I grew up on Westerns, thanks to my Grandfather.

  Because of Grandpa, I grew up with Johnny Cash, the Sons of the Pioneers, and Lester “Roadhog” Moran & the Cadillac Cowboys, Charley Pride, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Patsy Cline, most of whom were long gone legends by the time I was born.

  Grandpa still has Charlie Russell prints of beautiful, sun faded western paintings given away at Union ’76 gas stations back in the sixties. They’re framed and hanging on the walls.

  As a child I watched Red River with Grandpa, and I was told it was the greatest western of all time. I disagreed, but he loved it, so I kept my trap shut.

  My tastes ran to the likes of Star Wars, “Star Trek”, Aliens, Zombie films and shows, “Supernatural”, “The X-Files”, Superhero movies, and the like. But, Grandpa hated those, so I spent my childhood evenings watching “Gunsmoke”, “Bonanza”, “Maverick”, “The Lone Ranger”, and the like. When we watched films, they always starred John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Glenn Ford, Jimmy Stewart, or any number of other stars of my Grandpa’s youth. (Let me not forget to mention “Blazing Saddles” and “The Shakiest Gun in the West”).

  Though I never lost my love of Sci-Fi, there is a magic about Westerns. There was an innocence and charm to the partnership and friendship of the Lone Ranger and Tonto—a duo that traveled the West to fight for justice and defend the innocent, asking nothing in return.

  There is something endearing to John Wayne’s portrayal of Rooster Cogburn, a drunkard with the grit to take down a gang of murderers and thieves with two guns and the reins in his teeth.

  I admire Jimmy Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard, a man who would stand up for the law in the west even if it killed him, and the vicious Liberty Valance, played perfectly by Lee Marvin, who nearly did him in.

  There is a sense of freedom and allure to Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name that everyone who has seen those films somehow never forgets. The innocent fun of watching the Cartwrights never gets old for me, and the adventures of Brett Maverick are still favorites of mine.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I’ve gone on too long about westerns.

  Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series was the first exposure I ever had to the fantasy world. Since then, I fell in love with the Harry Potter series, and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series amazed and inspired me. The Lord of the Rings films pulled me in even deeper. Then I played my first RPG, and I fell in love completely. (3.5 forever!)

  My love of Horror films like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Mummy, in all their incarnations, morphed into a love of “X-Files”, “Supernatural”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, and later “Kolchak: The Nightstalker”.

  One day I thought about the worlds of Middle Earth, Pathfinder, Conan and Dungeons & Dragons and what they might look like as time progressed, as science pushed them into the industrial revolution, and exploration led them to colonize new lands. I thought about what the Lone Ranger and Rooster Cogburn might do if they faced werewolves and vampires as well as outlaws, and how the Man With No Name might deal with the likes of Sauron or Thulsa Doom. (He would probably avoid Sauron… and Rooster Cogburn would kick Dracula’s ass.)

  Or, what if Conan took place in a Fantastic Wild West? What if Buffy was a gunslinger? What if Mulder was a Pinkerton Detective? What if the Winchester brothers traveled by locomotive? What if Kolchak were a… reporter? Well, for a frontier newspaper, anyway. What if Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn were gunfighters in a story with the trappings of the Western? Sacrilege, I know. But, this was something that festered in my mind.

  I dismissed the idea for years. Western Fantasy, as I had seen it done, just didn’t feel right, and didn’t have a big chance of success. So I never gave it a chance.

  Then I got the best advice I ever heard.

  Write the story you want to read, not the one you think you should write.

  So, I’ve combined my favorites.

  And I have had a blast.

  I don’t think for one second that I have written something that will have mass appeal. The Western seems to be dying with only short bursts of enthusiasm and success here and there. And I don’t think I’m a very good writer, although I do aspire to adequacy…

  Jangles and Drake exist in a parallel world, historically similar to our world, but filled with the magic and the races of the horror and fantasy genres side by side with the culture of the western.

  It’s sometime in the 1870’s. The West is Wild in the land of the free. Magic is real. Monsters are real.

  And here there be dragons…

  My Grandpa would hate it.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright Notice

  ? J.D. Hoss, 2025. All rights reserved.