David B Riley

There was a type of science fiction story that was common in the 1950s that showed how today’s professions would change in the future. I still, very occasionally, come across examples of this type of story.

The profession at the center of this story is one I’m not sure has ever been covered before in science fiction: an insurance claims adjustor (unless it’s in Frederik Pohl’s and Lester Del Rey’s satirical look at the insurance industry, Preferred Risk, which I have not read).

That’s not the only thing in this enjoyable and fun novel that reminded me of a novel from the 1950s. It’s also sparse and fast moving and has plenty of humorous interaction between humans and aliens.

Even though this novel started out as a short story, it’s much tighter than Riley’s other novels and incorporates some ongoing threads successfully throughout all its episodes.

Our heroine is Sarah Meadows. She graduates with honors from the Martian School of Economics, gets her license to sell insurance, and starts working for Gompers Insurance.

On her first day on the job, she meets the rather paranoid Phillip Phillips who is convinced someone is trying to kill him and wants to look out for his mother, so Meadows makes him her first sale. Phillips’ story will be one of the ongoing threads.

The second thing that happens that day is Dragon, an appropriately named alien and the real owner of Gompers Insurance (though it’s officially a publically trading company) stops by to see her. He likes his employees to reach their “full potential” and offers Meadows a job in the company’s Special Operations division. Basically, he says it’s a job as a “glorified claims adjustor”. She accepts the offer. He tells her most of the Special Operations employees like their training – if they survive.

Riley makes the interesting decision to not give us anything about that training in order to keep his story moving, but it’s clear Meadows learns a lot. She turns out to be a hardbitten, clever claims adjustor, full of foresight and capable of dealing out a lot of violence when necessary.

She’ll find herself battling space pirates, investigating a space station’s reappearance after it vanished 20 years ago, checking out a haunted spaceship, and getting involved in Earth Force’s war with the lizard-like aliens known as the Tau, a war Gompers is asked to insure.

Meadows’ boss at Gompes is the exiled king of the planet Chiron, Karl Phillip Geste the third, and she becomes involved with his problems too since Chiron has a puppet government installed by Earth Force. Being a citizen of the Martian Republic, Meadows doesn’t have a lot of time for Earth Force – for very personal reasons we come to learn, and she becomes friends with several Tau which leads to a genuinely satisfying and emotional climax to the novel.

Other subplots involve Geste and Meadows constantly rebelling against the petty dictates of Gompers’s Financial Director, the Harvard graduate Don Don, Meadows frequent encounters with a corrupt Martian politician, and references to an old schoolmate, Billy Hawkins. Hawkins made Meadows “eat dirt” back in grade school which spurred a years long competition between the two which Meadows credits with making her the woman she is, and their story has an unexpected ending.

Along the way, Meadows finds herself not only constantly thwarted in her efforts to sleep a night in her own bed but also in her rare attempted assignations with men.

This is something of a throwback novel to an older type of sf story but with a novel concept. And that’s a good thing.

David Lee Summers’ “Foreword” was added to the novel after Riley’s death and is an appreciation of Riley and notes some of the character traits he shared with Meadows.… (altro)

This is a spin off from Riley’s far more enjoyable The Devil Draws Two, the adventures of somewhat dimwitted Miles O’Malley, a barber turned Secret Service agent. One of O’Malley’s strange friends is Mabel, a fallen angel. This book is her story, and we also meet her evil older sister, Kevin, another fallen angel. (Janus, another fallen angel in the earlier book, gets no mention here.)

Essentially, this short novel is made up of three episodes: Mabel and Kevin at the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863, O’Malley and Mabel in Deadwood in 1877, and, finally, Kevin, O’Malley, and Mabel in O’Malley’s San Francisco, O’Malley’s base of operation.

