Five Bubble Book Club discussion

Placeholder for Western book ideas

Clementine by Cherie Priest definitely fits the bill, as would many other of her works in the Clockwork Century series. Priest is an outstanding writer, helping to redeem steampunk as a serious genre from its recent dive into fantasy romance.

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear would be appropriate to follow The Lies of Locke Lamora, given that Bear is married to Scott Lynch. I haven't read it, and it has mixed reviews, but it has my interest.

The Half-Made World is another option for seriously good writing. It's not a traditional Western, but definitely set on a Western frontier in the process of defining itself. I haven't read this one either, but it's been on my shelf for a while and what I have read is very well-written.

The Digging Leviathan by James P. Blaylock, one of the creators of the steampunk genre. It's set in California during the Wild West period and reuses one of Blaylock's recurring villains as more of a main character. I'm not sure what to expect from that, but Blaylock always delivers a top-notch, surreal story. It seems not to be set in the right time period after all; although, it's definitely surreal!

The Circus of Dr. Lao is an oldie, but a goodie. An Oriental circus comes to a Western town and leaves its residents much changed. (I mostly know this from the classic Tony Curtis movie, which left quite an impression.)

In a lighter vein, Territory by Emma Bull is entertaining, but it was the start of a series that never happened, so it didn't really feel finished. It had an interesting magical system, as I recall.

The Teer & Kard series from Glynn Stewart, starting with Wardtown, are light Western stories on a different planet with several interesting forms of magic. Not great writing, but decent. Only two volumes in the series are done, and there's a lot more of the story to come, but Stewart is a reliable producer so I don't expect to wait long for more.

If you're OK with connected short stories, Mad Amos Malone: The Complete Stories collects Alan Dean Foster's stories of an archetypal Mountain Man of the Wild West.

And for short story anthologies Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West had some good stories, many of which are introductions to other story universes, such as Foster's Amos Malone or Seanan McGuire's InCryptid books.

Google suggests:
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/15-best...
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-K...

One book recommended in the best-sci-fi-books list, Zeppelins West, is available on Kindle (and in paperback) as an omnibus edition: Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal. I'm glad something by Joe R. Lansdale came up, as he seems to have been writing weird westerns for a long time. Sadly, there is no audiobook.

I'm thinking something from the Dark Tower series like the Gunslinger or Drawing of the Three. Something from Cormac McCarthy like No Country for Old Men would also be great.

True grit by charles portis would also be great if looking for a traditional western.

On that note, News of the World is also a nice story.

Oooh that looks great, Eric.

Reddit list https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comm...

This one has some potential Wolf in Shadow

Black Hills by Dan Simmons

The Six-Gun Tarot

Yeah, it's kinda funny that the author R.S. Belcher was in that thread pumping his own book.