The Saga of the O'Brien Clan by William W. Johnstone

The Brothers O'Brien by William W. Johnstone Shadow of the Hangman by William W. Johnstone Published by Pinnacle Books, February and April 2012, respectively.

Some of the most engaging western stories are about families: Bonanza, The Big Valley, The Sons of Katie Elder, How the West Was Won/The Macahans come to mind. Of course, these are all TV series and movies, but any number of stories by Thomas Thompson and Tom W. Blackburn also fit in the mold. Louis L'Amour's Sackett saga may be the top contender for expansive version of this sub-genre. Author William W. Johnstone — and the folks now behind the WWJ brand — certainly understood and understand the appeal of the family saga. One can easily argue that every one of the various WWJ series is in some way or other a family saga. One of the two newest WWJ series has its feet firmly planted in the family saga mold, that of The Brothers O'Brien. The opening book of the series describes the establishing of the O'Brien clan's ranch, Dromore, by Shamus, his wife Saraid, and his segundo Luther Ironside. Four boys are born to the O'Briens before the death of the missus, and this band of gritty men face off any threats to their independence or the well-being of Dromore.

In both of the series' first two novels, the villains are truly evil. In the first novel, a scheming daughter of a Mexican landowner brings about the death of her own father as she schemes to bring the wealth of the O'Briens under her control. In the second, honest-to-goodness Satan worshippers plot revenge on the O'Briens for the hanging of family member after caught rustling ten years earlier. One wonders if this O'Briens-against-the-forces-of-Hell's-evils will be a continuing theme for the series. The writing styles for the two books differ, suggesting two ghost-writers are behind the books, but the characterizations are consistent, and J.A. Johnstone or someone has done a good job checking continuity. The various members of the cast are engaging and entertaining to follow in their interactions with one another and with other characters. Like other WWJ series, this one likely will go long and far.

The Trail of Whitened Skulls: The Cole Lavery Saga

The Trail of Whitened Skulls: The Cole Lavery Saga, by Tom W. Blackburn (Waterville, Maine: Five Star), 2006.

Cowboys! That’s what I wanted to read about by the end of last year. By the time the holiday season arrived I was ready for a cowboy-reading binge. So I started with a recent collection published by Five Star, The Trail of Whitened Skulls: The Cole Lavery Saga, by Tom W. Blackburn. To my knowledge, this is the first work by Blackburn I’ve read.

It’s quite good, and I recommend it. Five stories plus an informative Foreword by Jon Tuska. Blackburn lends a nice sense of history and authenticity to his tales by including appropriate details along with the characters’ awareness of their place as players in a larger tide of life.

For example, at one point Cole thinks, “The country was in Marta’s blood as it was in his, then. Time was the thing they had. Out of time and a little courage and a bright hopefulness, anything could be built.” (“Trail of Whitened Skulls,” 149) From a strictly critical aspect, such thoughts might seem sentimental, anachronistic or post-modern, but passages such as this lift these stories from mere action yarns to solid mainstream entertainment. They are the sort of messages one finds built into the western stories of Louis L'Amour and the western films of John Ford.

This sense of history and a character's place within its march is probably a good reason Blackburn was tapped to work on certain TV shows with historical settings, such as Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and Johnny Tremain, Daniel Boone, The Virginian, Maverick, Cheyenne, and others.

For Christmas I received from my brother the February 1949 issue of Zane Grey’s Western Magazine, which coincidentally included another Blackburn story, “Mother Lode Mutiny.” This tale is set in a California gold camp, where a trouble-shooter — similar in some ways to Cole Lavery — cuts his way into the success of a town by outsmarting a greedy, under-handed villain. Again, Blackburn imparts a sense of historical authenticity with details that place its fictional drama within the context of larger actual events.

This sense of historicity is apparently an element Blackburn included in his work throughout his career. He wrote a number of scripts for TV westerns and for various incarnations of Walt Disney's television show, including The Saga of Andy Burnett and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. Considering this latter item, Blackburn also gets writing credit for "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" -- which has taken its place among the nation's folksongs.

You can find the paperback edition of The Trail of Whitened Skulls at Amazon.com by clicking here.

Meet Max Brand

Max Brand, the most famous pseudonym of Frederick Faust, made his fictional Wild West an arena for the characters of myth and legend to live and battle again. While Owen Wister (in The Virginian) and Zane Grey (in Riders of the Purple Sage and many other novels) made the West an epic landscape for romantic heroes to ride across and populate, Brand released the mythic urge that dwells within the finest storytellers and placed demigods on a timeless western landscape of no particular place that he used again and again.

It began with his first western novel, The Untamed, which first appeared as a six-part serial in All-Story magazine, starting in its issue dated Dec. 7, 1918. The story's popularity ensured its publication in book form, and Tom Mix starred in the silent movie based upon the novel.

Here is the opening paragraph of The Untamed, which introduces the otherworldly setting that would serve as Faust's Wild West:

"Even to a high-flying bird this was a country to be passed over quickly. It was burned and brown, littered with fragments of rock, whether vast or small, as if the refuse were tossed here after the making of the world. A passing shower drenched the bald knobs of a range of granite hills and the slant morning sun set the wet rocks aflame with light. In a short time the hills lost their halo and resumed their brown. The moisture evaporated. The sun rose higher and looked sternly across the desert as if he searched for any remaining life which still struggled for existence under his burning curse."

Faust wrote hundreds of novels and stories set in this mythic western wonderland. Westerns weren't all that he wrote. He published mysteries, historical sagas, and basically invented the medical story when he created Dr. Kildare. His prodigious production of popular fiction marked him as larger than life, not so different from the characters he created on paper.

Like many of his larger-than-life characters, Faust was a man of contradictions. Greatly popular under many pen names for his fiction, Faust's greatest desire was to gain renown under his actual name for his classically styled poetry -- yet this work never found an audience. Prevented from serving in the Army because of his damaged heart, Faust poured his energies and desires for a life of adventure into the protagonists that peopled his stories.

Each year, new books appear in print based on Faust's pulp writings. His imagination continues to grip new readers generation after generation, like that of Louis L'Amour.

Max Brand is one of my favorite western writers. His works don't neatly fit into the category of traditional western, but they define and fill a niche all their own -- perhaps a subgenre of traditional westerns, if you will. I know from conversations with many other readers that Faust's westerns don't satisfy every reader, but their idiosyncratic characteristics make them classics of the field. I'm not even sure someone could find a publisher today for a new western of the type Faust wrote. Perhaps that's a good reason to be glad Five Star, Dorchester and other publisher are keeping Max Brand westerns in print today.

You can find a selection of Max Brand's westerns at The Spur & Lock Spinner Rack.