The Doctor and the Rough Rider

Weird West Tales #3

by Mike Resnick

It's August 19, 1884. The consumptive Doc Holliday is preparing to await his end in a sanitarium in Leadville, Colorado, when the medicine man Geronimo enlists him on a mission. The time the great chief has predicted has come, the one white man with whom he's willing to treat has crossed the Mississippi and is heading to Tombstone - a young man named Theodore Roosevelt. The various tribes know that Geronimo is willing to end the spell that has kept the United States from expanding west of the Mississippi. In response, they have created a huge, monstrous medicine man named War Bonnet, whose function is to kill Roosevelt and Geronimo and keep the United States east of the river forever. And War Bonnet has enlisted the master shootist John Wesley Hardin.

So the battle lines are drawn: Roosevelt and Geronimo against the most powerful of the medicine men, a supernatural creature that seemingly nothing can harm; and Holliday against the man with more credited kills than any gunfighter in history. It does not promise to be a tranquil summer.

Genres: Steampunk, Fantasy, Westerns, Science Fiction, Weird West, Fiction, Alternate History

303 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name Mike Resnick, was a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He was the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia and Poland. and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia. He was the author of 68 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and was the editor of 41 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon and can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.

Reviews

[The Shayne-Train · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series just keeps getting better!

Continuing the staticpunk storyline of alt-history Wild West awesomeness, this book sees Doc Holliday join forces with a young Theodore Roosevelt to combat what basically boils down to a Balrog of shamanistic Indian magic. Do you think that sounds amazing? Well, it reads even better!


YOU SHALL NOT PASS (up the chance to read this great series)

I'm actually feeling a little sad that there is only one more book remaining in this series. But the next one has dinosaurs. So there's that to cheer me up.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Doctor and the Rough Rider (Weird West Tales #3) by Mike Resnick was a lot of fun. I don't read westerns all that often, but I do enjoy the genre when it's combined with fantasy elements. I also enjoy seeing real life historical figures and events incorporated into them. This book does a good job of bringing those elements together. One real historical character that I was pleased to see pop up in this novel that you don't see that often in fiction lately was Bat Masterson. Finally, I want to mention that I also especially appreciated the appendices at the end.

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would only recommend the first book, the Buntline Special. This one was not as good and there were some very serious continuity problems.

[Chade66 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series and the way that Resnick wraps realty around the steampunk west that he has developed in this series. If you are going to read these, I would start at the beginning with the Buntline Express and enjoy them as you go.

If you liked fusion fiction, give this a go. The characters are interesting and the stories are fun.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This entry in the alternate history of Doc Holliday demonstrates that a good idea does not a good novel make. Sorry, Mr. Resnick, I respect a great deal of your work but this one just goes on a slow slide from poorly written to badly written.

First, the only characters that are carefully drawn at all are Holliday and Roosevelt. Edison and Buntline are nothing more that foils and a little Deus ex Machina to move the story along more quickly.

Second, there is an abundance of anachronistic dialogue. Not only does the author use the F bomb in a non-western traditionalist manner.. but 0occasional he puts a word like "Assigned" in Geronimo's mouth.

Third, Doc's disease is so over-exaggerated-- the author has him bleeding pints of blood per day into handkerchiefs..

Finally, the author rushed the reader to a climactic battle and then wraps it up so neatly and cleanly in such a manner that removes all the suspense that should have been present. If not for the presence of the F-bombs and the references to robot hooker sex one would think it was written for a juvenile audience.

Frankly, the setting is cool, the ideas are cool.. it is just that the execution feels rushed and hurried, leaving the reader to wonder how it could be so easy to kill the big bad guys.. etc.

I think I'm done with this series.

[Mark Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is entertaining enough; but, like the pulp writers who were paid a penny a word, the dialogue is padded and often painfully redundant.

[Bob Colwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has the term 'guilty pleasure' ever truly been a sincere moniker? If something is indeed pleasurable but doesn't venture into lands of immorality and/or illegality, then where does guilt enter the equation? If there is nothing guilt-inducing born from liking what we like, are guilty pleasures nothing more than nervous self-deprecation to help bolster a self-image that is mature, refined, cool, etc while granting us permission to enjoy what we enjoy?