As with The Devil Draws Two, Riley mixes science fiction (Martians bent on enslaving Earth), fantasy (the brief appearance of a vampire around Vicksburg as well as Mabel working for God and the appearance of the Devil aka Nick and two of his magic revolvers), and weird science (a Berkley professor and his students throwing in with Kevin and her plan to aid the Martian invasion).

But it’s not a very good book. Riley’s brand of humor doesn’t work here. We get a lot of jokes about evil Kevin’s love of cannibalism (or, at least, getting humans to unknowingly eat each other) and sex mostly fall flat. It’s only the third part of the book which gets better with some of Riley’s humorous observations on Federal bureaucracy. The bits with the Berkley crowd work too. We get a lot of jokes about dominatrixes in this part too with various degrees of success.

Mabel comes off as a bit of a wayward child of Nick’s though she’s willing to help out God on occasion. Don’t expect any coherent alternate theology here.

And don’t let this be your first introduction to Riley or the weird western.… (altro)

As I recently learned, we won’t be getting any more from David B. Riley. He died in 2021.

After the somewhat disappointing experience of Six-Guns Straight From Hell 3, I was glad to see here many of the familiar writers from previous Riley anthologies and his magazine Science Fiction Trails.

As was often the case in those projects, there is a lot of humor here. I won’t say any of it made me laugh at loud, but I smiled several times, and that’s all that you can expect from me. Even worse than somebody fumbling around with my heartstrings trying to invoke pathos is a writer trying to make a joke and failing utterly.

Riley’s “Preface” tells us this is not a shared world anthology but a “loose confederation of stories set in the Town of Dry Gulch, Colorado.” You have to keep that in mind when encountering some inconsistencies between stories. He gives us some background on Dry Gulch’s status in the year 1881. Despite the name, it does have water year round.

The remit to contributors was to use at least one of the following characters in the stories:

"Elmer Crabtree, the town’s ever optimistic mayor. He’s 40, and also owns the Dry Gulch Bank. He’s always looking for some scheme to promote the town. Very fond of cigars. Secretly loves Wendy Washer (she’s way too young for him).

"Cleveland Jackson, 26, the town blacksmith. He’s the only black man in town. He was never a slave and was born in Canada. Likes to cook barbecue that most folks think is disgusting [they don’t think barbecue is disgusting, his cooking is disgusting].

"Libby Huffington, 24, disowned by her wealthy family back east after some sort of scandalous affair with a married man, she now struggles to get by as the local school teacher. Described as a strikingly pretty redhead.

"Jedediah Jones, 27, town marshal. Tries to keep the peace and constantly looking for someone to play chess with, which is a game few people know how to play. Has a handlebar moustache, but is going bald. Very shy with women.

"Wing Fung, 30, came from China looking for work. He runs the Wing Laundry. He’s also a criminal and involved in various shady dealings.

"Wendy Washer, 23, owns the Dry Gulch Saloon and the Dry Gulch Bakery next door. She has a lot of money for a girl her age and no one is quite sure how she got it. Described as a gorgeous brunette with emerald green eyes.

"Chief Running Bear, 30, from the Arapaho Tribe. He works part time in the saloon dealing cards.

"Henry Steelman, 36, the town drunk. A pathetic loser who drinks everything he can and is generally filthy most of the time. Keeps seeing ghosts.

"Kuto, 122, from Planet Kalos. He comes by town whenever he’s in the area. About four feet tall, he has green skin and orange glowing eyes. Likes to dress in western attire including his prized black Stetson hat. [also has a silver space suit when flying his flying saucer] Loves to play the piano and hangs out in the Dry Gulch Saloon.
"
"Fluffy, 4, Mrs. Duncan’s cat.The Gazette is obsessed with everything this cat does.

“Rusty’s Biscuits” from Raymond Broadbeard introduces Kuto. Unsure of how peaceful the natives are (Chief Running Bear still doesn’t know the answer to that), he’s been checking out Dry Gulch at night and leaving very nice meals for Rusty, a poor prospector living two miles outside of town. Wendy, after sampling one of the biscuits, pronounces it an “orgasm on a plate”, and she and Running Bear set off, with Rusty’s help, to track town their source.

