TOP 5 WESTERNS OF 2025
- wildremuda
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
If there was one word to describe this year in westerns it would be unique. Authors mixed genres, showed what could be done in the short form and mixed different elements not usually put in the same genre. These authors and others showed there are many different trails to ride.
TOM'S CROSSING by Mark Z. Danielewski - If you're up for taking on this over twelve hundred page novel about a young cowboy being guided by his ghost pal to get two horse scheduled to slaughter up into the Utah mountains for safety in 1982, you will be rewarded with immersiveness of story and surprised by how well the prose flows. A wonderful meditation on friendship and the western code itself.
TO SAVE THE MAN by John Sayles - Sayles follows a group of students and staff members attending the infamous Carlile Indian Industrial School where the young indigenous were stripped of their culture and also looks at the Wounded Knee Massacre that runs parallel to it.
COMANCHERIA by Reavis Z. Wortham - Picture Lonesome Dove's Gus and Call where Call becomes a zombie. Wortham delves into the weird western, leaning more into western than horror, using the fight between Commanches and outnumbered buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls, rich authentic characters, and a lot of action along with its indian curse and witch woman. A great, tough, rousing yarn.
THE HANGING MAN & OTHER STORIES by Bill Pronzini - A collection of Pronzini's short western fiction that is a masterclass in the genre. From a drifter's encounter with an abused wife, a conversation between an outlaw out to kill a lawman and a townsperson, to a group of strangers stranded at a barge crossing on a stormy night, Pronzini shows how to create westerns that break the horse opera mold.
THE HARD RIDE by Thadd Turner - Turner tells the life of Wild Bill Hickock, accurately, through the lens of a powder burner paperback. It's a tragic tale told with bravado with the camaraderie of Hickock and his friends.