A Fistful of Legends - An Extra Special Offer

On Jan 31, 2010 Express Westerns will publish a second anthology of western short stories A Fistful of Legends. To help celebrate Christmas and Hogmanay, we are pleased to announce that for a limited time you can buy a copy of the book at a special discounted price. Order before Jan 11, 2010 and you can buy A Fistful of Legends with FREE POSTAGE.

Even better, the book will be shipped to you as soon as you've paid.


This is a one-off, never to be repeated offer, after which you'll have to wait until Jan 31 to buy a copy and then pay the full retail price plus postage.

The retail price is $15.95, so US readers can buy at that price. UK readers can also buy at $15.95 if you know how to pay in dollars, otherwise you'll have to pay in pounds, which with the pound now trading at about one thousand pounds to the Zimbabwean cent, will be £10.50. Sadly we can't offer completely free postage to anyone outside the US and UK, but a discount will be applied (so for instance the total cost for most of mainland Europe will be $18, Japan will be $20).


In addition, if you haven't already got a copy of Express Westerns' first anthology Where Legends Ride, for the duration of this offer you can buy a bundle of the two books with free postage. That's a total of 35 action-packed western stories! Where Legends Ride retails at $13.95, so you can get both for $29.90 or £19.50.

To take advantage of this offer please contact me at iparnham@btinternet.com with AFOL in the subject line and we can arrange for you to pay to my paypal account. Or if you prefer contact Dave through his blog at Davy Crockett's Almanack as he is also running this promotion.

So what are you waiting for? Saddle up for action and adventure ... and grab yourself A Fistful of Legends!

A Fistful of Legends

Express Westerns' latest anthology of western short stories A Fistful of Legends will be available to buy from www.lulu.com and all on-line retailers on 31 January 2010. The ISBN is 978-0-557-19954-9 and the price will be $15.95 (about £10 or 17.50 Euros)

The book has been edited by Nik Morton and co-edited by Charles Whipple. It features an introduction by James Reasoner along with a front and back page cover illustration designed by Jennifer Smith-Mayo based on an original painting by David McAllister. I am confident this is a western title all western fans (and anyone who enjoys a good yarn) will want to buy. The 21 stories in this bumper size book are :

DEAD MAN TALKING by Derek Rutherford
BILLY by Lance Howard
LONIGAN MUST DIE! By Ben Bridges
THE MAN WHO SHOT GARFIELD DELANY by I J Parnham
HALF A PIG by Matthew P Mayo
BLOODHOUND by C. Courtney Joyner
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE by Gillian F Taylor
BIG ENOUGH by Chuck Tyrell
ONE DAY IN LIBERTY by Jack Giles
SHADOWS ON THE HORIZON by Bobby Nash
ON THE RUN by Alfred Wallon
THE GIMP by Jack Martin
VISITORS by Ross Morton
THE NIGHTHAWK by Michael D George
THE PRIDE OF THE CROCKETTS by Evan Lewis
DARKE JUSTICE by Peter Avarillo
ANGELO AND THE STRONGBOX by Cody Wells
CRIB GIRLS by Kit Churchill
MAN OF IRON by Chuck Tyrell
CASH LARAMIE AND THE MASKED DEVIL by Edward A Grainger
DEAD MAN WALKING by Lee Walker

Acclaim for our authors in Express Westerns' first anthology Where Legends Ride:

From Meridian Bridge:
One of the very best tales is ‘Bubbles,’ by Ross Morton. Within a handful of pages Morton presents three-dimensional characters that live and breathe and wander through the years like real people, and we’re treated to a heartfelt overview of a friendship that spans the decades.
Gillian F. Taylor too offers more than a routine reworking of old formulas in ‘Easier Than Working’ as bank robbers Irish and Tomcat Billy come across a homesteader family in need. More than just a pair of good-hearted rogues, these two express a real range of emotion in their creator’s hands.