Riley’s “The Gonzalez Brothers Family Outing” has that gang coming to Dry Gulch. In pursuit is Sheriff Pat Garrett, up from New Mexico. When town drunk Henry finds out from Garrett there’s a thousand dollar reward for the gang, he immediately gives their location. But Garret only captures one before the rest flee. Henry’s not getting his money because the reward is for all the gang. So, Henry talks Kuto into tracking down the remaining two brothers

“A Hanging to Remember” is one of Henry Ram’s tales about Elijah Potbury, necromancer and resurrector of the dead. He’s come down from his usual haunt of Name Pending in Wyoming Territory to look for his assistant Nat McGrue. He sent McGue down to pick up some bodies to revive and put to work in Wyoming mines. The trouble is that the local vigilance committee hanged McGrue on the bogus charge of stealing his own wagon and horses. And they’re going to keep hanging him because McGrue can’t be killed. Mayor Crabtree thinks hanging McGue over and over again would be a splendid tourist attraction, and Potbury has to figure out a way to convince him and the vigilance committee to let his assistant go. There’s a lot of black humor in this one

Hank the town drunk is my favorite character in the book, and Davide Mana’s “Hank’s Ghosts” tells us about all the dead people Hank sees. Everybody has a ghost hanging around them except Wendy. And, given that he’s always in the saloon, Hank fears that, when he dies, he will end up violating her “perfect solitude”.

A bounty hunter, the Sundown Kid aka Junipero Vengador, comes to Dry Gulch in “Six Toes in a Boot” from Patrick Dorn. He’s no ordinary man, but a vampire who turned from killing Catholics and conquistadors to working for Catholic Church in exchange for money and consecrated sacremental wine. He’s in town looking for a stolen holy relic, and we learn that Wendy may not be all she appears.

Jill Hand’s “Gideon Trumbull’s Invention” is full of amusing patter as salesman comes to town to sell his Paragon Brass-Bound Never-Fail Safety Coffin. As a demonstration, he has himself buried alive in the coffin for an hour after which he’ll escape his grave. At least that’s the plan, but things don’t work that way.

Kuto’s past is the subject of “No Friends of Mine”. A couple of his screw-up ex-colleagues from the Space Corps show up in response to his call for assistance in repairing his space ship. Except, it really doesn’t need repairing. Kuto’s just decided to stay on Earth and has to figure out a way of getting rid of this unwanted help. This being a story from J. A. Campbell, animals are, of course, involved.

Sam Knight’s “What Happens When You Wet Your Whistle in Dry Gulch” is one of the best stories in the book. Horace, a waggonner, stops in with a load of spices for Wendy’s bakery and finds himself involved with Hank in a strange adventure that brings up matters they think they should remember but just can’t quite. There’s a beautiful woman in a tight silvery suit and with orange skin, green hair, and glowing yellow eyes. The latter are the most beautiful things Horace has ever seen, and lustful thoughts come to mind. Even the woman pointing a gun at Horace’s head and telling him to stop because she knows what he’s thinking, does little. And then there’s the offworld intrigue involving baked goods and a mysterious substance called Spuroninamatia,

Kit Volker’s “They Can’t Print It If It Ain’t True” is a humorous story even if it does involve murder. Local preacher Weatherspoon goes berserk and kills his wife Gretchen (the valued help in Wendy’s bakery), and The Dry Gulch Gazette drops its usual coverage of Fluffy to opine about Wendy’s saloon having an “atmosphere of debauchery” and that she likes to sleep in the nude. Hank saves the day in this one.

