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Recommendations for Westerns?


Maithanet

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I am interested in reading a few Westerns, a genre I have almost no experience with.  Aside from a couple of hybrid Westerns like No Country for Old Men and Red Country, I don't know that I've ever read a real western. 

So what do people recommend?  What are the go-to Westerns these days?  I'm looking for something with ya know the usual good stuff like good characters, exciting action and a decent plot...I'm sure that will help narrow things down B)

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I'm not well-read in the genre but a very good recent one I read was The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale.  Great writing and characters.  Would make a great movie.  One of the characters is a dwarf (little person, not the fantasy type) and I'm pretty sure I read Peter Dinklage was signed to play him in a movie version.  This was a couple years ago, so not sure if it is still in the works though.

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2 hours ago, Winterfella said:

I'm not well-read in the genre but a very good recent one I read was The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale.  Great writing and characters.  Would make a great movie.  One of the characters is a dwarf (little person, not the fantasy type) and I'm pretty sure I read Peter Dinklage was signed to play him in a movie version.  This was a couple years ago, so not sure if it is still in the works though.

I'll look into that, although it is listed as a mystery/suspense novel.  Is this really a western?

2 hours ago, maarsen said:

I am not really into the genre, but Elmore Leonard used to write westerns. I would try his stuff.

Yeah, that's a possibility.

Has anybody read Lonesome Dove?  Is that worth checking out?

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11 minutes ago, Hello World said:

I don't know if I've ever read any. but I just started Blood Miridian (it might be another "hydbrid" though) and you should look into that if you haven't read it yet.

Yeah, I probably should read that since I liked McCarthy's other stuff.  But someone on the forum said it was even more depressing than The Road, which makes me very wary. 

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Lonesome Dove is one of my favorite novels. It was the first Western I thought of when reading the title thread. Augustus McRae and Woodrow F Call are two of the most entertaining and  fleshed out characters I've ever read. IMO it is very difficult to find a better novel, let alone, Western. But there are other great Westerns, such as:

True Grit by Charles Portis

The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout

The Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (not a traditional Western, but a love story set in various mining towns across the Western US)

The Western Writers of America awards the Spur Awards for various categories of Westerns. http://westernwriters.org/ That is a great place to start.

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1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I'll look into that, although it is listed as a mystery/suspense novel.  Is this really a western?

Set in East Texas at the turn of the century.  A young man's sister is kidnapped and he has to gather a posse to hunt down the kidnappers and save her.  Horses, guns.  Definitely a western.  Elements of suspense, yes, but I would say it's definitely miscategorized as a mystery.

Edit: I'll also echo that Lonesome Dove is very good.

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I liked Lonesome Dove and as mentioned above, Augustus McRae and Capt. Call are great characters.  The dialogue is top notch.

There book has a couple weak spots, but it's a great read.

I read this book called "the sisters brothers" a few years ago that was pretty good and kind of Abercrombie-ish, in that it was grim, violent, and funny.  

Annie Dillard's "The Living" is great but probably not a conventional Western.  Annie Proulx's short stories are awesome, start with the Blood Bay Colt for a fun, smart, read.

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On 2017/10/25 at 4:18 PM, Maithanet said:

I am interested in reading a few Westerns, a genre I have almost no experience with.  Aside from a couple of hybrid Westerns like No Country for Old Men and Red Country, I don't know that I've ever read a real western. 

So what do people recommend?  What are the go-to Westerns these days?  I'm looking for something with ya know the usual good stuff like good characters, exciting action and a decent plot...I'm sure that will help narrow things down B)

There can be only one serious recommendation. Any Western written by Louis La'mour, the greatest Western novelist of all time. And the man who influenced the writing of numerous prominent fantasy and other authors, with two notable "fantasists" who specifically named him as a major influence being James Oliver Rigney aka Robert Jordan, and David Gemmell.

Louis La'mour has provided me with countless hours of entertainment over the course of 50 or more novels written over his lifetime. Read one and enjoy.

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This is a thread I'll be keeping an eye on. Can't say I've read many westerns myself despite being a fan of the genre in tv/film.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt is pretty good. It has a Fargo/Coen brothers feel to it in the sense it is darkly comic/surreal despite being pretty dark.

I've only read Cormac's "nou country for old men" and "the road" but he has several westerns to his name which I'd imagine are good (and are on my to read list)

Slightly more leftfield is "Red country" by Joe Abercrombie which while in a fantasy settign is very much a western in style and tone. I think there's a few other fantasies out embracing the western genre. It's a shame none of the Dark Tower books focus on Roland as a young adult as they'd probably fit the western bill too.

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22 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

There can be only one serious recommendation. Any Western written by Louis La'mour, the greatest Western novelist of all time. And the man who influenced the writing of numerous prominent fantasy and other authors, with two notable "fantasists" who specifically named him as a major influence being James Oliver Rigney aka Robert Jordan, and David Gemmell.

Louis La'mour has provided me with countless hours of entertainment over the course of 50 or more novels written over his lifetime. Read one and enjoy.

Agree, agree 1000 times, :D reading thru this post, I kept waiting for the Louis Lamour recommendation, I grew up on his westerns, my dad and my brothers too, one of my most favorite ( although not a western) is The last of the Breed, 

   Oh the hours I spent reading his novels, sigh

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Well in the Dark Tower series I'd argue that the Wolves of the Calla is pretty much a straight up Western.  Same with the gunslinger and even Wizard and Glass.

And yeah of any of you like McCarthy but haven't read Blood Meridian you are missing out -- you could certainly argue it's 'darker' than the Road but its also just an awesome read.  

There's a reason it's widely held to be not just McCarthys masterpiece but also one the best books of the last century.

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  • 1 month later...

I finished Lonesome Dove.  It's a nice story, has aged reasonably well, although the women characters in particular feel very dated. 

 

I've got The Sisters Brothers on hold for the library, we'll see how that goes. 

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