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The Weston Records #2
The Risen
Something evil grows in the heart of Bill Weston.
He's a man of the West. He knows it -- its land, its people, its stories. It was where he had plied his trade, hunting men for money. His life had never been easy -- even before Colorado -- but it had been predictable.
That all changed when he met Sister Mejia on his way to meet death in the town of Millwood, a town with a terrible man at its head and a terrible secret at its heart. Weston has faced ancient evil before, but can he do it while retaining what's left of himself, and save a young boy from the same fate?
Fight the darkness within, or succumb to the darkness without.
He's a man of the West. He knows it -- its land, its people, its stories. It was where he had plied his trade, hunting men for money. His life had never been easy -- even before Colorado -- but it had been predictable.
That all changed when he met Sister Mejia on his way to meet death in the town of Millwood, a town with a terrible man at its head and a terrible secret at its heart. Weston has faced ancient evil before, but can he do it while retaining what's left of himself, and save a young boy from the same fate?
Fight the darkness within, or succumb to the darkness without.
- GenresHorror
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 16, 2021
6 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 27, 2021
Millwood, Colorado has a dark, terrible secret. After having survived the tragic events deep in the Colorado forest, Bill Weston is once again thrust into the weird west. Forced to face his past, he must find a way to save himself, and a young boy from a horrific fate.
The Risen is an amazing sequel to The Starving. It's everything that was great about The Starving, and more. The dark town of Millwood is filled with an enjoyable, and often sinister, cast of characters.
Bill Weston's character continues to grow in this story. The author did a great job of adding several layers to his character. I also couldn't put the book down, the story kept me turning the pages until the very last page, never disappointing me. The novel flows fluidly. Imaginative and descriptive, the author paints a true western horror.
This is a must read novel for any fan of horror.
The Risen is an amazing sequel to The Starving. It's everything that was great about The Starving, and more. The dark town of Millwood is filled with an enjoyable, and often sinister, cast of characters.
Bill Weston's character continues to grow in this story. The author did a great job of adding several layers to his character. I also couldn't put the book down, the story kept me turning the pages until the very last page, never disappointing me. The novel flows fluidly. Imaginative and descriptive, the author paints a true western horror.
This is a must read novel for any fan of horror.
July 29, 2021
Dobbin's second 'Weird west' novel and proper sequel to 'The Starving' sees the return of Bill Weston, in a new stand-alone tale. Compared to 'The Starving', 'The Risen' does away with the prequel's breakneck pacing and sense of immediacy in favor of deeper-seated mystery, oppressive darkness, and a more memorable cast of supporting characters. It's a dark, suspenseful ride through the 'civilized' west, filtered through Dobbin's King-meets-Howard sensibilities.
I can't wait to see where Weston goes next.
I can't wait to see where Weston goes next.
August 9, 2021
Jon Dobbin is an extremely talented story teller. He weaves a tapestry of words that are enviable, that read with an ease that many writers struggle to achieve. When I first read “The Starving,” I remember how completely blown away I was not only by the unique plot but also by the character, setting, and rich dialogue … which means I had very high hopes for “The Risen.”
I can say wholeheartedly that I was not disappointed. Dobbin comes through with a book that is engrossing and lives up to the high standards set by his first novel. It is dark and disturbing; the tension builds slow and steady and holds you in its grip until the climactic showdown. One of my favorite things about Dobbin’s writing is his sentence structure – it is punchy and succinct; he does not waste words; each one is written for maximum impact. As with “The Starving,” I also particularly enjoyed the dialogue in this book. Each character has their own distinct “voice” that is near impossible to miss and I think that this achievement is the mark of a fantastic writer.
Bill Weston is a truly remarkable protagonist and I still feel, even two books in, that we are just getting to know him, and that we have merely scratched the surface of his story. I certainly hope that there will be further installments in this series. “The Risen” is a do not miss and gets a solid 10/10 from me.
I can say wholeheartedly that I was not disappointed. Dobbin comes through with a book that is engrossing and lives up to the high standards set by his first novel. It is dark and disturbing; the tension builds slow and steady and holds you in its grip until the climactic showdown. One of my favorite things about Dobbin’s writing is his sentence structure – it is punchy and succinct; he does not waste words; each one is written for maximum impact. As with “The Starving,” I also particularly enjoyed the dialogue in this book. Each character has their own distinct “voice” that is near impossible to miss and I think that this achievement is the mark of a fantastic writer.
Bill Weston is a truly remarkable protagonist and I still feel, even two books in, that we are just getting to know him, and that we have merely scratched the surface of his story. I certainly hope that there will be further installments in this series. “The Risen” is a do not miss and gets a solid 10/10 from me.
