Books like The Texas Indians — picked by fans

Much like Italian filmmakers managed to create the spaghetti western by riffing on the genre from an ocean away, English pulp writers created the Piccadilly Western: violent, cynical, sometimes even too edgy for its own good. The Adam Steele books often verge on tastelessness with their violence and insensitivity, but that’s relieved by a sort of dark humor—often groan-inducing. It can be a lot to take, but for those who prefer too much to too little… Adam Steele is definitely not too little. The first book has Civil War hero Steele going outlaw to avenge his murdered father, with his best friend as the lawman hot on his trail. 

Before settling into the chronicle of the title character, this first entry in the Undertaker series (from the author of the much longer-running Edge books as well) follows a circuitous course involving an unfaithful wife and a vengeful husband. I won’t spoil the surprises along the way, but the Undertaker himself pushes the Western antihero to its limit. He’s all but emotionless, very nearly a sociopath, but with a certain competence and honor that gives him an appeal. (Even though he’s further saddled by the lame catchphrase ‘Bye-bye.’) I actually find his semi-autistic callousness more bearable than Steele’s more willful nastiness, since it seems the Undertaker was simply born the way he is, rather than choosing it.

You’ll recognize certain plot points from these books remixed into my book, though I found the Undertaker’s continued lack of character development a bit grating from one book to the next. That’s the… show more.

Leaving Piccadilly for the moment, we have the adult western. As if the name of the genre and the name that starts every book title isn’t enough, it’s published by Playboy. And as you might have guessed from there being four hundred of these books, put out damn near monthly since the seventies, it’s a bit of a fool’s errand to single out any one book. They’re somewhere between the formulaic nature of needing to be a Western with literally obligatory sex and violence, and the author being a house name that’ll change with any given volume, who by necessity will have his own idiosyncratic take on the material. 

One book, you might get a writer that’s really into delivering the sex appeal promised by the cover. Another time, you’ll get someone who just wants to write a Western (if that: people weren’t writing these things for their health,… show more.

You’re largely in the same boat with Longarm as you are with Slocum. The main differences is that Longarm’s name isn’t as good a euphemism (his name isn’t even really Longarm, it’s Custis Long) and that he’s a U.S. Marshall, not an outlaw like Slocum. Sort of like James Bond in the Wild West… wait, that’s James West of Wild Wild West… sort of like James West without the steampunk gadgets. Longarm goes from town to town, bringing bad men to justice and taking bad girls to bed. 

Although this series has the dubious distinction of provoking an “I can do better than that” reaction in me. In Longarm on the Border—installment 2, as there are actually two books by that title in this four-hundred-strong and only recently ended series—the main character finds himself in a threesome. Maybe it’s that these are the adult westerns not being published… show more.

If Howard is the father of the weird western, Joe Lansdale is the godfather. The trope of the wronged Native American shaman afflicting a frontier town with an undead plague has surely been used time and time again in the genre, but this is the original and best iteration. Joe’s Texas dialogue pops like a bullwhip cracking on a skeletal mule’s vertebrae and you can smell the iron and gunsmoke in his prose. He establishes his reputation with this book and in my opinion, cements it with the Jonah Hex weird western comics Two-Gun Mojo and Riders of The Worm and Such.

I love this book because it compiles great Christmas stories by some of America’s finest writers, from Jack London and Edna Ferber to Katherine Anne Porter and John Updike.

I like the substantial emphasis on humor, with stories by Damon Runyon, Dorothy Parker, and Mark Twain, as well as the moving and thoughtful tales of American life the book contains. I like that it is thoroughly American, showing the country from the Wild West to New York and points in between, all landscapes, social classes, and cultures.

The Time It Never Rained tells the grim battle between ranchers and drought in 1950s western Texas.

I grew up on a small Minnesota farm and remember my father’s struggle to keep the farm going, but at least he never faced a seven-year drought. A stubborn rancher who reminded me of my father, refuses to give in or ask for help.

I especially liked the secondary story of illegal immigrants, attitudes of ranchers toward the Feds tasked with arresting and deporting them, and the government programs that backfired in the end. It’s an excellent read that left me thankful for every drop of rain and blade of green grass. Its lessons of racism and kindness are pertinent to today’s world.

In contrast to his books about the Old West, McMurtry’s contemporary Westerns tell a more unvarnished truth. I read this book for the umpteenth time just prior to beginning my first novel, Where the Hurt Is. My book was a crime novel. McMurtry’s was a coming-of-age story. Nevertheless, his depiction of his book’s quasi-fictional Thalia, Texas rang so many bells and reminded me so much of the small Oklahoma towns where I grew up, I can’t deny being influenced by it.

At times, I would grow short of breath as I was reminded of parallel characters and events from my own childhood. Even today, the claustrophobia of Thalia and its characters’ fear of being unable to escape scares the crap out of me.

This book's opening scene is one of the most visceral and shocking I have ever read. Incredibly tragic, it hits you in the gut with the force of a hammer blow before sweeping you along on an adventure of epic proportions. Once I started reading, I was unable to stop.

I just had to know what happened next and what lay in store for the main protagonists, Kati and Jenni. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with them, and I will never forget the hours I spent by their side. My only regret is that the story ended, though I’ve heard rumors of a possible continuation. If that’s true, it will be a dream come true!

I’m not one to read a book twice, but this is one of those rare gems I go back to every once in a while.

Personally, I loved that the hero, Ted Beaudine, is more of an antihero in his aloofness and—kinda justified—vendetta against the heroine. Now, if an author can convince me to like a dislikable hero, I will sing about their book from the rooftops. So, here I am, singing.

Without giving too much away, Phillips does a masterful job of breathing life into her small-town Texas setting, as well as humanity into some truly surprising characters.

This is one of those books to kick back with and enjoy all the tingly good feels that will inevitably come.