PORTRAIT OF A GUNFIGHTER AS A YOUNG MAN: JOHN SHIRLEY'S WYATT IN WICHITA

John Shirley, mainly known for his science fiction, has successfully rode into the western genre. He recently won a Spur award for his book Gun Metal Mountain. This week, Wolf Pack Publishing, released his look at a legendary lawman, Wyatt In Wichita.

In some ways, the book gives us the missing main piece in the Lawrence Kasdan biopic Wyatt Earp, showing the transition as directionless youngman to formidable man with a badge and gun. Shirley introduces us to him fleeing Illinois and a horse theft charge, the loss of his first wife sending him into alcohol espair and sin. He finds his legs as a bordello bouncer and later as a buffalo hunter on the Kansas plains where he hooks up with pal, Bat Masterson. The two take the offer as deputies when Wyatt contends with the notorious gun fighter Ben Thompson when he gets on the bad side of Texas cattleman Shanghai Peirce.

Soon, the job becomes personal when a girl who worked at one of the brothels is murdered. She reminds Wyatt os his dead wife and becomes obsessed with getting her justice. He and Bat follow a trail of clues that point to one of Peirce's men and the town's corruption. It also takes takes them to the boomtown of Deadwood where he meets Wild Bill Hickock and friends as, as well as his future assassin. He also takes in a young man Henry Antrim before he is known as Billy The Kid,

Shirley uses his sci-fi skill of world building and applies it to the historical western. He captures the flavor of the frontier as well as the cow and mining towns that dot it. This plays into Wyatt's struggle to stay with a life in the plains or be a part of a town's community, something Bat has an easier time of. Wichita gives him experience in politics he'll use for both good and ill.

The book's depiction of the younger Earp proves he was just as complicated then as he was later. He wants to buck his father's strict waysm but sees a need for law and order in the lawless towns. That struggle leads to a code and a belief in loyalty to friends and family that shapes his future. That code and morality is also shaped in how to apply the law in raw towns that are organized more on corruption and greed than rules.

Wyatt In Wichita gives us a full character in Young Mr. Wyatt. we see him finding a path that will lead to both proud marches and tragic missteps in his historic future. John Shirley's focus on this part of her past gives us a dynamic man who learns what will shape him into being the enigmatic legend.