From Ron Fortier, Pulp Fiction Review:
‘The Prodigal’ by Chuck Tyrell is a poignant, classic cowboy tale of right and wrong with a dedicated marshal having to hunt down his own son. Likewise ‘The Man Who Tracked a River’ by Derek Rutherford offered up a story of guilt and redemption that was steeped in the dust of the badlands. ‘Desert Surrender’ by Kit Churchill is a raw, grim adventure that had me turning the pages fast. These are all classic western gems. ‘Once Upon A Time In Mirage’ by I.J. Parnham and ‘Snows of Montana’ by the editor Matthew P. Mayo read like saddle-tramp sagas inspired by O’Henry, their twisty ends fun.

From Pog’s Literary Reviews
Not only do Lance Howard’s westerns contain enough action and traditional shoot ‘em up for the most discriminating western novel reader, but they craft vivid characters and explore the vast panorama of human experience and emotion with situations relevant and immediate for a modern audience ...you’ll find gunslingers and crooked lawmen right alongside battered wives and homeless outcasts...a western writer for the non-western reader and horse opera lover alike!

Now Express Westerns is back.

Discover what it’s like to ride with damaged men and sinister night stalkers, tragic doves, plucky homemakers and gun-toting belles. Experience for yourself the harsh reality of birth and death, love and hate, revenge, retribution and robbery. You'll find it all here, penned by a whole posse-full of Western writers old and new.

So what are you waiting for? Saddle up for action and adventure ... and grab yourself A Fistful of Legends!

Available from The Express Westerns store as from 31 January 2010. Where Legends Ride, currently available.

The Story With No Name - Part #18

Bob Napier has supplied the latest section at: The Cap'n's Blog

The first 16 parts are here

Part 17 - Peter Avarillo

Robert Holdstock

I read the sad news today that Robert Holdstock passed away over the weekend. He was a versatile and stylish writer whose novels covered a broad scope in science-fiction originally and later fantasy. I particularly enjoyed his early works such as Earthwind, Where Time Winds Blow and Eye Amongst the Blind. He though gained lasting fame for Mythago Wood, a rich story that has many levels and which has become one of the most analysed fantasy books ever written.

Holdstock died of an E.Coli infection. He was 61.

Express Westerns Announcement

Express Westerns is proud to announce the publication of a brand new anthology of Western Short Stories. Official publication date for A Fistful of Legends edited by Nik Morton will be 12 December 2009 and the first copies will be available for ordering from lulu.com and on-line retailers on 31 January 2010.

Discover what it’s like to ride with damaged men and sinister night stalkers, tragic doves, plucky homemakers and gun-toting belles. Experience for yourself the harsh reality of birth and death, love and hate, revenge, retribution and robbery. You'll find it all here, penned by a whole posse-full of Western writers old and new. So what are you waiting for? Saddle up for action and adventure ... and grab yourself A Fistful of Legends!

On 12 December 2009 the full cover will be unveiled along with the ISBN and price, so watch this space...!

The Story with no Name - Part #17

Peter Avarillo has supplied the latest part at: Jack's Open Range

The previous 16 parts are here

The 100 Best Horror Novels of all Time

This week's 100 best is Horror novels as chosen by a panel of authors and reviewers headed up by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. Obviously the choices are a bit literary, are light on some popular authors, and include numerous non horror stories to provoke readers! For the record I'm surprised to find I've read 40 of these, with only 95 that'd make my personal top 10, and number 29 makes my personal list of the worst books of any kind I've ever suffered.

