When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
3 March 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Books by Proxy, Friday Face off, R S Belcher, The Shotgun Arcana, The Six Gun Tarot
Here we are again with the Friday Face Off meme created by Books by Proxy . This is a great opportunity to feature some of your favourite book covers. The rules are fairly simple each week, following a predetermined theme (list below) choose a book, compare a couple of the different covers available for that particular book and choose your favourite. Future week’s themes are listed below. This week’s theme:
Playing cards “Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well” or – Spring: a cover that is mainly the colour green.
Haha – this was a toughie. Now, this may be a slight cheat because I’ve gone for books with cards on them but, okay, these are tarot cards – well, I’m going with it. I’m a big cheater! But, just to make up for that I’m giving you book 1 and 2 so you can decide which style you like best. I’ve only read the first in series but do have No.2 and plan to catch up soon:
This is difficult to choose between, I definitely do like the tarot style covers but these two right here really do grab the attention, I just love them:
Which is your favourite? Next week – back to school!
Future themes:
10/03/2017 – School “I never let my schooling interfere with my education”
17/03/2017 – Bird “Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs are too sweet and wild”
24/03/2017 – Street lamp “He stood under the street lamp, sleet settling in his hair, hands fisted at his side”
31/03/2017 – Casino “Whisky, gambling and Ferraris are better than housework “
07/04/2017 – Circus “You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town!
14/04/2017 – Easter “The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate”
21/04/2017 – Bridge “I demolish my bridges behind me…then there is no choice but to push forward”
28/04/2017 – Beach/Seaside”Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!”
05/05/2017 – Lion “If you place your head in a lion’s mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off”
12/05/2017 – Phone “Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it”
19/05/2017 – Plane “When everything seem to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it ….”
26/05/2017 – Mice “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘it might have been’…”
02/06/2017 – Moon “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”
09/06/2017 – Mummy “It shuffles through the dry, dusty darkness”
16/06/2017 – Guitar “You couldn’t not like someone who liked the guitar”
23/06/2017 – Cat “In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this”
30/06/2017 – Hat “It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself “
07/07/2017 – Gold “All that is gold does not glitter”
14/07/2017 – Boats “The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea, in a beautiful pea green boat…”
21/07/2017 – Planet “Any planet is ‘Earth’ to those who live on it”
The Six Gun Tarot by R S Belcher
21 January 2013
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Golgotha, R S Belcher, The Six Gun Tarot, Western
Just finished reading The Six Gun Tarot by R S Belcher. This is a very unusual book with a lot going on to keep you occupied.
We start in the desert with Jim and his horse Promise. They’re lost and won’t last many more miles but Jim is determined to keep on going and get his horse and himself to safety. They’re eventually picked up by a bit of a rescue mission lead by the Deputy Sheriff of Golgotha.
At this point I had no idea what to expect. Jim’s story is quite intriguing and the beginning gently draws you in and is really quite engaging. Then you reach the strange town of Golgotha and from thereon in anything seems, and actually is, possible.
Basically, there is a strange and evil presence held deep within the confines of Golgotha, an evil so old that if it is released it will undo creation. And, this evil is stirring. It’s drawing to it the weakminded. It’s like a magnet for all things corrupt and yet it also attracts other strange powers who are subconsciously drawn to the magic that lurks beneath the hills.
On the face of it The Six Gun Tarot is a western, based in Nevada in the 1860s. The town’s sheriff is a mystery – he bears scars round his neck and seems impossible to kill. His deputy, Mutt, is also an oddity with strange connections to the wild coyotes. On top of this we have a town guardian and a Mayor who has a secret hidden in the tunnels beneath his house and if this wasn’t enough to keep you occupied, we have some unusual Chinese magic involving a jade eye, a secret assassin and member of an ancient order (trained by a pirate if you will) and a local shop, whose owner has a reanimated body kept in the rooms above, nice (and remind me not to shop there for me vittles!). Lots of secrets in this little town and if you like plenty going on you can’t fail to be impressed. The action starts up fairly quickly and once it does it pretty much keeps up a fairly consistent pace.
Now, all that being said I did come away with slightly mixed feelings and more of a lean toward ‘like’ than ‘love’ and I think the main reason for this is that I felt I didn’t get to spend enough time with the characters and find out more about them. I also thought that some of the explanation in relation to the magical elements was left a little too vague, some of the dialogue could have been a bit sharper and I definitely had unanswered questions. I thought we got a fairly good look into Jim’s past and it was interesting and well defined but I would have liked more of the same in relation to some of the other inhabitants. However, and here’s the thing, I think the author has a reason for this – I could be wrong of course, but this book feels like the perfect set up for further stories set in Golgotha where more time would be spent with the main characters already introduced and to give time to build up their individual stories. I actually hope that this is the case. I think that if this is the first in a new series it will definitely be somewhere that I would like to revisit and see how the characters grow. Not to mention I have quite a few queries – for example, what on earth is going on in the graveyard? It won’t be the first time that I’ve started a series with slight niggles or doubts and I think this is perfectly reasonable if the author intends to take us back.
Anyway, part western part horror, sprinkling of sci fi and plain weird, dash of supernatural, mix together with a bit of theology and finish it off with a grand finale involving a zombie-type break out and you have a rough idea of what’s going on (and put like that it does seem a bit ambitious doesn’t it and perhaps the author should have gone a bit more slowly, maybe held back a few ideas but you certainly can’t say it’s dull).
So, will I be disappointed if this is the end of Golgotha? Yes, I want to know more. I want to see how the author develops this. I definitely want to read more about Jim and see if we find any more out about his remaining family and I want to see how Maude and Mutt progress. If this is a standalone novel I will be slightly more disappointed as I don’t feel it’s fully complete. Lets wait and see then!
I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Books and travelling with Lynn 