If so, and you find yourself a closet fanboy who needs a strong dose of this type of justification to get your literary kicks from steampunk alternative history pulp, 'The Doctor and the Rough Rider' is worth the psychological dance. Imagine a past where the old west has electrically-powered lamps illuminating its dusty streets, Teddy Roosevelt and Doc Holladay teaming up to fight a demon created and controlled by Native American shamans, and Thomas Edison inventing weaponry to fight the ethereal foes...good times. If you can take both the book and yourself with a grain of salt, I believe you will enjoy this story.

[Wordsworn · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read, though honestly I enjoyed Resnick's nonfiction article about Theodore Roosevelt's actual life in the back even more.

The final fight did feel anticlimactic, as did Doc Holliday not having to face down a "monster" of his own, but it was still pretty fun. The utter lack of female characters with spoken lines (unless you count a literal robot "lady" who has exactly two lines) isn't my favorite thing, but that's how old Western movies are a lot of the time, so I get it. Still, this is alternate history, and a fantastical version of it to boot, so...you'd think he could've worked someone in there, if he'd wanted to. I haven't read the other books in this series yet, maybe he does better with this in those. I'll likely give them a try, so I guess I'll find out.

[Sharon Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little rough getting into this book but worth it in the end. Another of the steampunk/alternate history books by Mike Resnick. They really should be read in order to get the full flavor of the character "Doc Holiday," and his development through the series. But if you simply suspend belief and read it for the Wild West flavor it wouldn't matter. I enjoyed the touches of what ifs that comprise the plot. What if Doc Holiday had met Theodore Rosevelt; what if the US had been stopped at the Mississippi River and only a very few settlers had ever filtered into the Wild West. What if Edison and Buntline had combined forces? What if the Rough Riders had been formed for a different purpose? Read this book and find out.

[Graham Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great installment in a highly entertaining series. It slowed down a bit in the third act for some technical stuff, which got a little repetitive. Roosevelt, Edison, and Buntline were working out how to fight War Bonnet, the monster on the cover. But other than that, it had Resnick's signature wit and style. I'm jazzed for book 4.

[Racheal Paquette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah!!! I can't believe there is only one more book!!! I loved this one! A great addition to the series!

[Sue Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Number three in the Western Steampunk series.
Continues the adventures of Doctor (Doc) John Henry Holliday.

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

#3 in Resnick’s series of steampunk westerns.

[Guillaume · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un peu long, pour un résolution rapide.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again, I departed from my usual practice of reading series of books in publication order when I found this interesting concept in a thrift store: an alternate-history fantasy jamming Native American magic together with steampunk technology in the Wild West. Deep breath. It features Thomas Edison and Ned Buntline as a pair of inventors lighting up the streets of Tombstone, Arizona, among the likes of Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday. And it's the third of (so far) four books in The Weird West Tales.

The friendly rivals are trying to invent a gadget that will tear down the wall of magic that has kept the United States from spreading West of the Mississippi. But the solution may lie elsewhere. Geronimo, the great Apache warrior, wants to make a deal with Theodore Roosevelt, an up and coming man of genius and rare leadership qualities. In return for Roosevelt's promise not to wipe out the Indians, Geronimo is willing to surrender the barrier. The only catch is that all the other medicine men in the west are against it, and they have pooled their power to create a giant creature named War Bonnet whose sole purpose is to stomp Geronimo and Roosevelt into jelly.

This is the Wild West you didn't learn about in your school history texts. It has medicine men who can change shapes and raise the dead. It has a gang of unruly gamblers and gunslingers shaping up to be Roosevelt's Rough Riders. It has a dusty frontier town kept entertained by a harem of robotic prostitutes (oops - I should have said Adult Content Advisory). It has Edison and Buntline inventing vintage/futuristic weapons to destroy an indestructible magical monster. And it has historic characters appearing out of context yet somehow, amazingly, in character.

