Seven top weird westerns

Sam Reader is a writer and conventions editor for The Geek Initiative. He also writes literary criticism and reviews at strangelibrary.com. One of seven weird westerns he tagged at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Dark Alchemy, by Laura Bickle

Dark Alchemy is more neo-Western than weird Western, but still brings the bizarre West into focus. In the small town of Temperance, Wyoming, a geologist by the name of Petra Dee searches for clues to her father’s disappearance. Instead, she finds a town where meth flows as easily as gold once did, and a series of twisted skeletons somehow tied to the flocks of crows that keep appearing around town. It turns out that Temperance is, of course, a town with many alchemical secrets, and major powers will do anything to keep them hidden. Bickle has a good handle on her setting, but truly excels at building a steadily mounting sense of doom. It’s also a good time to catch up on Petra’s past actions, as her next adventure, Nine of Stars, comes out in December.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Dark Alchemy.

--Marshal Zeringue