February 13, 2022
Dobbin's second Bill Weston novel takes more of a slow burn approach than The Starving. While the novels share genres and a main character they still feel distinct because of the different approach. This one reminded me more of King's Salem Lot where the details of the town and the atmosphere count as much as the story. Dobbin's writing might be even more vivid and immersive than in The Starving, I was really able to picture everything in my mind. Definitely a step up for Dobbin that can be enjoyed without reading the first book, while at the same time deepening Bill Weston's character and journey. Highly recommended.
August 26, 2021
Preamble
I previously read The Starving, the first book in a series known as The Weston Records. I had no idea that this was coming when I read the first book – it was a complete story on its own. The protagonist survived, though, and I suppose like any good horror flick (which is what this series feels like), where there is a surviving protagonist, there is room for a sequel.
And what a sequel.
A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. I have gone as low as three stars – anything less than that and I will not review a book (chances are I DNFed anyway). Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.
Take from that what you will.
Review – 5/5
I’ve read all of Dobbin’s novels at this point – and there are three. The first was The Starving, the first book in The Weston Records series, then there was The Broken Spire, a fun little romp through a fantasy world, and now I have completed The Risen, which continues with the story of Bill Weston, the somewhat strong and silent cowboy type from The Starving.
At the end of the first book, Weston was ravaged by a mhuwe, which can be safely compared with a wendigo for our purposes. Basically, a man who eats man flesh becomes a mhuwe, a vampire-like fiend that can’t stop, won’t stop. Weston’s gift from the beast was a throbbing shoulder wound that healed kind of nastily, with a purple scar that causes him untold amounts of pain as the story progresses.
Maybe it’s because I just finished re-watching FX’s The Strain (criminally underrated vampire series with plenty of mythological subtext – seriously, it’s top notch), but I was waiting for Weston to ‘turn’ throughout the entire story. Knowing Dobbin’s quality of writing, I figured that the author could just use that trope to his advantage, maybe have Weston fighting his urge to consume ye olde man flesh throughout the novel, but the story doesn’t go that way – at least not all the way. Dobbin tantalizes us throughout, owing to a blurb that suggests same, blinding pain and dreams of his past, and the sudden appearance of ravaged corpses in Weston’s new stomping ground of Millwood.
After the last book, exception to Strider’s riddle Weston wanders pretty much because he is lost. Collapsing in the desert, he awakes in Millwood thanks to the intervention of good old nun Sister Mejia, and it turns out that the only way out (without expiring in the desert) is to hop on the next train out of town. Which won’t be for a week. So, he has time to kill whilst waiting, and turns out someone, or something else has people to kill, because the bodies start to pile up.
Like the first book, it’s largely mystery as well as horror, so I won’t spoil it. Things take a little while to build up speed but once the middle of the book hits things are going sideways, upwards, downwards, and straight ahead. Weston himself seems always to be on his backfoot, never getting the upper hand in any situation. I think that one word that can describe this book is oppressive, mostly for that reason. He’s a badass, but he’s a seriously injured badass fighting a foe with significantly more power than him. Sister Mejia is a help, as is a boy named Bert and a priest whose name escapes me. But as many allies as he has, they aren’t exactly the cavalry.
It made me wonder about the nature of horror and how it differs from plain old fantasy. Both are speculative fiction, to be sure, but there’s never a sense of ‘man, Weston is in control of this situation,’ which you get snatches of from time to time in other fantastical tales. It’s more like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The question that remains is: will Weston escape the rubble intact and still in command of his own soul? On that last bit, right at the end there was a satisfying throwback to the first book that has me pondering another question, the same question that I had when I started: is Bill Weston basically fucked because of his encounter with the mhuwe?
From a nuts and bolts perspective, the writing is taut and lean – n’ar bit o’ purple to be seen. It’s well-edited and the story beats arrive on time. In some ways, it does feel like a mystery formula was consulted in the genesis of the book, but the slow unraveling and the way it’s presented had the hallmarks of a trope well done. It wasn’t predictable, which is what I would consider a necessary element for this kind of book. Overall, it’s the best book Dobbin’s written to date – like I said, I’ve read all three and feel confident in saying that.
We’re a month out from the onset of autumn. I love horror any time of year, and any fan of the genre would do well to enjoy the magnificence of The Risen during high summer or on a night in the lonesome October. And when you’re finished, you might be left with a burning question, as I am.
When’s the next one dropping, Jon?
I previously read The Starving, the first book in a series known as The Weston Records. I had no idea that this was coming when I read the first book – it was a complete story on its own. The protagonist survived, though, and I suppose like any good horror flick (which is what this series feels like), where there is a surviving protagonist, there is room for a sequel.
And what a sequel.
A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. I have gone as low as three stars – anything less than that and I will not review a book (chances are I DNFed anyway). Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.
Take from that what you will.