“An Old-Fashioned Fourth” is what Marshall Jones wants in John Howard’s story. But there are those hellion girls, Halley and Allison Collins. Jones fantasizes about executing them or sending them to reform school. Oddly, their older brother Otis is the epitome of good behavior and politeness. But Halley talks Otis into going into the town’s zinc mine supposedly haunted by Curly Joe, a man who died in an accident involving a substantial amount of dynamite.

Hank comes into an inheritance in “The Prospector” from Dan Fitzimmons. He buys some stock in a zinc mine. (There’s a running joke through this story and others in the book that nobody knows what zinc is.) Henry goes to the mine he’s now a shareholder in and find some grasshopper creatures stealing its zinc. They’re not taking Hank’s zinc, so he lobs some dynamite at them and summons help. The grasshopper creatures explain one of the details in Knight’s “Leaving Dry Gulch on the Midnight Train” in Six-Guns Straight From Hell 3. As I suspected, the latter serves as a bit of a coda to this book.

And Hank sets things going in “Old Time Religion” from Horst Benson. Drunk as usual when he visits the nearby town of Pronghorn, Hank unfortunately mistakes a confessional booth in the town’s Catholic Church for an outhouse. Its unstable priest goes on a bizarre vendetta against Hank back in Dry Gulch.

This one was fun with all its stories having some element making them weird westerns.

I’d suggest you buy the print version of this one. My kindle edition had editorial footnotes and an unexpected font change in one story. I’m suspecting this might have been something Riley wasn’t able to attend to before he died.… (altro)

In the past, we have been most appreciative of the efforts of Mr. Riley, both by himself and with a company of selected writers, in presenting the sort of tales known as “weird westerns”. These stories of marvel bring strangeness and horror into the lands and times of this great country’s expansion and settlement. The wonders displayed to us may be marvelous and horrible creatures invented solely by Mr. Riley’s authors or the introduction of fabled beasts into the western lands or, on occasion, some fanciful extension of the sciences and inventions which have brought so many modifications of our old ways of life.

It is with regret that we must say Mr. Riley’s latest offering in this area is quite disappointing not only in its tales but even its basic presentation.

Sam Knight is an author that has found favor with us before and who has given us stories of imagination that also take care to present those times in an accurate way. However, his “Leaving Dry Gulch on the Midnight Train” is too stuffed, a complaint, which we will see, is somewhat unique to the offerings here. His story starts out with mystery and dreaded doom as Mr. Grandy, manager of the railroad station of Dry Gulch, Colorado, hears mournful train whistles in the midnight air. But they are not those of Dry Gulch’s weekly train, and Mr. Grandy’s has heard their like before the town’s tragedy of twenty-one miners grievously dying in a gas explosion in the local zinc mine. The impending festivities of nineteen couples anticipating their nuptials on “Wedding Day” does nothing to ease Mr. Grandy’s apprehensions while he deals with a new employee of the railroad learning his duties.

While, at story’s end, Knight gives us a wonderous vision, its effect is too much weakened by reference to events we have not been presented to us including the appearance of a citizen who does not seem to be human. Upon investigation, we have learned that this tale is joined to an earlier project of Riley’s, Tales of Dry Gulch. The effect of seemingly bringing so much into this tale from that earlier book rather gives us the impression of having an interesting story interrupted at the end by the half-heard story of some eccentric family.

We are not sure when the curious method of a doomed character giving us his account without recording it in some way and with no one present was first invented, but Matthew Hellman avails himself of it in “My Nameless Beast”. He presents us a thoroughly bad man fleeing after a murder and robbery and aided by a magnificent, intelligent horse he has stolen. As is his custom, he considers many appellations for his mount. But, as events progress, the horse gives less in aid and assumes a menacing presence. It is one of the few tales in this book where the author has endeavored to give us atmosphere and a voice appropriate to his tale.