Every witty word that drops from Doc Holliday's bloody-spittle-stained lips is pure gold. So is the way four-eyed, dandified Roosevelt wins the undying loyalty of all the tough guys the moment they test their manliness against him. The pace moves quickly and the characters pulsate with vitality and conversational charm, convincing you they would have said those exact things if real history had ever brought them together. All this is almost enough to enable you to overlook two slight deficiencies in the entertainment. First, author Resnick holds back his powers of description to the point where scenes and characters that really cried out for a few verbal brushstrokes are merely named. I sometimes struggled to find an image to put on my mental canvas. Second, if you get through the book slowly and in small doses, as I did, you might notice that the entire plot consists of the characters dealing with one essential problem. They talk about it, think about it, and sometimes go out and take poke at it, and for quite a while no solution comes to them. Then suddenly one does come, and the problem is cleared up so quickly and neatly that it almost doesn't seem worth it.

Still, I enjoyed the genre mash-up, the humor and the weirdness appropriate to a series titled The Weird West Tales. I also appreciated the helpful appendices, including digest biographies and a bibliography about the main characters and even some extracts of their own writings. Wild and woolly as this tale is, it was evidently founded on some serious research. The other books in the series, in order, are The Buntline Special, The Doctor and the Kid, and The Doctor and the Dinosaurs; and if I see them, I will definitely read them.

I am also amazed to learn that Mike Resnick, of whom I had never heard before this, is the most nominated author in the history of the Hugo Awards, and a five-time winner in the category of short fiction. His "hard" science fiction is especially celebrated for its approach to culture, particularly his Kirinyaga series, from which I am picking up a "read this if you like Ursula K. LeGuin" vibe. And I do like Ursula K. LeGuin. He also seems to like combining folklore and satire with mash-ups of other genres, such as hardboiled fiction, adventure and mystery. And he's been very, very prolific. So I may be breaking new ice here, opening a hitherto undiscovered seaway to reading pleasure.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today's post is on The Doctor and The Rough Rider by Mike Resnick. It is the third in his Weird West Tales and is published by PYR. It is 302 pages long including six appendixes with additional information about the real people in the story. The intended reader is someone who has read the other books in the series, so if you want to read this book start with The Buntline Special. There is no sex in this book but language and violence like any good western no matter how weird; I think that older teens and adult would enjoy this series the most. The story is told in third person close moving from Doc Holliday to Theodore Roosevelt from one chapter to the next. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- It's August 19, 1884. The consumptive Doc Holliday is preparing to await his end in the sanitarium in Leadville, Colorado, when the medicine man Geronimo enlists him on a mission. The time the great chief has predicted has come, the one white man with whom he's willing to treat with has crossed the Mississippi and is heading to Tombstone- a young man name Theodore Roosevelt. The various tribes know that Geronimo is willing to end the spell that has kept the United Stated from expanding west of the Mississippi. In response, they have created a huge, monstrous medicine man named War Bonnet, whose function us to kill Roosevelt and Geronimo and keep the United States east of the river forever. And War Bonnet has enlisted the master shootist John Wesley Hardin.
So the battle lines are drawn: Roosevelt and Geronimo against the most powerful of the medicine men, a supernatural creature that seemingly nothing can harm; and Holliday against the man with more credited kills than any gunfighter in history. It does not promise to be a tranquil summer.

Review- I love this series. It is fun, funny, and so well written. In this chapter of Doc Holliday's weird adventures he has to share the spotlight with Roosevelt. That was the one thing that I did not like about this book. In all the other books the focus was purely on Holliday and I just loved his wit. But in this one the reader spends a lot of time with Roosevelt as the main character. He is okay. The writing is still solid but Roosevelt is very serious. He is not witty. He does not make clever little jokes about what is going on around him. He is, in comedy terms, a straight man. But that problem aside this is another strong book. Resnick does his steampunk with grace that I do not find anywhere else. I think that is because Resnick mostly lets it be magical. He does not bog down the reader with needless details about why or how things work. They just work. Just like Resnick's books; they just work.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this book with my own money.

[Dark Matter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This and more reviews, interviews etc on Dark Matter Zine, an online magazine. http://www.darkmatterzine.com. This review was written by Rebecca Muir for Dark Matter Zine.

The Doctor and the Rough Rider is another Weird West Tale by Mike Resnick. It portrays the Wild West of American history with a few twists and a lot of artistic licence. Magic is a very real part of the landscape, shaping the events of the Frontier.