Review – 5/5
I’ve read all of Dobbin’s novels at this point – and there are three. The first was The Starving, the first book in The Weston Records series, then there was The Broken Spire, a fun little romp through a fantasy world, and now I have completed The Risen, which continues with the story of Bill Weston, the somewhat strong and silent cowboy type from The Starving.
At the end of the first book, Weston was ravaged by a mhuwe, which can be safely compared with a wendigo for our purposes. Basically, a man who eats man flesh becomes a mhuwe, a vampire-like fiend that can’t stop, won’t stop. Weston’s gift from the beast was a throbbing shoulder wound that healed kind of nastily, with a purple scar that causes him untold amounts of pain as the story progresses.
Maybe it’s because I just finished re-watching FX’s The Strain (criminally underrated vampire series with plenty of mythological subtext – seriously, it’s top notch), but I was waiting for Weston to ‘turn’ throughout the entire story. Knowing Dobbin’s quality of writing, I figured that the author could just use that trope to his advantage, maybe have Weston fighting his urge to consume ye olde man flesh throughout the novel, but the story doesn’t go that way – at least not all the way. Dobbin tantalizes us throughout, owing to a blurb that suggests same, blinding pain and dreams of his past, and the sudden appearance of ravaged corpses in Weston’s new stomping ground of Millwood.
After the last book, exception to Strider’s riddle Weston wanders pretty much because he is lost. Collapsing in the desert, he awakes in Millwood thanks to the intervention of good old nun Sister Mejia, and it turns out that the only way out (without expiring in the desert) is to hop on the next train out of town. Which won’t be for a week. So, he has time to kill whilst waiting, and turns out someone, or something else has people to kill, because the bodies start to pile up.
Like the first book, it’s largely mystery as well as horror, so I won’t spoil it. Things take a little while to build up speed but once the middle of the book hits things are going sideways, upwards, downwards, and straight ahead. Weston himself seems always to be on his backfoot, never getting the upper hand in any situation. I think that one word that can describe this book is oppressive, mostly for that reason. He’s a badass, but he’s a seriously injured badass fighting a foe with significantly more power than him. Sister Mejia is a help, as is a boy named Bert and a priest whose name escapes me. But as many allies as he has, they aren’t exactly the cavalry.
It made me wonder about the nature of horror and how it differs from plain old fantasy. Both are speculative fiction, to be sure, but there’s never a sense of ‘man, Weston is in control of this situation,’ which you get snatches of from time to time in other fantastical tales. It’s more like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The question that remains is: will Weston escape the rubble intact and still in command of his own soul? On that last bit, right at the end there was a satisfying throwback to the first book that has me pondering another question, the same question that I had when I started: is Bill Weston basically fucked because of his encounter with the mhuwe?
From a nuts and bolts perspective, the writing is taut and lean – n’ar bit o’ purple to be seen. It’s well-edited and the story beats arrive on time. In some ways, it does feel like a mystery formula was consulted in the genesis of the book, but the slow unraveling and the way it’s presented had the hallmarks of a trope well done. It wasn’t predictable, which is what I would consider a necessary element for this kind of book. Overall, it’s the best book Dobbin’s written to date – like I said, I’ve read all three and feel confident in saying that.
We’re a month out from the onset of autumn. I love horror any time of year, and any fan of the genre would do well to enjoy the magnificence of The Risen during high summer or on a night in the lonesome October. And when you’re finished, you might be left with a burning question, as I am.
When’s the next one dropping, Jon?
June 2, 2024
An interesting, though equally compelling, follow up to Dobbin's fantastic The Starving. It seemed to me that he was attempting to branch off into other sub-genres of horror fiction while staying true to the tone set forth in that outstanding debut. While Starving was more of a western, action creature feature horror novel, dedicated to breakneck pacing and spurts of brutal violence, Risen is a more laid back story. The pace isn't nearly as relentless, the violence not nearly as ferocious. It is still a creature feature, at heart, but doesn't lean into that classification nearly as much. This novel, the second of The Weston Records series that I desperately hope continues, reads more like a classic western fused with a murder mystery. Mysterious drifter wanders into a troubled town and sets shit straight is the most apparent trope here. Trying to solve a string of brutal murders that may or may not have been committed by human hands is the second most obvious story line here. But there are still monsters in the night, there are still evils resting in the hearts of men and women. There's some dark magic kicking around in Millwood and Weston is still a compellingly complicated and violent lead character.
