A WEST WILD & WEIRD: FREDERIC S. DURBIN'S THE COUNTRY UNDER HEAVEN

In The Country Under Heaven, Frederic S. Durbin mixes pulp horror the paperback western through a saddle tramp whose a adventures often start with six guns and end in the supernatural. The result is a colorful epic yarn that pays tribute to both genres.

We follow the travels of Ovis Vesper, a man who had a near death experience at the bloody Civil War battle of Antietam. It caused him visions that pushed the Illinois native west, riding through Kansas, Texas, Montana, and other states and territories. Each chapter begins with Ovid often placed in your standard coboy hero situation like a cattle drive or the hunting down of bandits. Before long it veers into horror and supernatural territory with dragons, creatures, and green tinted children who need to get back to their hidden realm. It all appears to be connected to a Cthulu like creature, the Craither, Ovid may have brought into this world from when he regained consciousness in Antietam.

Durbin weaves both genres together without hindering the other. Ovid's journeys the west from 1880 to 1891 and the writing creates an authentic feel in the places and people of the period. This element helps ground everything as the weirdness seeps in. The gunfights and action have a vivid immediacy and the attacks by creatures and supernatural carry an ambiguity from the shadows. Both place you into whatever situation Ovid finds himself in.

The Country Under Heaven proves to be a strong example of cross genre story telllng. Frederic S, Durbin taps into the entertaining aspects of both the western and horror novel and brings them out in his direct and clean prose style. I'd love to see if the Craither could be involved in a string of detectives cases or a gangster's rise and fall. The author shows he has the skills to pull it off.