Mr. Riley himself gives us the enigmatic “Whatever Happened to Ignacio Cortez?” We are introduced to an exceedingly calm and nonplussed Abigail Perkins who has experienced the horror of the Cortez brothers, on the day of her sixteenth birthday, killing her mother and attempting a violation of her body as well as that of Miss Perkins. Two of the vile men are killed by Miss Perkins, but the remaining one, Ignacio, is only wounded. On his way to trial, he gives Miss Perkins a strange watch with the words “Killing time” and “Perdition” written on it. Marvelous events ensue though Riley does not tell us what the watch is exactly.

On many occassions, the word “underdeveloped” occurs to us when reading this book’s stories, and so it is with Patrick Dorn’s “A Taste of Purgatory”. It is little more than a tale of attempted vulgar humor and events that do not shock or engender horror. We are presented with a defrocked preacher attending the call of nature in an outhouse and a fiery and stinking mass emergeing from the depths to consume him.

We welcome the inclusion of figures from the history of the frontier into these “weird westerns”. They are often depicted in ways paradoxical from our knowledge of them or as being involved in some occulted activity we were not cognizant of. John Kiste’s “Tinhorn Tintype” is of this type. Granted, he does not give us a famous personage but, instead, Camillus Fly which some may recognize as the proprietor of the photography studio adjacent to the locale of the famed Gunfight at the OK Corral. Mr. Fly has acquired, from the mayor of Tombstone, a camera which has recorded the unquiet deaths of several Indians, and Fly believes it has captured their souls. In the wake of the famed fracas, Mr. Fly’s brother captures the image of Billy Clanton as he expires. Yet, the proof of Mr. Fly’s contention is quite anticlimactic, a story that uses apparitions but does little to develop drama from their presence.

Kristal Stittle’s “Grober” is not much more than another battle between a man and a monstrous beast though here our “hero”, Dale Beckerson, is aided by his faithful horse Muriel. We learn that the grobers are known to all peoples and governments though not spoken of. Beckerson has inherited his vocation from his father and must turn, in his solitary quest, to occasionally turn to robbery to supply his needs and obtain gold, a substance of great use when confronting these beasts. While it possesses little novelty apart from its monsters, at least Stittle has given us emotion and character in his story.

Rob Francis’ “God’s Own Land” offers us another tale of battle with fabulous beasts though of a more complicated sort. Its hero, known only by the appellation “Scout” in honor of his army service (and he, perhaps, is a deserter) joins a party into the lands along the Gila River that have recently been liberated from Mexico. There they find a curiously abandoned town they seek to rehabilitate. But soon “sand lions” show up to render violent death, a horror heightened by their motives and the revelation of their secret confederate. While not a tale destined to live long in memory, it is another acceptable entertainment.

We have not had a great fondness for the majority of works we have encountered from David Boop’s hands (though his “Bleeding the Bank Dry” did find favor with us) and his “The Metal Skins” is no exception. He again gives us a tale taking place in and around the cursed town of Drowned Horse. While the use of use of “metal men” operated by strange creatures with the intent of provoking a war between white and Indian is of interest, Bopp denies us details of this scheme that are of obvious interest. Also, we hear too little of the nature and motives of the genius behind them.

Though he is a desperate and dangerous man of criminal disposition, Bryan Stubbles compels us to avidly follow his narration in “The Surest Shot”. As he is dying, he is determined to avenge himself on the posse pursuing him. But we must also note that this tale again uses the old chestnut of a deal-with-the-devil.

Ross Baxter starts his “Foolproof Plan” with an account of troubling grandeur, the desolation of the fortunes and peoples of America when a plague known as The Wrath arises. It transforms its victims, though its means of spread seem peculiar, into violent people. When the story starts, America’s ports are blockaded by foreign powers to prevent the spread of the sickness, and anarchy has overtaken much of the country. Our hero, Texas Ranger Captain Chats Harris, is of an age making him fixed in habits so he continues his duties and is called to investigate the cult of a defrocked clergyman, Father Murphy, who claims to chose who will catch the fearsome disease. Harris seeks to apprehend him, but what ensues seems a rash action by him and also makes the story seemingly a prelude to a larger tale Baxter wants to tell.

