The Frontier Partisans mythos is built on history, folklore and pulp. Separating the one from the other in frontier history is an almost impossible task, since the frontier was being mythologized and exploited for entertainment value even as its history played out. Some of the greatest fun to be had in this field is found in picking up all three … [Read more...] about ‘The West’s Wildest Hell-Raiser’ — Men’s Adventure Quarterly

My brother John did not plant the seed for my lifelong obsession with the frontier — I guess I brought that into this world with me. But he sure nurtured the sapling. He took me to my first movie — Jeremiah Johnson. He introduced me to the mighty tales of Robert E. Howard. He gave me his well-read copy of The Frontiersmen, and I literally read the … [Read more...] about Frontier Arrakis

I wish my mother could have seen this. She LOVED Tony Hillerman’s mysteries; they brought her escape from a pretty tough set of circumstances into an immersive world that resonated her, as it apparently did with millions of others... From The Hollywood Reporter: AMC has greenlit an ambitious new crime drama based on a beloved book series and … [Read more...] about Dark Winds Blow

An Arctic wind blew across my desk this morning, in the midst of our long, hot Central Oregon summer. Somehow, The North Water, the novel and a new miniseries, had escaped my notice. Now, here it is — everywhere. And don’t it look like one helluva harrowing frontier tale? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8VZKyHIg70 Here’s the caper via … [Read more...] about Venturing Into The North Water

Our own Frontier Partisans contributor Paul McNamee has committed authorship again. Much anthologized, Paul’s work has now turned to a standalone novel. The Captain of the New England Ranging Company has tapped his love for pulpy goodness to produce Hour of the Robot. Here’s the caper: From their nerve center penthouse lair, the Robot supports … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Pulpy Goodness

By Paul McNamee — Captain, Frontier Partisans New England Ranging Company Once again, I find myself south of the border. In this case, trudging into the Central American jungle in search of the “Lost City of the Monkey God,” a.k.a. “Cuidad Blanca”— the White City. Douglas Preston, who is probably more famous for his fiction co-writes with … [Read more...] about Run Through The Jungle

Paul McNamee scouted up this upcoming release from Netflix. The Harder They Fall is clearly going for maximum pulp — and the characters name-check a bunch of historical figures taken wildly out of context. “When outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) discovers that his enemy Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) is being released from prison he rounds up his gang to … [Read more...] about Pulp On The Range

Walter Hill is saddling up for another Western, set on the Mexican borderlands in 1897. I’m in, of course. Hill is our kinda people. He is a frontier storyteller. He directed The Long Riders and Geronimo: An American Legend. He long ago copped to the fact that everything he does is a Western, regardless of its “official” genre. A couple of years … [Read more...] about ‘Dead For A Dollar’

Daughter Ceili scouted up this piece of news from the Frontier Partisans Cinema front: From Deadline: Production has wrapped on Murder At Emigrant Gulch, the Western-thriller starring Gabriel Byrne, Thomas Jane and Isaiah Mustafa, directed by Richard Gray (Robert The Bruce). Cast to have joined the film since we revealed the project include … [Read more...] about ‘Murder At Emigrant Gulch’

The Almighty Algorithm kicked up something a little offbeat while I was killing time before my virtual bookstore event with Michael Punke the other night: The Final 24 — Janis Joplin. It was an episode from a Canadian doco series documenting the demise of celebrities to include Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Tupak Shakur, Anna Nicole Smith, … [Read more...] about South Of The Border