It's not that I didn't like this novel, because I can assure you that I did. I think it is more that I was in the headspace to read a follow-up that was more in line with the first entry. I have nothing against switching up styles or genres, I approve of that and enjoy that and employ that in my own fiction writing, I just don't think I was expecting it or prepared for it in this instance. The violence in this novel, of which there is still plenty, wasn't as savage as I'd been expecting based on The Starving. The body count in this entry doubled, maybe even tripled, compared to Book 1 and yet the majority of the kills here felt underwhelming and occasionally all too quick-and-clean after the endless grievous wounds characters endured before dying in Starving. I felt like when I reached the final third of this novel I was waiting for it to explode and shock me in the way The Starving did instead of just settling in and enjoying the ride Weston was on, the one Dobbin carefully crafted for us to read.
That's on me, and that headspace and expectation took me out of the book a little bit. I like that Dobbin wanted to switch it up a little bit and deliver a different kind of horror story set in the world he's creating. It was hard for me to settle in and get into it as much as I did his first book simply because that first novel is the epitome of everything I love, it checked almost every single box I have for horror fiction. The Risen is still an engrossing and engaging horror western, but it is a different kind of horror western and has less of all the things that make me a ravenous horror fan.
Similar issues with editing also remain prominent in this novel as they were in the first. Dobbin mentioned he had an editor for this novel so these issues and mistakes are not all on his shoulders, but hopefully moving forward he gets someone with a bit of a more fine-toothed comb to go over his writings. His books don't need to be lookin like my reviews.
That being said, and this review being far from the glowing endorsement I gave the first entry, but I still enjoyed this read. I still recommend Dobbin's books and his Weston Records to horror fans and western fans, and for those horror lovers out there looking for some solid Western themed horror novels you really can't go wrong. I am eagerly hopeful for continued entries in this series and can't wait to revisit these first two while waiting for a third to drop. In the future, though, I'll be more open-minded and prepared for a switch up on the sub-genres of horror Dobbin's is wanting to explore, because I am more than willing and excited to go on that adventure.
It's not that I didn't like this novel, because I can assure you that I did. I think it is more that I was in the headspace to read a follow-up that was more in line with the first entry. I have nothing against switching up styles or genres, I approve of that and enjoy that and employ that in my own fiction writing, I just don't think I was expecting it or prepared for it in this instance. The violence in this novel, of which there is still plenty, wasn't as savage as I'd been expecting based on The Starving. The body count in this entry doubled, maybe even tripled, compared to Book 1 and yet the majority of the kills here felt underwhelming and occasionally all too quick-and-clean after the endless grievous wounds characters endured before dying in Starving. I felt like when I reached the final third of this novel I was waiting for it to explode and shock me in the way The Starving did instead of just settling in and enjoying the ride Weston was on, the one Dobbin carefully crafted for us to read.
That's on me, and that headspace and expectation took me out of the book a little bit. I like that Dobbin wanted to switch it up a little bit and deliver a different kind of horror story set in the world he's creating. It was hard for me to settle in and get into it as much as I did his first book simply because that first novel is the epitome of everything I love, it checked almost every single box I have for horror fiction. The Risen is still an engrossing and engaging horror western, but it is a different kind of horror western and has less of all the things that make me a ravenous horror fan.
Similar issues with editing also remain prominent in this novel as they were in the first. Dobbin mentioned he had an editor for this novel so these issues and mistakes are not all on his shoulders, but hopefully moving forward he gets someone with a bit of a more fine-toothed comb to go over his writings. His books don't need to be lookin like my reviews.
That being said, and this review being far from the glowing endorsement I gave the first entry, but I still enjoyed this read. I still recommend Dobbin's books and his Weston Records to horror fans and western fans, and for those horror lovers out there looking for some solid Western themed horror novels you really can't go wrong. I am eagerly hopeful for continued entries in this series and can't wait to revisit these first two while waiting for a third to drop. In the future, though, I'll be more open-minded and prepared for a switch up on the sub-genres of horror Dobbin's is wanting to explore, because I am more than willing and excited to go on that adventure.
August 28, 2021
Pretty good
Not as good as the first one, in my opinion.
I hate when books have people talking in a language I don't know. You feel like you're missing parts of the story. Very frustrating.
Not as good as the first one, in my opinion.
I hate when books have people talking in a language I don't know. You feel like you're missing parts of the story. Very frustrating.
August 16, 2024
And we're back with Bill Weston, traveling the wild west after his misadventures with the unearthly creature in the forests of Colorado. We join him at his lowest, dying in the desert, when he's rescued by a nun. While on the mend with her, he's drawn into another mystery in the local town, one that can only be supernatural.
This was another incredibly fun trip following our main man, getting to know the people he ends up close to, and watching the supernatural wreak havoc on life. My only regret is that as of now, this is the last of the Weston adventures, and I'm holding on to hope that there will be more to come.
This was another incredibly fun trip following our main man, getting to know the people he ends up close to, and watching the supernatural wreak havoc on life. My only regret is that as of now, this is the last of the Weston adventures, and I'm holding on to hope that there will be more to come.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews