Customer Reviews

Walking Wolf: A Weird Western

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A surprisingly great book with very few downfalls. The life of Bill Skillet (Vargr) is one adventure after another... It hard to believe all he has went through in his short pretender life. I enjoyed this book a great deal more that Wild Blood. The charters and descriptions of the events around the storyline were much more interesting and entertaining. The two downfall of the book: 1. Might of had a little to much Indian history in it. 2. Book was to short.(only 181 pages). I could of read 300 pages or another book on Walking Wolf. Would highly suggest this to any fan on Horror, Werewolves, or Vampires. Give it a 5......

I really wanted to like this book -- I mean what's not to like about a Native American werewolf story set in the 19th century American West? Well, I did like it some. The hero, Billy Skillet, is likeable and pretty well drawn. The horror elements are not too graphic yet still a bit out-there. There's a lot of quirky humor in the book. On the other hand, the book should have been about 50 pages longer. It seems short, and I wanted more detail on some of the other characters and a little more suspense in the conflict between Billy and the hunter who is after him. There's also one stretch where the author describes some of the historical detail leading up to the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, and the novel's voice shifts from folksy to more academic. That was a bit jarring. The text could have used a little more editing, because there were a few typos that never should have seen the light of day. Overall, I enjoyed the book with some reservations. Readers who like alternative takes on the werewolf theme may well like Walking Wolf.

This is one of the few original werewolf stories I've read in a long, long time. Nancy A. Collins takes you on a no-holds-barred walk through the wild West or, as the subtitle calls it, the weird West. It is, in turns, brutal, violent, honest, truthful, sad, hopeful but, at all turns, very well written. This is a story of redefinition and living in very different worlds; Walking Wolf, never knowing who his parents really are to begin with (and, therefore, not exactly a part of the Comanche tribe that raises him) leaves his Comanche life mostly out of self-guilt for a crime that is a crime in only his eyes and becomes Billy Skillet in the world at large (the world of the White Man, as it were) and, through a series of turns and events that I don't want to delve into for fear of ruining the story for a first-time reader, ends up living with the Sioux tribe. Even when he finds his own people and gains a family, he is always an outcast and always dealing with loss. He attains noble victories of high morality at a high cost. Collins manages to make a perfect blend of both the horror and Western genres. I was personally amazed at how seamlessly she weaved actual discussions of the history of Native Americans into Walking Wolf's first-person narrative. None of it is heavy-handed nor distracting. In fact, it adds to the story. We've all heard of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and maybe Red Cloud, but how many times have we seen or heard of the likes of Rain-in-the-Face, Black Kettle, Little Robe, Blue Horse, Dull Knife, Pawnee Killer, Little Thunder, Spotted Tail, etc? She's done her research. This is also one of the few books where the cover almost makes the book. It's a picture of a Native American brave with a wolf's head seamlessly transposed on its body; the wonders of photoshop or did someone actually go through the effort of blending two negatives in the dark room? Either way it's an awesome picture. You have to see it to believe it. This is a book that should ever remain in print for the simple fact of seeing a writer can go out on a limb and step completely out of genre distinctions and blend things together to make a grand tale. I'd almost go so far as to say this is more for Western readers who have always ached for something different, but I think horror readers would be gravely, hugely mistaken for missing it. Undoubtedly a five-star book.

This is one of the few original werewolf stories I've read in a long, long time. Nancy A. Collins takes you on a no-holds-barred walk through the wild West or, as the subtitle calls it, the weird West. It is, in turns, brutal, violent, honest, truthful, sad, hopeful but, at all turns, very well written. This is a story of redefinition and living in very different worlds; Walking Wolf, never knowing who his parents really are to begin with (and, therefore, not exactly a part of the Comanche tribe that raises him) leaves his Comanche life mostly out of self-guilt for a crime that is a crime in only his eyes and becomes Billy Skillet in the world at large (the world of the White Man, as it were) and, through a series of turns and events that I don't want to delve into for fear of ruining the story for a first-time reader, ends up living with the Sioux tribe. Even when he finds his own people and gains a family, he is always an outcast and always dealing with loss. He attains noble victories of high morality at a high cost. Collins manages to make a perfect blend of both the horror and Western genres. I was personally amazed at how seamlessly she weaved actual discussions of the history of Native Americans into Walking Wolf's first-person narrative. None of it is heavy-handed nor distracting. In fact, it adds to the story. We've all heard of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and maybe Red Cloud, but how many times have we seen or heard of the likes of Rain-in-the-Face, Black Kettle, Little Robe, Blue Horse, Dull Knife, Pawnee Killer, Little Thunder, Spotted Tail, etc? She's done her research. This is also one of the few books where the cover almost makes the book. It's a picture of a Native American brave with a wolf's head seamlessly transposed on its body; the wonders of photoshop or did someone actually go through the effort of blending two negatives in the dark room? Either way it's an awesome picture. You have to see it to believe it. This is a book that should ever remain in print for the simple fact of seeing a writer can go out on a limb and step completely out of genre distinctions and blend things together to make a grand tale. I'd almost go so far as to say this is more for Western readers who have always ached for something different, but I think horror readers would be gravely, hugely mistaken for missing it. Undoubtedly a five-star book.