Weird Fiction discussion

This month the group read selection is a modern weird fiction short story collection titled The Coming of Crow by Joel Jenkins. The book can be purchased for Kindle for $4.03. If you have Amazon Prime, and really who doesn't, I was surprised you can order a brand new paperback version of the book for the same $4.03, shipping but not tax included. The book lists for $19.95. What amazing savings! You may be able to visit JoelJenkins dot com and get the book for an even lower price. I haven't checked that option out; I just bought the Kindle version.

The book is 308 pages long in paperback text form and consists of the first 14 short stories Jenkins wrote featuring his character, nine of which (by my possibly erroneous count) were published in various venues between 2010 and 2014 and gathered here, to which Jenkins added five more stories to form this collection. The story of Lone Crow, a Native American, continues. Another ten stories written after 2014 were collected in a second collection last year (2022), and I see another five listed not collected anywhere for a total of 29 Lone Crow stories so far. Again, on tap for us this month are just the first fourteen.

Why did I nominate this series, you ask? Well, we have encountered it before. The first published story in this series featured in February's group read, the anthology How the West Was Weird. The story was titled "Wyrm Over Diablo." You may not remember this, but I had a fairly negative view of the story, which is now the second one in our present collection. I read a part of the first story (and a few others) in our story collection this month and see that Jenkins corrected (to some extent) the writing flaws I noted in that first published story. Even if I don't care for the writing technique sometimes, specifically the too on-the-nose dialogue that is present only and obviously for the purpose of informing readers rather than motivated by what a character needs to communicate, the plots of the stories themselves are intriguing.

Lone Crow encounters some truly weird and unique situations out there in the Wild West. Please consider coming along for the ride if you would like to delve deeply into a story collection that is steeped in that subgenre we all know as weird western. I mean, come on! Who can resist finding out about the homunculi of Azathoth? Love that Lovecraft reference! Here's the stories' titles if you want a gander:

5 • Against the Gathering Darkness • (2010) • novella
41 • Wyrm over Diablo • (2010) • short fiction
57 • The Trail of the Twisted Tail • short fiction
69 • The Wolves of Five Points • short fiction
97 • The Five Disciples • (2012) • novelette
115 • Long Night in Little China • (2010) • short fiction
135 • The Pythagorean Hounds • short fiction
157 • The Shadow Walkers • (2011) • novelette
173 • The Homunculi of Azathoth • short fiction
193 • The Succubus in Shotgun Ferguson • short fiction
213 • The Vanishing City • (2012) • short fiction
231 • Old Mother Hennessy • (2012) • short fiction
253 • The Steam Devil • (2014) • short fiction
273 • The Eye of Ulutoth • (2013) • novelette

I just finished the first story, the longest in the collection, "Against the Gathering Darkness," and found it to be outstanding! I love the mix of Lone Crow teamed up with actual historical figure Wyatt Earp. The duo accepts a commission from Miskatonic University to rescue an archaeology professor and his lovely daughter lost in the Yukon wilderness amidst the Gold Rush. They contend with plenty of bad hombres, mystic and natural.

Jenkins published three Lone Crow stories in 2010, "Wyrm over Diablo" in February, "Against the Gathering Darkness" in June, and "Long Night in Little China" in September. Nevertheless, "Against the Gathering Darkness" clearly comes before "Wyrm over Diablo." In fact, it NEEDS to come before "Wyrm over Diablo." Much of my past criticism of "Wyrm" becomes invalid if "Darkness" is read first. I know this because I am rereading "Wyrm" now and the dialog makes a lot more sense. Clearly, the publishing order is different from the order the stories were written in. I think we can assume Jenkins' order for the stories in this collection should therefore be considered definitive.

Four stories in now which is about the first third of the way through the book. The first and third stories are wonderful, very exciting, solid 4-star stories. In fact, the third story is my favorite so far. Crow makes it back east and we find out what happened to other characters.

The second and fourth make me wonder if it's the same author writing. The second varies greatly in style and has over-written prose. The fourth is simply dull. Despite the fact it's a werewolf tale and should be exciting, nothing really happens. I give these two three stars each. They have some redeeming qualities, but they have strange lacks.

This is a strange way to read a series. It's not quite a novel because each chapter stands alone as its own short story. Yet it's not a short story collection either because the stories all feature the same character as the star and build upon one another. I really like this sort of episodic novel, but in the final assessment is the collection only as good as its weakest link, or its strongest?

Anyhow, on to the fifth story now, "The Five Disciples." Disciples of Lone Crow? Of a character we're to be introduced to? Of the church? I have no idea what I am in for, but I sure am curious.

Through the first seven now. Just a little over halfway. The first and third stories were wonderful, second and fourth not so much. The fifth, sixth, and seventh were okay, but not particularly memorable. The secondary characters are not as strong as they were in the beginning of the series. I am at an average of 3.0 to maybe as high as 3.3 stars on this collection so far. Running out of July daylight to read in. Will I be able to finish? It looks like I may be the only one reading this. So I will just post a link to my review when I am done.

My review of a mostly enjoyable read: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...