Today’s post is on The
Doctor and The Kid by Mike Resnisk. It is the second in his Weird West Tales series and is 322 pages
long including appendixes with more information about the real life people and
events. The cover has Doc Holliday with a cool Steampunk gun and a large wolf
behind him. The intended reader is someone who loves Resnick, likes Steampunk,
or just well written stories. As it the second book in a series you should read
the first one just so you know what is going on. There is some language, talk
of sex, and a good amount of violence in this book; young adult and up. The
story is told from third person close of Doc Holliday. There Be Spoilers Ahead.
From the back of the book- The time is 1882. With the
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the battle with the thing that used to be
Johnny Ringo behind him, the consumptive Doc Holliday makes his way to Leadville,
Colorado, with Kate Elder, where he plans to spend the rest of his brief life,
finally moving in to the luxurious facility that specialized in his disease.
But one night he gets a little too drunk- hardly a novelty for him- and loses everything he has at the gaming table. Doc realizes that he needs to replenish his bankroll, and quickly, so that he can live out his days in comfort under medical care. He considers his options and hits upon the one most likely to produce income in a hurry. He’ll use his skill as a shootist and turn bounty hunter.
The biggest reward is for the death of the young, twenty-year-old desperado known as Billy the Kid. It’s clear from the odds that Kid has faced and beaten, his miraculous escape from prison, and his friendship with the Southern Cheyenne, that he is protected by some powerful magic. Doc enlists the aid of both the magic of Geronimo and the science of Thomas Edison, and he goes out after his quarry. He will hunt the Kid down, and either kill him and claim the reward or die in the process and at least end his own suffering.
But as he is soon to find, nothing is as easy as it looks.
But one night he gets a little too drunk- hardly a novelty for him- and loses everything he has at the gaming table. Doc realizes that he needs to replenish his bankroll, and quickly, so that he can live out his days in comfort under medical care. He considers his options and hits upon the one most likely to produce income in a hurry. He’ll use his skill as a shootist and turn bounty hunter.
The biggest reward is for the death of the young, twenty-year-old desperado known as Billy the Kid. It’s clear from the odds that Kid has faced and beaten, his miraculous escape from prison, and his friendship with the Southern Cheyenne, that he is protected by some powerful magic. Doc enlists the aid of both the magic of Geronimo and the science of Thomas Edison, and he goes out after his quarry. He will hunt the Kid down, and either kill him and claim the reward or die in the process and at least end his own suffering.
But as he is soon to find, nothing is as easy as it looks.
Review- This is just another wonderful piece by
Resnick with interesting plot, expanding character development, and Steampunk goodness.
Doc Holliday is still himself from the first book and I loved it. There is
magic, great dialog, and exciting action. I want to know now if Billy the Kid
was as much as a punk that Resnick makes him out to be. Resnick has made me
interested in Wild West history something that I was not really interested in
before. Maybe that is just the nature of good books to make you want to read
more and be interested in things that you were not before. Resnick is in
general a very strong writer but his dialog is hard to beat. So much about the
characters is given to the reader in the conversations that they have. If for
some reason that you still have not read Resnick and you read my blog/reviews
you really need to read him. Resnick is one of the most talented genre writers
of our time.
I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for
my review and I was given this book as a gift.
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