ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier
THE SIX-GUN TAROT
By R.S. Belcher
Tor Books
361 pages
Were we about to pitch this book as a possible movie to a
Hollywood studio, we would present
it as a super amalgamated cross between Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” and
Lawrence Kasdan’s “Silverado.”
If you are an avid reader, then we no need to tell you that
the new pulp genre known as the Weird Western is extremely popular these
days. From anthologies and novels,
it is a fantasy theme that has captured the fancy of readers everywhere. “The Six-Gun Tarot” is the best
Weird Western book on the market today.
The setting is post-civil war in a Nevada mining town called
Golgotha. For reasons known only
to a select few, it is the nexus of good and evil at the heart of the universe. Locked up its mountains lies an ancient
evil that existed before creation and here Belcher dives into Lovecraft
territory head-on setting forth the book’s primary plot conflict. The beast, known as the Black Wurm, is
about to be released from captivity and if it succeeds it will destroy the
world.
Thus is falls upon a handful of truly memorable characters
to save creation. These include
Sheriff Jonathan Highfather, a man who cannot be killed; his deputy, a
half-breed Indian coyote-changeling called Mutt, a young fifteen year old boy,
Jim Negrey, on the run from the law who possesses a mysterious all-powerful eye
said to contain unimaginable power and the beautiful but deadly Maude
Stapleton, a Southern Belle secretly trained in ancient martial arts and occult
practices.
That is only a sampling of some of the fantastical citizens
of Golgotha that play an active part in this cataclysmic battle between light
and dark, good and evil. There’s
also Auggie, the local shop merchant who keeps his dead wife alive in a vat of
chemicals put together by the town’s eccentric inventor and Malachi Bick, the
saloon owner who just may be a fallen angel sent to protect mankind at the
beginning of time.
“The Six-Gun Tarot” is one of those rare books that kept
surprising us from chapter to chapter.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any weirder, it did just that until
we became totally enraptured by Belcher’s daring and exuberant
imagination. It certainly has no
bounds. This is a book we
recommend to all lovers of fantastic fiction and assure you once you’ve ridden
into Golgotha, you won’t want to leave.