Dead Man's Hand

While I've certainly read weird Western stories that had found themselves randomly in other collections I've gone through, this was my first whole experience of it, and I gotta say, it's pretty darn good.

There was a huge, huge variety of plots and writing styles, which was a boon for this collection. I really, really appreciated this one, and I think I found a new genre to enjoy, along with my usual preference for horror/dark fiction.

Though the majority of the stories have a cowboy-like main character battling through the expected tropes of the Wild West, it never gets old and stays fresh throughout. This one has it all: giant insect monsters, magic, steampunk technology, other worlds, clockwork people, etc.

My two favorites were ‘Second Hand,' people are able to gain a special deck of cards which they can perform all sorts of magic with, but once a card is used, it burns away, so they covet and guard their decks carefully. I would genuinely read a longer work of that, and it created a cool concept/world. And then, ‘The Golden Age,' a fantastic story about a Batman-like character, The Condor, who hunts down criminals, unknowingly, or maybe not, turning them into supervillains. I found this not only to be the best in the collection but probably one of the best short stories I've ever read. It blew me away how good it was—so much fun.

It's a wonderful collection of stories. If you're at all interested, don't think any further about it; just do it.