The Horror Bookshelf

Weird West meets Hell Hole

Did you know there was a subgenre of horror/sci-fi called Weird West? I actually had no idea these types of stories had a specific classification, even though I’d read a few books and had written my own, Hell Hole.

Now, what is Weird West fiction? According to our old friend, Wikipedia, it’s defined as : “a literary sub-genre that combines elements of the Western with another literary genre,[1] usually horror, occult, or fantasy.”

My first experience with this very special, wonderfully strange genre, was through comic books in the 70’s and 80’s, all within the pages of Jonah Hex – that burned up, seemingly immortal arbiter of justice in the wild west. As a kid, I just thought he was cool as hell, a superhero that was also a cowboy and mean as a pitbull. Jonah Hex combined my love for cowboy tales and horror.

As I got older, I found the amazing tales of Joe R. Lansdale, one of my literary heroes, in my local library. The first book I read was Zeppelins West, a mélange of western, horror, science fiction and humor. I’d never read anything like it and was blown away. I promised myself that one day, I’d write a book in that same vein, as Lansdale seemed to have the same loves as me. My practice run was my college honors thesis on cowboy culture in America. No horror there, but at least I was getting the history down.

Cut to many moons later. Embarking on my fifth book for Samhain Publishing, I said, “It’s time, dammit. Let’s circle the wagons, build a fire and tell one whopper of a tale.” Over the course of 3 feverish months, I spun the story of Hell Hole. Set in 1905, a decade after the official days of the wild west were dead and gone, a hero was born in the person of Nat Blackburn, former cowboy, Apache scout, Rough Rider and now New York copper. Of course, he had to have a right hand man, a mysterious bad ass called Teta, a Dominican gun for hire who had saved Nat’s life in Cuba under Colonel Roosevelt.

Sending them into what is today an actual abandoned mining town, Hecla, Wyoming, I threw the kitchen sink at my boys. Writing it was like immersing myself in absolute stream of conscious. The story is littered with ghosts, black-eyed kids, wild men (what we call Bigfoot today), and so many other bizarre creatures, I almost couldn’t keep up. When people asked me what I was writing, I’d say, “Uh, well, it’s this kind of horror western with lots of nuttiness and men being men.”

If I only knew I could have answered the question with 2 simple words : Weird West. That would have made things so much easier.

So now I’m one of those Weird West guys, along with writers like Lansdale, Eric Red and Jonathan Janz. That’s some pretty good company.

Think I’ll go out and buy me a new spittoon.

About Hunter Shea

Hunter Shea is the author of paranormal and horror novels Forest of Shadows, Swamp Monster Massacre, Evil Eternal and Sinister Entity, which are all published by Samhain Horror. The June 3, 2014 release of his horrifying thrillerMontauk Monster is published by Kensington/Pinnacle.

He has also written a short story to be read prior to Sinister Entity, called The Graveyard Speaks (it’s free, go download!), and a book of stories called Asylum Scrawls. His next book from Samhain Horror, titled Hell Hole, is set to come out in August 2014 and is his first western horror.

His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Dark Moon Digest, Morpheus Tales, and the upcoming anthology, Shocklines : Fresh Voices in Terror. His obsession with all things horrific has led him to real life exploration of the paranormal, interviews with exorcists, and other things that would keep most people awake with the lights on.

He is also half of the two men show, Monster Men, which is a video podcast that takes a fun look at the world of horror. You can read about his latest travails and communicate with him at www.huntershea.com, on Twitter @HunterShea1, Facebook fan page at Hunter Shea or the Monster Men 13 channel on YouTube.