James Fitzsimmons’ “Fiori’s Cabinet of Curiosities” illustrates that a furious hurly-burly of action does not a satisfying tale make. It seems as if it is a schema of a larger work, perhaps half of a novel, and has no time to develop either drama or character. Fitzsimmons thinks that, at this present age, the skillful use of firearms by Pinkerton agent April O’Casey and her contemplation of pressing physical intimacy on her parter is more novel than it is. Into this fitful mix is also a magical cabinet that conveninetly provides aid to both heroes and villains alike.

We can commend Bert Edens for matching grasp and reach in his “Blood, Mud and Retribution”, a simple, if compelling, beater-beaten story in which a soiled dove, brutalized by a customer, takes her revenge.

Or should we know the story under the title “Death’s Horse” and presented by K. C. Grifant for, in a disgraceful lapse in the care of presentation, there is a story under that title that is identical to the aforementioned “Blood, Mud, and Retribution”? However, we believe credit must be given to Edens given the latter title being more appropriate to this tale.

C. W. Blackwell’s “Apostles of the Spider God” also deals with unfortunate ladies of the evening, here driven from their town into the desert. Most die, but the survivor meets an ancient god in a cave in which she seeks shelter. The means of vengeance is offered to her.

More monsters are battled in “Manifest Destiny” by A. K. McCarthy. It is a thrilling, well-presented drama of a wagon train beset by a horror out of the night. Our heroine, Madeline Montague, is courageous and inventive, but, at story’s end, she has, perhaps, not survived unscathed.

A tale of friendship formed in the cauldron of the Civil War is at the heart of J. A. Campbell’s “Survive til Dawn”. A marshal and a preacher confront the depredations of a skinwalker on a mining camp and group of Indians. It is pleasant enough but not remarkable, and it is hinted that we will have further adventures from these two.

Radar DeBoard’s “Dead Hand Shooting” is a simple but well-told tale of revenge. A man unjustly lynched by a corrupt sheriff and his gang returns from the grave to render violent justice.

There is a bitter, sardonic use of history with “In Return” from Asher Ellis. Two army scouts, Briars and Weaver, save the proprietor of a travelling medicine show from an attack from Indians. In gratitude, he offers them an elixir that promises to extend life. Briars mocks the incredulous Weaver in taking it and for believing the salesman’s story. But, perhaps, Weaver has the last, terrible, wheezing laugh.

An outlaw, shot up after committing a bank robbery, and now horseless, loyally looks for the young man, the Kid, who he involved in the event to his regret. The main interest of Jay Scate’s “Jacob Lowe’s Return” is the surprising revelation at the end as to how the outlaws’ vengeance and survival is accomplished.

We have been quite amenable to the works of Joel Jenkins in the past and his “In the Night Watches” did not disappoint. Its joys come less from the confrontation of bounty hunter Lone Crow, possessor of a magical revolver blessed by a prophet, battling a beast known as the behinder from its method of attack than the characters he aids and, in one case, give him valuable assistance. In his monster hunting, Lone Crow ponders matters of the heart and the moral issues surrounding them.

Generally, we found this anthology to possess little novelty or variety in its tales’ conceits and too often the premises presented have been shorn of drama, character, and that quality of transporting us to another time and place and the resulting engenderment of emotions. In short, these tales too seldom give us “atmosphere” and rely on the, too often, impuissant ability of mere surface detail to retain our attention. We were momentarily held by some of the tales, but very few will live on in our memories.

However, while we shall regard this as, largely, a regrettable fall of standards for Mr. Riley, we shall not deny ourselves other examples of his editorial work.

Finally, we wonder, given Mr. Riley’s frequent lamentation that he can find so few hands that will turn to the weird western, if the paucity of such artists reduced the quality of this book.… (altro)