, 2010.)

This is another of those movies I’d never even heard of. It’s an indie romantic comedy, and as such, you’d expect it to be quirky. But this movie takes quirky to a whole other level.

Speaking of quirky, the title character is played by Jay Baruchel, who starred in the good but short-lived TV series about college, UNDECLARED. In this one, he’s Reed Fish, the young host of a call-in radio show in a small Midwestern town called Mud Meadows. The radio station is so small and local that the traffic report is about how one of the town’s old-timers has a flat tire and won’t somebody go out and help him change it. As always in movies like this, the town is populated by charming, colorful eccentrics, and all of them have an opinion and don’t hesitate to express it when Reed suddenly breaks off his engagement to his long-time girlfriend and starts to pursue an old flame who has returned to Mud Meadows.

Then, about a third of the way through the movie, there’s a plot twist that causes things to just get weirder and weirder as they go on. You have to watch this one closely to make sense of it, and then there’s one final twist in the credits, so pay attention to them, too.

I liked I’M REED FISH quite a bit. I’m a sucker for small-market AM radio yarns (one reason I loved WKRP), having been around just such a station when I was in college. I doubt if there’s anybody reading this who ever listened to KHRB out of Lockhart, Texas, but if by some odd chance you did, you might have heard a high school football or basketball game I helped broadcast. But that’s another post, and to get back to I’M REED FISH, it’s a good-hearted little movie that’s well worth watching, so give it a chance if you like indie films.

Bitter Water Blues - Patrick Shawn Bagley

BITTER WATER BLUES is the debut novel from Patrick Shawn Bagley, and it's a good one. Although it's set in various places, including Chicago, there's a strong current of redneck noir running all through this book, stemming not only from the small town in Maine that's one of the primary location but also from the colorful characters who populate the story.

The protagonist, though, is hardly a redneck. He's Joey Connolly, a former hitman for the mob who's managed to make a successful break from his criminal past. Of course, that's not easy to do (just ask Ennis Willie's Sand and James Dockery's Bucher about that), so it comes as no surprise when Joey gets roped back into that violent life to do one last job for his former employer.

That job takes Joey to the above-mentioned small town in Maine, where he's supposed to track down a former director of porn movies who has something very valuable in his possession. Naturally, this seemingly straightforward assignment gets complicated by local gangsters, a pair of amateur hitmen, and a cop with plenty of ghosts of her own.

Bagley balances all these elements perfectly and keeps the story racing along to a satisfying conclusion. Along the way there's plenty of great dialogue, some dark comedy, and a sense of time and place that rings absolutely true. BITTER WATER BLUES reads more like the work of a seasoned pro than a debut novel, and it gets a high recommendation from me.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, December 1938

Ho-hum. Another issue of ADVENTURE with a great cover and iconic writers like H. Bedford-Jones, Walt Coburn, Georges Surdez, and William Chamberlain. You'd think they would have gotten tired of putting out one of the best pulp magazines ever published.

Now Available: Beating the Bushes - Christine Matthews

Two fathers. One missing boy. A friendship that binds the two men, even beyond death. 

When fifteen year old Stevie Kracher goes missing, volunteers descend on a small Missouri town to join the search. One of those volunteers is Vincent Lloyd, whose six-year-old little girl had disappeared three years earlier. When her body was finally found, Vince became the prime suspect. Now he sees this new abduction as a chance to redeem himself, and to help save a child. 

Baylor Kracher is frantic to find his son. Nothing this devastating has ever happened to him; when he meets Vince he's found the only person he believes might understands his terror. Working with an Internet search group, fighting an aggressive reporter who's convinced that Vince killed his daughter, neither man will give an inch. But are they too late? And if they succeed, are they prepared for what they might find?