Happy Holidays from the Weird West Emporium!

The Holiday times are here and New Years is right around the corner! There are no more shopping days left until Christmas, but that doesn't mean its too late to find some great books to cozy up to during these long cold winter nights! Here are a few last minute items I wanted to mention that will take you through the holiday season and into the New Year!




For pure Weird Western awesomeness and a stellar reference guide to the genre, pick up Paul Green's Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns: Supernatural and Science Fiction Elements in Novels, Pulps, Comics, Films, Television and Games which you can pick up HERE. Its a way more comprehensive read than the Weird West Emporium and has things Ill probably never get too. Also Paul has a great companion WEBSITE that picks up where the book leaves off.



Next up is Ed Erdelac's Merkabah Rider books, which can be gotten HERE and HERE in hard copy and eBook.

The story is:
The last of an ancient order of Jewish mystics capable of extraplanar travel, The Merkabah Rider roams the demon haunted American West of 1879 in search of the renegade teacher who betrayed his enclave. But as the trail grows fresher, shadows gather, and The Hour Of The Incursion draws near... Four novella episodes in one book.

A friend of mine has devoured both books and says they are spectacular; a definite must read!

Also, Ed has a great Website called Delirium Tremens where he explains the inspirations to his stories, a great trip report for the 2010 Steamcon convention (Which I failed to do a report on, oops), and many other things. You can read it HERE.

Also, check out this cool trailer that was made for the Merkabah Rider series!




The final book is the Buntline Special: A Weird West Tale by Mike Resnick. Its a different take on Wyatt Earp, Tombstone, and the gunfight at the OK Corral. I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet, but its getting a good reviews and could be just the thing to heat up those cold winter nights! You can get THIS at Amazon too!





And that about does it for me. As The Weird West Emporium moves into its second year I wanted thank everyone for their support and readship! Ive never actually taken on anything as large as this before and its really inspiring to know that people are not only liking my site but loving the Weird West in general. I love that there is an audience for it! Hopefully next year will get even bigger with the release of Cowboys and Aliens, (and maybe other stuff that hasn't been announced yet? The Lone Ranger perhaps?) Plus there will be a ton more stuff to talk about here at the Emporium. These past two years have barely scratched the surface of whats out there. (Actually it will be two years in April, so I shouldn't celebrate just yet!)

Also, I'm considering a (sort of) secret project that everyone will be able to participate on when its up and running, but more on that later.

I'm going to take a couple weeks off and the Emporium will be closed until January 10th, so until then I hope you guys have a safe and fun Holiday season! I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns has a second printing!

If you didn't already know, Paul Green's The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns is THE reference of all things Weird in the Western genre. This is a fantastic book that came out last year, and has now moved into its second printing! If you haven't had a chance to pick it up, you should, its an essential part of any Weird Western fans night table reading.

From automatons to zombies, many fantastic elements have been cross-pollinated with the western genre. This A-to-Z encyclopedia of the Weird Western covers film, television, animation, dime novels, pulp fiction, comic books, novels, short stories and video and role-playing games.

I blogged about it when it first came out last October, and I still love it. Its a great reference for when I'm doing research for The Emporium, or just feel like getting lost some Weird Western minutia for a while.

You can also order the book from its publisher, McFarland and Co. Inc.....and you can visit Paul at his website, The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns which, like The Emporium, is one of the few sites dedicated to Weird West goodness online; and acts as sort of an addendum to the book.

If you haven't pick this up yet, you should do it today! And Congratulations Paul, you've written a durn fine book there, pard!

The Weird West FINALLY Comes Into Its Own!

Weird West has always been the rough and tumble cousin to Steampunk, or maybe its Steampunk's distinctly American brother. The two have been around for roughly the same amount of time, if you consider the Frank Reade Dime Novels as one of the earliest examples of American Steampunk....but Steampunk today tends to favor a more European aesthetic with the Pith Helmets and British officers uniforms, the Frankenstein-esque contraptions, leather Military goods; and Tea, lots and lots of Tea......because Coffee just doesn't cut it! The Victorian Age, as we think of it, was really a European and American East Coast convention....although Victorian Aesthetic did, quite successfully, find its way into the dress and designs of the Western United States...as some Westerns tried their best to live within the splendor and elegance of the age among the dust and the heat and the rattlesnakes.

As an extreme fan of all things Steamy I will say that there have been MASTERFUL works of art created by Steampunks on BOTH sides of the "Pond", but the bottom line is, aesthetically, European Steampunk currently rules and the Weird West has partially been left in the dust, as it were...but no longer with the recent publication of Paul Green's Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns.

The product description on Amazon says this: From automatons to zombies, many fantastic elements have been cross-pollinated with the western genre. This A-to-Z encyclopedia of the Weird Western covers film, television, animation, dime novels, pulp fiction, comic books, novels, short stories and video and role-playing games.

Wow! This is number one on my Christmas list this year, What a resource! Of course Im always looking for new Weird West stuff, so this is a very exciting book.

Now I will say this, I did read a product review and I don't agree 100% with some of the things listed in the book. I don't consider Blood Meridian a Weird Western simply because its super duper violent....there are plenty of straight Westerns that have extreme violence. Usually, to me at least, a Weird Western has an element of the fantastic or the supernatural....which I don't believe Blood Meridian has. I also don't agree with the inclusion of the old David Carradine series Kung Fu. The idea of a Shaolin Monks traveling through the American Old West isn't all that strange, especially if he is a Shaolin Monk of the time.....now if he was from the future....But don't let this fool you, Mr. Green knows exactly what he is talking about in terms of Weird West, these disagreements might simply be a case of, what my friend Steve calls, opening the Umbrella too wide.

With that said, this book is a resource that any Weird Westerner, or fan of the Genre can not live without!

One more thing, while searching for reviews about this book, I came across Mr Green's Weird West blog site, which is very much in the vein of this one. Like his book, its called the Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns, and is something of a companion/addendum; you should check it out!

Its good too see interest in this Weird West stuff growing!