Booklog 94/2020: Clayton Snyder: Cold West

[jacey]

This is Weird West as opposed to Wild West. I bought it because of a good review on Goodreads, but still can't make up my mind as to whether I like it, even though I think it's good. It's violent and grim. Wil Cutter, once a truly nasty piece of work forced into violence to defend his kind from the might of the Church, has settled down, but the wife who changed him is dead of the croup, and his farm is failing, not likely to be able to provide for him and his sons for much longer. So when an old friend offers him a bounty hunting job he cleans up his rusted pistol, leaves the boys in charge of the farm and rides off. It's all nail-bitingly downhill from there for Wil. Violence and pain are the two driving forces behind this, but the author really get's under Cutter's skin and we see not only the story going forward, but also what let up to it. The Church is all powerful and those who have talents that can't be harnessed are outside the law. Cutter is a null. He can counter other people's magic and also open gateways that can allow deadly creatures from a parallel dimension into his own world. But we discover the magical elements slowly. At first this reads like a regular western, but it's far from that as it pounds to its inevitable conclusion.