The Golden Spurs: The Best of Western Short Fiction

by Dale L. Walker, Elmer Kelton, Loren D. Estleman

Book Overview

A collection of the best Western short stories selected by the Western Writer's of America features stories by James Bellah, Dorothy M. Johnson, and Will Henry. Original. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312852517
• ISBN13: 9780312852511
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Best of the Best Anthology. Great Introduction to Western Short Stories

Since 1953 the Western Writers of America have granted the Golden Spur award each year to the very best western writers. The 15 short stories in this collection, titled The Golden Spurs, were selected from the years 1953 to 1988. Like many readers, I am not especially familiar with this genre, but I do occasionally read westerns. The subtitle, The Best of Western Short Fiction, is a fair assessment. These are good stories. The titles include Gun Job (Thomas Thompson), Bad Company (S. Omar Barker), Lost Sister (Dorothy M. Johnson), Thief in Camp (Bill Gulick), Isley's Stranger (Will Henry), Comanche Woman (Fred Grove), A Season for Heroes (Carla Kelly), Jason Glendauer's Watch (James Bellah), One Man's Code (Wayne Barton), Horseman (Oakley Hall), The Ten Sleep Mail (William F. Bragg, Jr.), Sale of One Small Ranch (Paul St. Pierre), The Way It Was Told to Me (Bill Brett), The Bandit (Loren D. Estleman), and Yellow Bird: An Imaginary Autobiography (Robert J. Conley). Gun Job, the story of a town sheriff drawn back from retirement, and One Man's Code, the tale of a man's resolve not to take sides in a dispute between others, address a common theme that resonates even today. Lost Sister and Comanche Woman examine the poignant stories of women taken captive as children, now married to warriors and faced with returning to a nearly forgotten, civilized society. Bad Company and Thief in Camp, both stories from the perspective of boys becoming young men, explore the tradition of honor in the west. Isley's Stranger has supernatural overtones and is in a class by itself. Yellow Bird is the disturbing, perhaps not so imaginary, account of the Cherokee tribe. The Ten Sleep Mail was among my favorites; a wolf plays an unexpected role in the survival of a mail carrier stranded by an early winter blizzard. A Season for Heroes is a low key, highly effective story of a hero, one Ezra Freeman, a black sergeant in the US Calvary at Ft. Bowie, Arizona Territory. Horseman, The Way It Was Told to Me, and Jason Glendauer's Watch are stories that reach out beyond the traditional boundaries of western genre, and in the process perhaps redefine the western itself. These were not my favorites; I may be too much of a traditionalist. I had read only two stories previously: The Bandit by Loren Estleman and Sale of a Small Ranch by Paul St. Pierre. Both are quite fascinating and warrant multiple readings. I first encountered Sale of a Small Ranch in a remarkable collection of St. Pierre's short stories titled Smith and Other Events (1984).