Deadlands: Independence Day

Deadlands Dime Novel Series #2

by Matt Forbeck

Ronan and crew are hired by none other than Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson to keep the law in Dodge City on the Fourth of July. Angry Rebels and drunken mobs aren't the worst of the deputies' problems, however: the Butcher has come to town!

This is the second Dime Novel in the legendary Deadlands series, following the adventures of Ronan Lynch, Bad Luck Betty, and Velvet Van Helter. It contains the fiction only of the original and all new art. These new editions of the Dime Novels do not contain adventure material for the Deadlands Roleplaying Game.

Genres: Fiction, Role Playing Games, Westerns

47 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

I'm an award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author and game designer and happily married father of five, including a set of quadruplets. For more on my work, see Forbeck.com.

Reviews

[Peter De Kinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warming up to the dime series of books. This story has a little more mystery to it, and as such more agreeable to read than the first installment of the series. It has swayed me to give the third installment a try.

[Justin Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great idea for a game and a fun story.

[Tarl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuing from the first Deadlands novella, Independence Day follows an undead gunslinger as he continues his journey of self discovery and adventure.

Forbeck does a good job mixing the western genre with the weirdness required for a Deadlands/Weird West work. The prose conjures up the setting beautifully, and the inner prejudices of the North vs the South come through wonderfully. The characters are handled nicely, and even the antagonist is a thing of horror, which I found refreshing.

That said however, the antagonist was defeated with relative ease, which I found disappointing. This novella could have easily been turned into something far, far longer with the elements presented in this tale, and it is sad that Forbeck was constrained with the novella format for this story.

Still, Independence Day was a good read, and I enjoyed it a lot. The characters were fun, the mystery was far more horror themed than the previous book, and Forbeck brought the right amount of brutality to the story. Definitely one for any weird west fan!

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story focuses just on Ronan, the undead cowboy introduced in the first Dime Novel. It's an entertaining but short mystery which highlights both the supernatural and alternate history aspects of Deadlands. As with the previous book, my one issue is that it seems priced a bit too high given the fairly short length (I finished this one within an hour or two).