The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher

I don’t know if I’ve seen a book as packed with ideas, tropes, storylines, and genres as The Six-Gun Tarot, by R.S. (Rod) Belcher. To give a rough idea, here is a mere sampling of what’s in the mix: Native American coyote mythology, zombies, a seemingly unkillable sheriff, Lovecraftian/Cthulhu mythos, Western genre tropes, acupuncture, Lilith mythos, steampunk, a re-examination of Christian creation myth, romance, Mormonism, Civil War stories, horror, ghosts, pirates (OK, only briefly mentioned, but still), Chinese creation mythology, hidden tunnels, reanimation, hidden pasts, assassins, hidden sexuality, evil preachers, hidden affairs, angels — Fallen and fallen — and, well, you get the idea. And remember, this is a “sampling.”

Is it too much? You know, I’m just not sure. You’d think it would be. Yo... Read More

The Shotgun Arcana by R.S. Belcher

To get a sense of R.S. Belcher's world of The Shotgun Arcana, his follow-up to The Six-Gun Tarot, one need only eavesdrop on the conversation of the seen-it-all residents of Golgotha, Nevada as they watch a wagon wheel away with some mysterious contents:
"Hey, Mutt, what is it this time . . . Another one of them boogeymen? Those black-eyed children? Like the ones that up and took the Summerton family and only left their shadows behind? . . . "

The crowd began to mutter among themselves.

"Them bat-people again, I bet ya . . . "

"Hope the buildings ain't coming alive like last June again . . . "

"Long as it ain't those worm things. I still can't swallow pert near nothing without wanting to upchuck."
That's life in a nutshell (a very tip-of-the-iceberg nut... Read More

The Queen of Swords by R.S. Belcher

R.S. Belcher’s first two Weird West books set in Golgotha, Nevada (The Six-Gun Tarot and The Shotgun Arcana) were hot mess cacophonies of fantasy tropes, characters, source elements, and the like — huge Sunday brunch all-you-can-eat buffets where lifting a lid off of one of those big metal serving bins might reveal zombies, bat-people, cannibals, a primal evil, primal evil’s minions, Mormon artifacts, mythos from just about anywhere or anywhen, martial-arts-wielding female assassins, a hundreds of years old pirate called “Gran,” and more. Lots more. Neither book should have worked, and yet both did, skating just on the edge... Read More

The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R.S. Belcher

The Brotherhood of the Wheel (2016) was one of those books I never really thought I’d read. However, I picked it up and it took exactly one paragraph for me to be hooked. The reason for that is simple. Belcher has one hell of an addicting style of writing. Lyrical, flowing, full of imagery and atmosphere, this book instantly sucked me in.

And then he hit me with all the mythology and urban legends and I was in heaven.

Belcher creates a whole new culture with The Brotherhood of the Wheel, a nomadic sort of life where almost everything worth happening happens on the move. The United States is a landmass drawn by highways and byways, and this is where the action happens – fast moving, across states and landscapes. Nothing happens in one place for very long, but despite this sprawling world where this book takes place,... Read More