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Title: Blood Dance (The Lost Lansdale Series Vol. 3) by Joe R. Lansdale, Mark A. Nelson ISBN: 1-892284-66-9 Publisher: Subterranean Pub. Date: May, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Lansdale's Attempt at a Traditional Western
Comment:
As this story opens, Joe Melghrue is hesitant to proceed with a planned train robbery. Along with his partner, he has fallen in with an unsavory lot but they need the money, both being Confederate veterans with no stable work. Melghrue's worst fears come true when the outlaws decide to murder everyone on the train and when Melghrue refuses, they kill his partner and leave him for dead. The rest of the novel deals with the time-honored quest for revenge as our hero faces many obstacles in his journey for blood.
Lansdale's work, whether writing horror or mystery, always moves at a break-neck pace. With the author taking the reins of the traditional fast-paced Western genre, he delivers an extremely quick read loaded with action and memorable characters. As part of the Lost Lansdale series, Blood Dance is presented by the author as is. While I admire his warts-and-all approach, the roughness of the novel shows through in what I noticed were two very distinct sections of the book.
The first part of the book is very traditional and reads much like a Louis L'amour story. The action is fast and plentiful. While we are introduced to the character of Liver Eatin' Johnson, who was a real life frontiersman, his appearance does not take on the same pretentiousness as the later historical figures.
The latter half of the book has Melghrue interacting with Wild Bill Hickok and Custer at the Little Big Horn during part of his quest for revenge. Too often, when Westerns include true-life figure, they begin to read like a Forrest Gump movie. Lansdale falls into this trap here. Not only must our character meet these people but they must interact with them or save their lives, altering or predicting history. We are bombarded with historical facts about them and the result is characters that are not fleshed out as real people but more like caricatures.
We also have the Sundance here which is an Indian ritual portrayed in the move "A Man Called Horse" (remember that scene where he's hanging by tethers that have pierced his chest? Ouch!) Here the novel takes a little more supernatural turn. Not unusual territory for Lansdale but seemingly out of place after the more traditional Western feel of the first half.
Overall, I thought this was a good read that provided a strong entertainment value. But I would not recommend it for fans of the Western genre who have not been exposed to Lansdale. Lansdale fans, even those who don't like Westerns, will find the book interesting as a precursor to his later run of odd Western stories and the author doesn't let anyone down in the action department either.
Rating: 4
Summary: LANSDALE COULD EASILY COMPETE WITH THE LATE LOUIS L'AMOUR!!
Comment: As I said in my review of THE MAGIC WAGON by Joe R. Lansdale, I'm not really a big fan of Western novels, though I have read a few over the years. Because I'm now such a huge fan of Mr. Lansdale's writing, I'll read anything by him, no matter what the genre. BLOOD DANCE is no exception. It's one of his earlier Westerns that was written back around 83 or 84 and finally saw publication two years ago with Subterranean Press. Since I loved THE MAGIC WAGON so much, I decided to pick up a copy of this short novel, and I have to say that I definitely got my money's worth out of it. BLOOD DANCE takes place in the Dakota Territory, ten years after the Civil War, and is the story of Jim Melgrhue, an ex-Confederate soldier and Louisiana boy. When he and his best friend, Bob Bucklaw, decide to join a gang a train robbers, led by Beau Carson, Jim's instincts tell him that there's nothing but trouble around the corner, which proves to be the case. The train robbery turns out to be a fiasco, and when Carson orders the execution of all the passengers, Jim and Bob quickly decide to take a stand against the gang and its leader. Though they valiantly try to save the passengers, the gun battle that ensues leaves Bob Bucklaw dead and Jim seriously wounded. When Jim eventually comes to, he has to once again fight in order to save himself from a Sioux war party that's investigating the train and its dead passengers. Only through luck and the unexpected appearance of John Johnston the Crow Killer (think of the Robert Redford movie, "Jeremiah Johnson") does our protagonist survive. Thus begins the journey of Jim Melgrhue's quest for vengeance against Beau Carson and his gang of killers. As Jim heals from his wounds, he tags along with Johnston for a while, and then with a Crow warrior by the name of Dead Thing, who has his own score to settle against Carson. This leads to a Sundance in which Jim experiences a vision of his future. Before the path of revenge has been completed, Jim will try his hand at gold mining, save the life of Wild Bill Hickok, and find himself at Little Big Horn with General George Custer and three thousand Indians that are looking for a little payback. Like the late Louis L'Amour, Joe R. Lansdale does his research and incorporates historical fact with fiction, carefully weaving his adventurous yarn so that the reader doesn't always know what's true and what's created from the author's imagination. BLOOD DANCE is a quick read that can be done in a couple of hours. What makes the novel so entertaining is Lansdale's ability as a storyteller. He has a unique skill at being able to create characters that come alive with just a few short sentences, a dark sense of humor that can make even the most jaded reader laugh out loud, and an uncanny instinct for making any story sound interesting With Lansdale, the reader knows that he's going to have fun from the first page to the last. I find it hard to understand why more people don't know about this exceptional East Texas author. This man can write horror, action, westerns, serious drama, children's fiction, and even zany over-the-top adventure stories. Illustrated by Mark A. Nelson, BLOOD DANCE is a sure winner for those who enjoy a good Western novel and want to have a few hours of pure fun.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Great One for Lansdale Collectors
Comment: This is another in Subterranean Press's "Lost Lansdale" series. I really like this series so far. The first two that I've read, Waltz of Shadows and Blood Dance, have been very entertaining and satisfying. They are not perfect books, but that is not the intention. In the case of Waltz of Shadows, Lansdale simply decided not to publish it when he finished it years ago. Blood Dance, though, was an early Western novel that just had a lot of bad luck through multiple planned publications.
Blood Dance is pretty much a traditional Western. Lansdale stays within the structure of an off-the-drugstore-rack pulp-style Western yarn, which is what I think he set out to do. Lansdale readers, though, will recognize plenty of Lansdale's stylistic trademarks. The book has some very minor flaws, and I won't get into them for fear of spoiling anything, but they were for me very easy to forgive. Generally, this is a very polished piece of writing. The story pulls you right along, and Lansdale knows that it's all about the characters anyway, and there are plenty of interesting and well-drawn characters here.
I like that Lansdale resisted the urge to revise these "lost" novels (although I think he cleaned up Waltz of Shadows a little for publication). As a long-time fan, it's enjoyable for me to read an early novel, warts and all. Waltz of Shadows is not likely to be published again any time soon, but this book, Blood Dance, might be in paperback someday for those that miss this limited edition.
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