Kevin Smith over at The National Review took a swipe at an iconic American movie on Monday: The greatest Western of all time . . . isn’t. Though The Searchers is regularly hailed as the finest exemplar of its genre and one of the best movies of any kind (seventh-best of all time, according to the decennial Sight & Sound poll), John Ford’s 1956 … [Read more...] about Searching For ‘The Searchers’

The frontier of the Old Southwest has been something of a blank spot on the Frontier Partisans map. That’s something I intend to rectify in WoW2, because the Creek Nation Civil War and the fight over the rich black soil of the Deep South stirs up tales every bit as compelling as those that sprang from Kaintuck or the Mohawk Valley of New … [Read more...] about A Paradise Of Blood

Russia fascinates me. Every once in a while, I plunge into the forests and steppes of the Wild East and lose myself there for weeks. I recently found myself sucked into the 2017 miniseries Trotsky, which I found on Netflix, and I wrote on the strange, surreal dieselpunk fable for Running Iron Report. This, of course, led me down other trails and … [Read more...] about Cossacks and Nazis

“Well you are a bit of a tit, aren’t you?” — Col. Hiram Huncks to Balthasar de St. Michel * I am, betimes, a foolish fellow. When Christopher Buckley’s The Judge Hunter came out a few months ago, I grabbed it up off the new arrivals table at the bookstore, because I will always pick up a book with a tomahawk, a flintlock, and goose-quill … [Read more...] about ‘A Bit Of A Tit’

John Rambo rides again. Sly Stallone is saddling up — literally — for a coda to the Rambo movie franchise that will now span 37 years. According to Variety, Rambo: Last Blood (get it?)… “…centers on Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo crossing into Mexico and taking on a violent cartel when the daughter of one of his friends is kidnapped. … [Read more...] about Drawing ‘Last Blood’

A friend of mine believes that it is important in one’s professional life to have a quick, intriguing “elevator pitch” to define yourself. He likes mine: “I’m a storyteller...” Gets people intrigued, wanting to know more, etc. You get the picture. Well, here’s one that simply can’t be beat: “I’m a conflict archaeologist.” Ain’t nobody gonna hear … [Read more...] about Conflict Archaeologist

It’s emblematic of my nature that, having decided that I should read novels for fun again, I have gone on a freakin’ bender. Right now, I’m poaching in Hillbilly Highways’ territory with Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin. Hope HP doesn’t get too riled. Damn, it’s good. There’s probably nothing I like better than a “literary” crime novel. … [Read more...] about ‘Bearskin’

One of the greats has gone up the trail. Brian Garfield died on December 29. A versatile writer of Western, crime and history, Garfield penned one of the books that shaped me. As a kid in junior high school, I read the covers off of his novel Wild Times, which was made into a TV miniseries starring Sam Elliott as Hugh Cardiff, sharpshooter and … [Read more...] about A Salute To Brian Garfield