All the characters in this book are taken from history. The main character in this book is a dentist-turned-gunslinger, Doc Holliday. He is broken out of jail by the great Apache medicine man, Geronimo. Geronimo has seen the way the wind is blowing, and has decided that it is time for the Indians to concede defeat and allow the settlers to expand their territory to the west coast. Until now, they have been held up at the Mississippi River by a magical barrier. The barrier has been erected and maintained by twelve Apache medicine men. Geronimo has decided that their defeat is inevitable, and that the barrier should come down now before the Apache are decimated in the process.

However, there is only one white man he will deal with – a young Theodore Roosevelt. Doc Holliday is charged with bringing him to Tombstone to meet Geronimo, and with protecting him from the other medicine men who don’t share Geronimo’s ideas. They have conjured up a monster, War Bonnet, with the express purpose of killing Roosevelt.

Assisting Holliday and Roosevelt are a host of other familiar names from history including Thomas Edison and Ned Buntline. They are residing in Tombstone, charged by the American government with finding a solution to the magical barrier. Their special expertise with inventions and magical devices may just provide the advantage Holliday and Roosevelt need.

This book is a fun take on the Wild West tales of history. The characters are colourful and appealingly portrayed. The energy and enthusiasm of the young Roosevelt is vividly depicted. Doc Holliday is a rough but likeable character. Dying of consumption, he is willing to face death head on, and is an unceremonious hero.

The tone of the book, although dealing with rather dark and sinister events, manages to remain light-hearted and funny, mainly through the way the characters are portrayed.

There are also some helpful appendices outlining the “alternate history” i.e. the more conventional one, to help you sort out fact from fiction at the end of the book.

This is a light-hearted, amusing and refreshing take on the Wild West story. I recommend it.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure if this novel was meant to be for young adults (it was shelved in the adult section at the library) but it reads more YA than it does adult. It’s a steampunk western (think Wild, Wild West) using several historic figures- Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Doc Holliday, Ned Buntline, Bat Masterson, and Geronimo- but in a very different North America. In Resnick’s version, the USA stops at the Mississippi River, held back by Native American magic. Some whites are allowed west of the river, but they are few. Geronimo, alone of the medicine men, wants to remove the barrier and allow whites to take over the continent. The only white man he trusts to help him with this is Theodore Roosevelt, but the other medicine men are ahead of him- they’ve created a magical giant warrior, War Bonnet, specifically to defeat Roosevelt and Geronimo.

Sadly, the book bored me. There is no depth to the characters, and the plot is thin. I had to wonder why, if the Native Americans had a way to keep white people from taking over the continent- a way that was costing no lives- one of them would decide to end that; especially Geronimo, who in real life stated that he had been wrong to surrender and that he should have fought until he was the last man standing. Alternate history plays loosely with facts but usually leaves the characters of historical figures intact.

It’s an amusing story, but falls short of what I expected from reviews.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 3 of the Weird West Tales.

Doc Holliday is expecting to die of consumption in a sanitarium, but while he's ready to wait for the end, the world isn't done asking things of him yet. The medicine man Geronimo, one of the powerful people keeping the the United States in check. But he's decided he'll take down the magic wall--for one man only.

That man is Theodore Roosevelt, a promising young man who's going places. But the tribes that Geronimo used to side with know he's changed his mind, and they're going to stop him. They're creating a monster warrior, the unkillable War Bonnet.

So Doc's not going to get his rest--instead, he'll have to help figure out how to destroy War Bonnet, keep everyone alive, and end the spell. And then he can rest--he hopes.

Another fast-paced and absurd western adventure, an alternate version of history, mixed with magic and some interesting technology. A fun, quick read, though not that much happens.

[Meran · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the third book in the series, an alternative history of the Old West, which also includes steampunkish equipment made by Ned Buntline and Edison.

Doc Holliday, Thomas Edison, and Ned Buntline are joined in this novel by Theodore Roosevelt (just after the death of his first wife) in a new adventure involving Goyathlay (Geronimo). This time, Geronimo is cooperating with the famous men in attempting to open the lands west of the Mississippi to colonization by the US.

