Paranormal Westerns?

missouridalton

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I've been writing a western recently and seeing as I'm more of a horror/supernatural writer, it was inevitable that something of that nature occurred.

As I write it, it's pulling more towards an even keel between Paranormal Fiction and Western Fiction. So my question, as someone who does not read westerns in general, is there a line there?

Can a western have spiritual/magical/paranormal themes and elements while remaining at it's heart a western? And, more importantly, is there an audience for such things?
 

Torgo

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Can a western have spiritual/magical/paranormal themes and elements while remaining at it's heart a western? And, more importantly, is there an audience for such things?

I think a horror/western novel sounds interesting. Wikipedia has a helpful list of what it's calling Weird West fiction, which shows that it can be done successfully.
 

missouridalton

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I'm interested :D

The TV series Supernatural is, IMO, a bit of a supernatural western except that instead of horses they have a really cool car...

I adore that series. (Currently annoyed by the hiatus).

I have to agree, there are western sensibilities inherit in the series.
 

A.V. Hollingshead

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Whether I want to write a Western or not, it seems all my works end up being Westerns. Trying to write a fantasy story and it ends up being a Western in the tundra, basically. It's a popular subgenre. I personally tend to say that if it is Western on its own, it should generally be a straight Western, but if you are writing a horror story, I say moar cowboys always. Personal preference, though.
 

missouridalton

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I was actually writing a straight up western, but then I was reading Urban Shaman, and was like, oh, I think I want Native American mythology in this.

Which led to horror aspects. I just can't stay away.
 

jdm

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Paranormal horror is not something I normally associate with a Western. After all, there was enough horror perpetrated in the Old West by its inhabitants that anything of a paranormal nature pales in comparison and to my way of thinking makes the story seem unreal. As for the paranormal in general, I can see that being involved in a Western. Paranormal experiences have been a part of human history in every era. This is why we have religion, shamans, and tales of ghosts throughout the ages. Of course, this is just my opinion. Opinions may vary. Other opinions sold separately. See store for details.
 

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Emma Bull's Territory looks at the Tombstone story from a magic-laced angle, but still retains the full flavor of a Western.
 

Kitty Pryde

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A Book Of Tongues is a great horror/fantasy/western--evil aztec deities use a magician to try to break back into the real world, when said magician is not busy having extremely rowdy sex.

And in general I think the rise of steampunk has spun off a decent number of Western-with-fantasy-and-cool-steampunky-gadgets novels that I've been seeing lately.
 

Mark W.

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Weird West is definitely a rising market. I have a story in a new anthology coming soon out called "How the West was Wicked" by Pill Hill Press. It is an anothology devoted to paranormal Westerns.

So yeah, it is something worth investing your time.
 

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A fair while back Orson Scott Card wrote an interesting series about paranormal American pioneers, IIRC - the Alvin Maker books?
 

Kitty Pryde

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A fair while back Orson Scott Card wrote an interesting series about paranormal American pioneers, IIRC - the Alvin Maker books?

It is about old-timey americans with magical powers, but I wouldn't really call it a western. Maybe a MID-western :) They don't get very far west, there are hardly any cowboys, no wild west towns, etc. Its a fantasy retelling of the life of J. Smith, the guy who started the Mormon religion, who likewise did not get any further west than Missouri.
 

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It is about old-timey americans with magical powers, but I wouldn't really call it a western. Maybe a MID-western :) They don't get very far west, there are hardly any cowboys, no wild west towns, etc. Its a fantasy retelling of the life of J. Smith, the guy who started the Mormon religion, who likewise did not get any further west than Missouri.

Ah, yes, right. I read it when I was a kid and missed all the historical/Mormon notes. All I remember really is hedge-wizardry and Native Americans.
 

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I wrote a short story called The Legendary. It was a horror story and received positive feedback in the western forum a few years ago. My oldest son, who isnt a reader, loved it.
 

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Joe Lansdale should be a master of this kind of stories. His Dead in the West is a fantastic horror/western.

Personally, I like this "contamination" of the horror into the western, as long as don't change the rules of the genre. Again Lansdale did a good work with three tales: The Gentleman's Hotel, Hide and Horns and Deadman's Road: horror and paranormal hosted by the western.

In my opinion, aside the pure western there are two genres very very fascinating: the horror-western and the noir-western.

And what you think about the Bruce Boxleitner's Frontier Earth? Maybe could be another paranormal-western despite the sci-fi :)
 
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Misa Buckley

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Can a western have spiritual/magical/paranormal themes and elements while remaining at it's heart a western? And, more importantly, is there an audience for such things?

I certainly hope the answer to both questions is "yes", otherwise my take on the genre is going to molder on my laptop!
 

Cranky

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I've been writing a western recently and seeing as I'm more of a horror/supernatural writer, it was inevitable that something of that nature occurred.

As I write it, it's pulling more towards an even keel between Paranormal Fiction and Western Fiction. So my question, as someone who does not read westerns in general, is there a line there?

Can a western have spiritual/magical/paranormal themes and elements while remaining at it's heart a western? And, more importantly, is there an audience for such things?

I think a horror/western novel sounds interesting. Wikipedia has a helpful list of what it's calling Weird West fiction, which shows that it can be done successfully.

Good news. And thanks for the links, folks. I'm currently wrestling with a story along these same lines. I guess there's something in the water, hehe.
 

rugcat

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In the mid-nineties, writer Mark Sumner wrote a couple of straight-out supernatural westerns -- sort of Western urban fantasies. They never really caught on, but I thought they were quite good, and anyone interested in the genre should definitely read them.

Devil's Engine

An excellent summary of the books on the Amazon reader comments there.

Devil's Tower

ETA: Mark Sumner also has a website -- still up, but last updated 1996. He's now a contributing editor for the Daily Kos, I've noticed. Very odd.
 
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DeleyanLee

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Cowboys and Aliens


Due out the end of this month. I'm seriously looking forward to it. If it does well, it might denote more interest in this kind of cross-genre thing than suspected. ;)
 

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I think a horror/western novel sounds interesting. Wikipedia has a helpful list of what it's calling Weird West fiction, which shows that it can be done successfully.

Nice that the article author(s) references my Wild, Wild West comic mini-series of long ago.

I'm currently writing an SF western series entitled The Spur, which a high-concept description is "Firefly by way of Gunsmoke."

Here is a preliminary promotional image:

253892_1646461296424_1683663722_1131694_711539_n.jpg
 

TattooedWriter

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I had some Westerns published in the nineties and now I write horror, so I've thought about combining the two.

There's a lot of undiscovered country out there.
 

BigWords

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There is historical precedent for supernatural elements in westerns - the ghost lights high in mountains, for example, which prospectors believed showed where there were seams of gold. Native American mythology may, in recent years, have pushed out a lot of the more general weirdness, but as far back as the 1860s there have been reports of ghostly trains (the Lincoln one is probably the best known), and the phantom armies who are condemned to spend eternity reenacting the Civil War are well enough known to have a whole history built up in oral tradition.

There's a famous photograph taken a few years ago of the legless ghost of a cowboy rising up from scrub just outside a ghost town (naturally) with a knife between its' teeth. The world is filled with weird and unexplained elements, and to ignore them in a genre which has a lot of unanswerable elements as it is...