Four Rode Out

by Tim Curran, Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon

Welcome to the West — as wild as you never imagined.

Four of the toughest and most terrifying authors of horror and hooraw have banded together to create a quartet of wicked weird west novellas.

Brian Keene's "An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley" is a nasty look at a pack of cutthroat outlaws who find they've placed their boots into a bear trap of their own devising.

Tim Lebbon's "Another Hope" is the tale of a town besieged in a valley of unholy and ageless shadow.

Tim Curran's "Skull-Eater Campaign" will take traders on the trail of a fearsome cannibal band — right to the end of the trail and a little bit further.

Steve Vernon's "Rueful Regret" will let you know just how far one man will go to avenge a wrong done to him by another.

Greed and guilt, creatures and fiends, spurs and skulls, cold blooded gunplay and hot blooded horror.

The west is weirder than you've ever dreamed....

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Westerns

280 pages

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

Tim Curran lives in Michigan and is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, The Devil Next Door, and Biohazard, as well as the novella The Corpse King. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, and anthologies such as Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things.

For DarkFuse and its imprints, he has written the bestselling The Underdwelling, the Readers Choice-Nominated novella Fear Me, Puppet Graveyard as well as Long Black Coffin.

Find him on the web at: www.corpseking.com.

Reviews

[Steve Vernon]

This was my baby.

Took several years to pull together.

I approached Richard Chizmar about this anthology. He said it sounded like a good idea to him. I gathered up the three other authors and we put together four nasty novellas of weird west tale-telling.

I had tried to get Joe Lansdale in on the project too - but he's a busy fellow and was twice-as-busy trying to pick up the pieces of his house after a hurricane had blown through his part of Texas.

Ronald Kelly graciously offered to write an introduction.

The book was released in limited edition hardcover. Only 1000 copies. Sold out in about thirty-eight seconds.

I've still got a couple of loose copies left.

That's the problem with writing for the small press. It's a really gorgeous book but almost unavailable.

I'd like to say to those folks who have bought or read a copy - thank you very kindly and I hope you enjoy the read.

[DJMikeG · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very rare, somewhat mixed collection. I am a huge fan of Keene and Curran, never read anything by Lebbon or Vernon. Keene starts the collection well enough with An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley. I read this on it's own last year and I think it works much better as a kickoff for a collection than it does as a stand alone story. It feels a little flimsy on it's own, but works well as a kickass kickoff for this collection.

Tim Curran's 1867: The Skull Eater Campaign is the best and longest work in the collection and reads more like a short novel than a novella. The horror runs the gamut from haunting and stark to blunt, gory and visceral. An excellent weird western by one of the best modern practitioners of the genre.

Steve Vernon's Rueful Regret is just straight up confounding. Really not sure what he was going for here, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't either. A bizarre, scatological tale that made little to no sense whatsoever. Vernon's been on my radar for many years as an author to check out, unfortunately after reading this hot mess, I'm trepidatious about checking his stuff out further.

Tim Lebbon's Another Hope was quite good. First thing I've read by Lebbon, another author who has been on my radar for many years. I will definitely be reading more of his stuff, as I found this to be a very well written novella.

I enjoyed 3 out of 4 of the novellas in this collection. 3.5 stars would probably be a more accurate rating, but I will round up and give it 4 as I felt like it was a worthwhile read overall.

[Michael Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 3.5 stars. First two stories were great, didn't get anything from the third, the last one picked up again but didn't quite reach the level of the first.

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

read the first novella, "an occurrence in crazy bear valley," brian keene. five outlaws and a whore from wisconsin ride into a lumber camp in the hills. things happen. don't fork w/bigfoot, nothing but trouble all around. ha ha ha ha ha! crystal...in the river....the skoocums?....shernihaza's descendents? gone by first light. fast, gritty, and lots of blood and grits.


finished the second novella, 'skull eater campaign,' tim curran. whew. i've read about 40 louis l'amour stories, every one read bout the same, i enjoyed every one of them, and even now, some cowpoke is drawing bead on me. this is not your typical western, though in a sense, it is. but only in that one sense and from there it takes another trail. would love to see these on film.

major lyons and 40 raiders look to distribute a grand retribution for the atrocity at crazy woman creek. cowboys and indians...and scouts...wasn't it sk who wrote, best to kill the scout, before the pilgrims show up in force? green mile, mr. jingles mayhap.

interesting character name in this one, captain ten eyck...interesting cause it reminds me of thomas wolfe, look homeward angel and that name, eyck. was walking the streets of gainesville one day and i happened on that same name, ten eyck...only this guy was a dentist, there in the downtown area....and so it goes.

there's an interesting character in this one, boone, "long have i been possessed of a fierce hungerment."


i figure to use that the next time i'm in the irma hotel...see, this waitress gave me some grief over parsley. figure to set her straight. course, they've been having some rumblings out that way...i hear the earth, move, under my feet....and more.

and there's this kind of stuff: "wet, meaty chewing sounds and teeth scraped over bone." cowboys and indians? well, yeah, but w/a twist. ha ha ha ha ha! skull-eaters, word in the title....and it's like, well, how do we finish them off? silver freakin bullets? wooden stakes? naw, buckle down and do it and do it right.

and there's a nice twist at the end, or what you will...this thing that leaves you w/the idea that, okay...even so...what are those things/guys going to do when the call comes? comforting. be safe.

and so i read the 3rd novella,rueful regret by steve vernon...story bout bass clayton and silver grimes, mostly...and if you tire of reading about butt-thumping, white owl-tooting vampires, check out pritcher targate in this story...there in the wild wild west where pig and chicken are fair game. this story about retribution is not w/o its comic elements...hawley shut up, stepped back and fell on his ass...the instinct for survival spoke of some deep and buried vestige of common sense, no mater how atrophied it might be.
rueful regret is the name of a town where it all comes down in the end and where they aren't buried very deep, the wind and the elements eroding the soil where they're buried leaving the toes of their boots exposed, toes-up rising graveyard

finished the 4th and final, another hope by tim lebbon...story about a town that springs up from nothing based on a rumor of wealth untold...this guy, bill by name, already thereabouts...hearing whispers...

he watches the town spring up, heads in one day and asks around, 'you hear anything?' weird looks all around.

then things begin to happen. this story, like the second, has that bit at the end where you have to wonder...okay, how long? how long? tell me, how long, to the point of no return! or have we arrived? or maybe bill arrived? this one will give you pause when you're on the road, traveling, and you hear something go bump.

[Ken Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very mixed collection. Keene and Lebbon are 5 star stories. Vernon is barely a 1, the story just went nowhere and was fairly boring. The characters were empty, I really had no care if they lived or died within the story. The Curran was a 3 to 4. I think it could have been better if it was shorter. There seemed to be to much buildup as I was reading it. The ending was pretty good though.

[Squire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronald Kelly wrote the introduction to the anthology.