1. Christopher Marlowe - The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
2. William Shakespeare - The Tragedy of Macbeth (!)
3. John Webster - The White Devil
4. William Godwin - Things As They Are; or: The Adventures of Caleb Williams
5. Matthew Gregory Lewis - The Monk: A Romance
6. E.T.A. Hoffmann - The Best Tales of Hoffmann
7. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey (!!)
8. Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
9. Charles Maturin - Melmoth the Wanderer
10. James Hogg - The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
11. Edgar Allen Poe - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. Nathaniel Hawthorne - Twice-Told Tales
13. Jeremias Gotthelf - The Black Spider
14. Eugène Sue - The Wandering Jew
15. Herman Melville - The Confidence Man: His Masquerade
16. J. Sheridan Le Fanu - Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bertram-Haugh
17. Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
18. H. Rider Haggard - She
19. Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow
20. H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Bram Stoker - Dracula
22. Henry James - The Turn of the Screw
23. Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
24. Bram Stoker - The Jewel of Seven Stars
25. M.R. James - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
26. Arthur Machen - The House of Souls
27. Algernon Blackwood - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary
28. G.K. Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday
29. William Hope Hodgson - The House On the Borderland
30. Ambrose Bierce - The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce
31. Oliver Onions - Widdershins
32. E.F. Benson - The Horror Horn: The Best Horror Stories of E.F. Benson
33. David Lindsay - A Voyage To Arcturus
34. Franz Kafka - The Trial
35. James Branch Cabell - Something About Eve
36. E.H. Visiak - Medusa
37. Guy -The Werewolf of Paris
38. Marjorie Bowen - The Last Bouquet: Some Twilight Tales
39. Alexander Laing - The Cadaver of Gideaon Wyck
40. Sir Hugh Walpole (ed) - A Second Century of Creepy Stories
41. C.S. Lewis - The Dark Tower and The Day After Judgment
42. Dalton Trumbo - Johnny Got His Gun
43. H.P Lovecraft - The Outsider and Others
44. Clark Ashton Smith - Out of Space and Time
45. Fritz Leiber - Conjure Wife
46. Cornell Woolrich - Night Has a Thousand Eyes
47. H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth - The Lurker at the Threshold
48. Paul Bailey - Deliver Me From Eva
49. Boris Karloff (ed) - And the Darkness Falls
50. August Derleth (ed) - The Sleeping and the Dead
51. Walter Van Tilburg Clark - Track of the Cat
52. Sarban - The Sound of His Horn
53. William Golding - Lord of the Flies
54. Richard Matherson - I Am Legend
55. Ray Bradbury - The October Country
56. Joseph Payne Brennan - Nine Horrors and a Dream
57. Robert Bloch - Psycho
58. Nigel Kneale - Quatermass and the Pit
59. H.P. Lovecraft - Cry Horror!
60. Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
61. Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (eh?)
62. Jerzy kosinski - The Painted Bird
63. J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World (double eh?)
64. Robert Aikman - Sub Rosa
65. Kingsley Amis - The Green Man
66. Anthony Boucher - The Compleat Werewolf, and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction
67. John Gardner - Grendel
68. William Peter Blatty - The Exorcist
69. John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up
70. Manly Wade Wellman - Worse Things Waiting
71. Robert Marasco - Burnt Offerings
72. Stephen King - Salems's Lot
73. Harlan Ellison - Deathbird Stories
74. Hugh B. Cave - Murgunstrumm and Others
75. Bernard Taylor - Sweetheart, Sweetheart
76. John Farris - All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By
77. Stephen King - The Shining
78. William Hjortsberg - Falling Angel
79. Whitely Streiber - The Wolfen
80. David Morrell - The Totem
81. Peter Straub - Ghost Story
82. Jonathan Carroll - The Land of Laughs
83. Richard Laymon - The Cellar
84. Thomas Harris - Red Dragon
85. F. Paul Wilson - The Keep
86. Deniis Etchison - The Dark Country
87. Karl Edward Wagner - In a Lonely Place
88. Tim Powers - The Anubis Gates
89. Robert Irwin - The Arabian Nightmare
90. Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
91. T.E.D. Klein - The Ceremonies
92. Robert Holdstock - Mythago Wood
93. Michael Bishop - Who Made Stevie Crye?
94. Dan Simmons - The Song of Kali
95. Clive Barker - The Damnation Game
96. Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor
97. Lisa Tuttle - A Nest of Nightmares
98. Charles L. Grant - The Pet
99. Robert McCammon - Swan Song
100. Ramsey Campbell - Dark Feasts