A LIFE IN BOOKS

 The first episode of my new You Tube series...a life in books

ON MY eReader with Ben Bridges AKA David Whitehead

This is the first in a regular section in which the Archive quizzes writers about the contents of their eReaders. First up we have David Whitehead -

David Whitehead is a prolific English writer and arguably (hey, there's no argument about it) one of the most influential British western writers of the past thirty years. Born in London in 1958, he sold his first book, THE SILVER TRAIL, in 1984. It marked not only the first appearance of his popular continuing character, freelance fighting man Carter O'Brien, but also the first time he used his best-known pseudonym, Ben Bridges. Since then David has written more than seventy books; westerns as Ben Bridges, Glenn Lockwood, Matt Logan, Doug Thorne, Carter West and ten under his own name. In addition to this he writes romantic fiction as Janet Whitehead and has co-authored nine thrillers with Hollywood screenwriter Steve Hayes. David's entire back-catalogue is now available on Kindle, where all of his westerns are now being reissued under the Ben Bridges byline. For more details about David's work, please go to www.benbridges.co.uk.


Of course David is no stranger to the digital format and he is one of the men responsible for the wonderful Piccadilly Publishing House, a digital publisher that has for several years been bringing new and classic adventure fiction into digital print. Find them HERE but be warned, take a few pennies because while you are there you will buy.


OK so - So Drum Roll please.
and it's over to David Whitehead:

Last night I finished reading WAR CLOUD’S BRIDE by Sundown McCabe, whose real name is Roger Norris-Green. I’ve always been a sucker for Australia’s Cleveland westerns and now that they’ve finally started appearing in digital form, I’ve started getting enthusiastic about them all over again.

WAR CLOUD’S BRIDE tells the story of a drifter named Steve Brand, who gets involved in a manhunt – or more accurately a woman-hunt – when rancher’s daughter Alison Carter is abducted by a Cheyenne war party. But there’s more to the story than just that, of course. Long-buried secrets come to light as the pursuit unfolds, and the plot climaxes with a thrilling river-chase and of course, the obligatory final reckoning with the bad guys.

Overall, this is a fast-moving western, and certainly among the best Cleveland westerns I’ve read in a while (my favourite still remains BELFREY JUAREZ by Clint McCall – check it out if you can find a copy). Characterisation is sketchy but adequate and the author builds a neat sense of location. I doubt the wisdom of naming one character Brand and another one the very similar Brandy, but that’s only a minor technical quibble. WAR CLOUD’S BRIDE is well worth reading and I’m glad to see more Sundown McCabe titles finding a new readership in digital print. 

David Whitehead - Bridging the Old West

Piccadilly Publishing are taking over the western eBook charts and author, Paul Bishop gives us the first part of an interview with David Whithead AKA Ben Bridges HERE. Check it out folks - the guys at Piccadilly are not only bringing classic westerns back into print, but also issuing all original material in several genres.

The Western is dead - well, that's fighting talk.

One of the most eagerly awaited movies of the holiday period is, Django Unchained - a western and recent years have seen several excellent westerns coming from Hollywood - True Grit and Blackthorn to name but two. On the fiction front genre writers such as Larry McMurtry and Cormac MacCarthy have entered the mainstream and brought the genre many new fans and the eBook revolution is seeing a lot of classic western material coming back into print - Check out Piccadilly Publishing - an outfit that are fast becoming my favorite publisher, well apart from Robert Hale but then I'm biased there since it is Hale's Black Horse imprint who publish my own novels. And of course many of the excellent George G. Gilman westerns are now available as eBooks which is reason enough to check out the genre.

That's a lot of activity for a so called dead genre.

 At the grass roots, where the fans hang out, there are scores of western blogs and web sites with new ones springing up all the time. There are some excellent western blogs - Western Fiction Review, Rope and Wire and Black Horse Express are just three of a list that could go on forever. Check out the recommended reads in the sidebar of this blog for some great western websites.



That's a lot of activity for a so called dead genre...so is the western entering a revival phase?

To my mind the western has never really gone away nor has it rolled over, turned a sickly green and been in need of reviving. Even during the Eighties when the genre seemed to vanish from bookshops there were still loyal fans.

So why now this surge of interest?

What surge? There is no surge? The only difference these days is that we've got the Internet and booksellers are able to get their books, whatever the genre, to a wider demographic than ever before. It was only the book sellers that claimed the western was dead in the first place but now that fans are able to come together via the Internet or as we call it here, The Wild West Web they can dictate what it is they want. Type in BOOK BLOGS into Google and it soon becomes obvious that genre fiction is still popular and not only westerns but horror, SF, crime, hardboiled. And yet go into any bookshop (if you can find one) and you'd swear only a handful of big name authors were ever read, but westerns are well supported in the electronic book store with new and classic books now available as eBooks.

