Out on the trails of the Old West, there are hidden places. Shadows off the path, a mystery at the far end of the journey. In those dark spaces, the weird can be found. In those places, this anthology exists, spinning tales of fantasy and horror, out there where a six-shooter may not be enough to save you. 

There might be dinosaurs lurking there, or dragons - maybe the ghosts still walking the town they used to frequent. 

I loved the range of imagination on show here. There's Joachim Heijndermans' tale of a gunslinger in a town he might be better off not picking a fight in, in When The Bell Strikes Three, the kind of story that feels like it's still lurking in The Twilight Zone, resting its boots on a boardwalk rail as the music starts to play. 

There's The Case of the Vanishing Unicorns, by James Blakey, the kind of mystery a mid-West Poirot might have loved to solve. 

I also enjoyed No-Sell, from Ricardo Victoria, taking the theme and running with it, for in a Wild West world where magic is commonplace, what use is a gun? And what would the equivalent of a snake oil salesman do with one if he had one?

Sara Codair takes the theme to the plains of Mars, with a particularly poignant tale of a broken marriage, and the tests the partners face as they try to keep their community alive. 

Then there's Brent A Harris' tale of Bass Reeves, the black lawman who inspired the legend of the Lone Ranger, here having to take on a dragon, a cracking tale of adventure. 

Diana Paxson offers a tale of an artist that offers a simmering feeling of Lovecraft to it - and there's even a Robert E Howard story, with Solomon Kane swinging into action. 

There are more than two dozen tales in here - so of course some stand out to me more than others, such is the way of anthologies. 

One note I should make - I appear in the anthology twice, once in the list of folks who backed the Kickstarter, and once as a character! I'm polishing glasses behind the bar for Robert Lee Beers' reprinted tale of time travellers arriving just in time for the San Francisco earthquake... I fear some of those glasses might get broken. 

All in all, this is a smashing way to discover a host of authors in the Weird West genre - with some great stories to read along the way. Joachim Heijndermans' story was my favourite, with Sara Codair's not far behind, but pick it up, find your own new author to love. 

AI Rating: 5/5

Out on the trails of the Old West, there are hidden places. Shadows off the path, a mystery at the far end of the journey. In those dark spaces, the weird can be found. In those places, this anthology exists, spinning tales of fantasy and horror, out there where a six-shooter may not be enough to save you.

There might be dinosaurs lurking there, or dragons - maybe the ghosts still walking the town they used to frequent.

I loved the range of imagination on show here. There's Joachim Heijndermans' tale of a gunslinger in a town he might be better off not picking a fight in, in When The Bell Strikes Three, the kind of story that feels like it's still lurking in The Twilight Zone, resting its boots on a boardwalk rail as the music starts to play.

There's The Case of the Vanishing Unicorns, by James Blakey, the kind of mystery a mid-West Poirot might have loved to solve.

I also enjoyed No-Sell, from Ricardo Victoria, taking the theme and running with it, for in a Wild West world where magic is commonplace, what use is a gun? And what would the equivalent of a snake oil salesman do with one if he had one?

Sara Codair takes the theme to the plains of Mars, with a particularly poignant tale of a broken marriage, and the tests the partners face as they try to keep their community alive.

Then there's Brent A Harris' tale of Bass Reeves, the black lawman who inspired the legend of the Lone Ranger, here having to take on a dragon, a cracking tale of adventure.

Diana Paxson offers a tale of an artist that offers a simmering feeling of Lovecraft to it - and there's even a Robert E Howard story, with Solomon Kane swinging into action.

There are more than two dozen tales in here - so of course some stand out to me more than others, such is the way of anthologies.

One note I should make - I appear in the anthology twice, once in the list of folks who backed the Kickstarter, and once as a character! I'm polishing glasses behind the bar for Robert Lee Beers' reprinted tale of time travellers arriving just in time for the San Francisco earthquake... I fear some of those glasses might get broken.

All in all, this is a smashing way to discover a host of authors in the Weird West genre - with some great stories to read along the way. Joachim Heijndermans' story was my favourite, with Sara Codair's not far behind, but pick it up, find your own new author to love.

Gunsmoke and Dragonfire (Aradia Publishing, 2019) edited by Diane Morrison is an anthology of stories that mash up fantasy with westerns, resulting in a collection of 25 stories where the good guys don’t always ride white horses … but they might ride good dragons.

Many of the stories in this anthology are reprints, including a classic Solomon Kane story from Robert E. Howard, “Rattle of Bones.” A few of the stories are novella length or longer, and many are set in worlds where the authors have written other stories or longer pieces.

With so many stories to choose from, there were a lot that grabbed my attention. Sara Codair’s “Red Tide Rising” is a little more in the sci-fi end of the universe of speculative fiction, but their well-written characters and clever plot made this story work well within the confines of the anthology. I also enjoyed the plotting and world building in Zach Chapman’s “Rick and the Green Gunslinger,” where spells are etched into bullets and cast by firing a gun.

Liam Hogan’s “Pinkerton” had a really fun twist on the idea that the Pinkertons always get their man, and Jude-Marie Green’s “Glorious Madness” is a delightful retelling of Don Quixote. I also liked R. Daniel Lester’s “The Sound of One Shoe Tapping” both for the clever title and as a nice compact story that worked perfectly at its brief length. Finally, I found “Fallen Horseshoes” by G. Scott Huggins to be wonderfully atmospheric and creepy, while “Balthazar Beausoliel’s Blink Wolf Badger” by Paul Alex Gray was an action-packed romp with a real sense of the peril the main character faced.

If you enjoy westerns with fantasy (and sometimes sci-fi) elements, ranging from steampunk to magic and beyond, you’ll likely find a new favorite or several among the stories in Gunsmoke and Dragonfire!

The publisher provided us with a free copy of this anthology in exchange for review consideration.