There was a lot of unnecessary back and forth conversation; in fact, MUCH of it very repetitive. It felt as if the novel was too short and needed to be lengthened to "proper novel length". Also, I wasn't as invested in the characters this time. I would have thought this was just my own perception but my husband, upon discussion, felt quite the same way.

[Nadan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Doctor and the Rough Rider by Mike Resnick is as it says, a weird west tale. I personally just look at the cover of the book and if it looks cool, I read it. I was so disappointed because I thought looking at the cover there will be a lot of actions but only a small actions here and there and had a "big" action at the end. I also did not like how the author made the main character. Throughout the book he talks about how the main character is getting old so he coughs a lot of blood and just drinks liquor all the time and does not eat any meal. Like one time is fine but it just repeats over and over until it just becomes too annoying. I just kept reading because I thought there would will be some awesome surprise. But it did not happen and it was just too predictable. So I learned books are not always what it seems.

[Cal Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another in this wonderful series by Mike Resnick - this book and this entire series is one moving action to another - there is not much as far as down time - you get going right at the action and the book ends right after the resolution - he has chosen as his main protagonist John "Doc" Holliday for his series, and Mike Resnick makes this as enjoyable of a character as ever -

this time, the secondary character is Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt and his creation of the Rough Riders - it is great and fun Weird Western or Alternative History Fiction - whichever way that you want to think about it, it still amounts to the same - historical figures in fictional situations with fun and excitement the whole way through - 5 star fiction at its best.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun book in Resnick's Weird West series, this one featuring one of Resnick's favorite topics, Theodore Roosevelt. Resnick's alternate Old West is a semi-steampunky world in which magic works (Bat Masterson was turned into a bat in a previous volume), and famous historical figures of the ago come together to try to extend the boundaries of the United States past the Mississippi River where the Native Americans have magically stonewalled them. Ned Buntline, Thomas Edison, John Wesley Harding and many others appear, and Doc Holliday is the main character. It's a quick read and a lot of fun.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third in Mike Resnick's Weird West stories--a combination of steampunk and magic. I like how he brings together real historical figures and puts them in a weird situation...in this one, we meet a young Teddy Roosevelt, along with Tom Edison, Doc Holliday, and Geronimo....and others. The situation is TR's having to face off against a monstrous creation of Indian shamans. A lot of fun.
I also like Resnick's appendix giving us a rundown on TR's amazing life. A great quote about TR, from his daughter Alice: "He wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

[Trudi Jorda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok so I am addicted! Mike Resnick does steam punk wild wild west with Doc Holliday and and the gang like nobodies business. It's a whole new spin on Theodore Rosevelt and the Rough Riders with Geronimo, Bat Masterson and the whole of the OK Corral which was really in the alley leading up to the corral and not the actual corral--the humor and warmth and depth of characters make this a very enjoyable series! I hope he continues! :)

[Dan Smyth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was more in line with the first in the series as far as my enjoyment, but the fantastical elements were seriously lacking in this one. A single monster and two fancy guns do not a great book make. It didn't feel like the author had put much into this book, despite the fact that the last 15% of its pages were reserved for historical appendices. Fell way short of the mark for me, but not a bad book. Just very little to it.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quick reading tale of Doc Holliday's involvement with Teddy Roosevelt and Geronimo as they seek to set the US free across the Mississippi River. The ending was a bit anti-climatic (no big gun fight) but a decent tale nonetheless. At least another in the series is implied on the last page.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 1 out of 5]

A great setting--Native American magic has barred white settlement west of the Mississippi and Tom Edison is trying to change that--doesn't make for a novel where almost every scene is people sitting around and talking, mostly about how absolutely breathtakingly amazing Teddy Roosevelt is (yes, he was, but I don't need to be told this often). A real mess.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have worked better as a graphic novel. Like some boring people who think they're better conversionalists by name-dropping, this book reads like I should find it interesting to read a story with Teddy Roosevelt, Doc Holliday, Thomas Edison and Geronimo in it.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was as an enjoyable read as the rest of the series. I like the introduction of an enthusiastic young Theodore Roosevelt to the cast of historical characters. Resnick's holiday is someone I'd like to sit down to chew the fat with, as long as I leave my six-shooter holstered ;)