Genre fiction is formulaic they say. And to some extent it is but then so are the blockbusters that line the bookshop shelves. These blockbusters are of a uniform building brick size and if that's not writing to a formula then I don't know what is. Over the last few years  I've gotten to know a lot of western writers and to a man (or woman, of course) they are all trying to push the envelope of what is acceptable in a western. If you want an example of diversity in the western genre then check out the  anthology A Fistful of Legends from Express Western. The book contains 21 western stories including one from myself.

My own westerns (self promotion warning) Tarnished Star, Arkansas Smith, The Ballad of Delta Rose and Wild Bill Williams  may stick closely to the classic style of western storytelling but I have tried to work in subtexts.

Tarnished Star in many ways questions what it is to be a man and the responsibilities we all share. And whilst Arkansas Smith travels a far darker trail there is, I hope, a story being told on more than one level. The Ballad of Delta Rose is a story of redemption  and Wild Bill Williams is something of a culture shock western. My next Black Horse western,  The Afterlife of Slim McCord pushes the boundaries to breaking point - at least, I hope it does..

That's why I love the western, both as a writer and a reader - the possibilities are endless and far from being straitjacketed into an endless routine of Cowboys and Indians or white hats and black, the genre can go anywhere it wants, can explore both the good and bad sides of human nature.

I can never stray too far from the deserts and plains, the mountains and the rivers - it's the landscape of adventure and great courage. For the past few months I've been working on another cozy crime novel set in my native South Wales - A world away from the Wild West and yet there are still western elements in everything I write; look hard enough and they are there.

Me as a cover star!

The point is that no matter what I do, where and when I set my stories, there will always be something of the western about them.

And recently I was thrilled to find that my image was used as the inspiration for the new cover art for the Ben Bridges western, Hangman's Noose - how cool is that to be immortalized as a character in a western! I do hope the book sells squillions because not only is Ben Bridges a fine western writer but that's such a good looking lead character.


So go on give a western a try...you'll be glad you did.

Now I'm a real cowboy

When I saw a message on Facebook from fellow western writer, David Whitehead AKA the Amazon bestselling Ben Bridges claiming that my image was used for the new edition of his novel,  Hangman's Noose I took it with a pinch of salt


David wrote -  "The latest book to get a facelift is HANGMAN's NOOSE, the fourth book in the O'Brien series and the fourth book I ever had published. Once again Cody Wells has gone the extra mile to give me a cover to be proud of ... but no, that's not David Bowie with hat in hand, it's my mate Gary Martin Dobbs!!!"

 However when I looked at the cover I thought WOW - that is me! And not just a resemblance but the designer Cody Wells, himself a tasty western scribe, looks to have based the character on a image of me.

Hey, now I'm a real cowboy, thanks to Ben and Cody. Cheers guys, a better Christmas pressie I couldn't think of.  I'll be printing that cover out and framing it so it can take pride of place on the wall above my desk.

David Whitehead/Ben Bridges wrote on Facebook - " I quote from Cody Wells now: "I saw this picture of Gary and it was just crying out to be painted." So consider yourself immortalized, Gary!"

You can pick up the book at Amazon but head on over to the Piccadilly Publishing website and look at the westerns, both classic and new that they've got on over there. They are publishing the Belle Slaughter books, an all new series of all action westerns from my good friend, Tony Masero as well as bringing back many of the adult western series that thrilled so many of us in years gone by.

MAGAZINE WATCH

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - cover dated July 2009 and on sale now is highly recommended this month with one of the strongest issues in recent months.

Simon Brett, a fave of mine since his Charles Paris days, has a story entitled The Man who didn't play Golf which is well up to his usual standard. The mag also features stories from Loren D. Estleman. Kristine Rusch, R. T. Smith, David Dean, Donald Olson, Melodie Johnson Howe, C. J. Harper and Archive favourite Hard-boiled fiction pusher, Charles Ardai. There is also a first story for Chris Muessig. Add to that the usual reviews, features and of course Bill Crider's Blog Bytes.

True West (June cover date) features the usual historical features and articles on the modern day west. This issue the cover piece is titled Custer's Ride to Glory and 27 other extreme western adventures. The article is all about taking a western history vacation and makes for great reading.

The July 2009 (out today) issue of Book and Magazine Collector was mentioned on the Archive yesterday in connection with David Whitehead's (AKA Ben Bridges) piece on collecting western fiction.

I'm pleased to report that it is a very informative 19 page article that more or less covers the history of western fiction. Of course it's geared towards the book collector but the list of the 50 top westerns, in the collectible sense, make for great reading. It's no surprise to The Archive but David, who writes Black Horse Westerns under the name Ben Bridges and others clearly knows his subject. Also of interest to western fans will be a feature on Cormac Mcarthy. There is also a memoriam piece on J. G. Ballard who died recently.

Remember folks, Tarnished Star is out end of the month and is available to buy now.
Buy
HERE
HERE
HERE
AND HERE

Or ask your local library to order The Tarnished Star by Jack Martin - traditional old style western adventure.