The Reverend Jedidiah Mercer returns with the re-release of the highly influential pulp novel, Dead in the West, and four stories, one never before collected, one brand new. Contained herein are the Reverend's adventures with zombies, ghouls, werewolves, Lovecraftian monsters and kobolds. Western action blends with grisly horror and ribald humor for a super collection of shoot-outs and fang-outs, claws and crawling horrors, and lessons about an angry, unforgiving god and methods for killing nasties of all kinds.
In Dead in the West, the Reverend faces a resurrected American Indian out for vengeance. Not only is the man back from the dead, he's brought back others as servants, and they are angry, hungry little devils when there is an absence of light. Plenty of surprises, laughs, gross-outs and slimy horrors, with a slam bang ending. This novel inspired numerous writer to cross the West with Horror, Action, Humor, and a wobbly moral sensibility.
This first adventure of the Reverend sets up all the others, which include:
'Deadman s Road.' The Reverend, on his mission from God, encounters a ghoul who waits on a dark road for travelers so that he can feed his belly and his crippled soul.
'The Gentleman's Hotel.' The Reverend encounters a town, empty except for the lone survivor of a stage coach attack. Together, they face ghosts and werewolf Conquistadores who can not only transform into toothy adversaries, but also into dust and moths and are a real pain in the ass; all of it results in one hell of a cross-draw, dagnabbed, hair belly confrontation.
'The Crawling Sky.' In an isolated cabin the Reverend and an unwilling partner face a Lovecraftian horror with a nasty attitude and mind blowing abilities.
And finally, in 'The Dark Down There,' the Reverend and an unlikely partner, a three hundred pound lady named Flower, battle kobolds who cannibalize miners and serve a Queen that at a glance could pass for spoiled tapioca pudding. The Reverend even manages a glancing chance at a kind of backwoods romance.
- Hardcover: 271 pages
- Publisher: Subterranean Press (October 31, 2010)
- ISBN-13: 978-1596063303