Instead of offering a self-contained adventure, the story reads as if it’s part of a much longer epic and made me curious to read more. Take, for example, “One Way Out” by Bryan Dyke, a story with a dark fantasy and almost Lovecraftian tinge in which a lone ranger fights his way out of an enemy-infested citadel. Although they are the creations of very different writers with very different backgrounds, they feel as if they are all set in, and contribute to building, one big weird western universe. Unfortunately I don’t have space to discuss every single story The Dark Frontier contains, but I was still struck by how well all the stories sit together. In literature, writers like Cormac McCarthy have been using its tried and tested formula to create something entirely new. This is not a recent phenomenon, either: films such as Zachariah and El Topo were twisting the western genre as early as the 1970s. Neo- and revisionist westerns such as Django Unchained (2012) have been busy unpacking, criticizing and rebuilding its fictional worlds. The result is a potent cocktail that may put off some purists but will delight more open-minded readers.įor those who have been paying attention, the western has been about more than cowboys and John Wayne for quite some time now. The Dark Frontier is a case in point: the collection blends familiar western tropes with elements of science fiction, horror and fantasy. Weird western stories often use the frontier experience, one of the most important themes discussed in western fiction, to explore thematic and stylistic boundaries. Anyone who feels slightly bored by more traditional western stories will find plenty to enjoy in this new collection of genre-bending writing. The Dark Frontier is thrilling ride through the Weird West: a world which feels both excitingly familiar and exquisitely strange.
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