THOUGHTS ON
The West can be a pretty foreboding place, especially for those early pioneers who boldly crossed a entire continent in search of fortune or a better life. With little more than grit and resolve, these settlers took root in some of the most inhospitable expanses of their day. Naturally, they were not the first to tame these vast desert plains. The legacy of the Apache, Navajo, Nez Perce, and Pueblo peoples predate any written record of the region. However, the west was not nearly the vast unknown frontier to natives, as it would be for those who had yet to come. Many wary arrivals must surely have been startled at the sight of a landscape and way of life wholly unfamiliar to them. Plus, back then, the west was not only “wild,” it was “weird.”
Today, the term weird west, as the name implies, applies to various combinations of fantastical elements incorporated into a turn-of-the-century western backdrop. Weird west may incorporate science fiction, fantasy, horror and other elements into a unique blend of history and the fantastic. But what might surprise modern readers of such stories is that the essential weird west evolved during not after the time it is set.
Commentators of the period exerted a truly unique artistic license over, and took many liberties with, the public fascination and unfamiliarity with the region’s lesser traveled parts. Such reporters drew from inspiration whether they could find it. Even some very respected people of the day speculated on the possibilities of prehistoric beasts and unknown animals living in the remote corners of the mountainous desert climes. Other individuals were inclined to embellished accounts of unnatural discoveries, such as horned rabbits and petrified forests, rooted partly in fact and otherwise in exaggeration. Still, there were those folk, such as the old-time cowboy, prospector, and pioneer, who swooped stories with one another by the light of some distant campfire.
No matter where their inspiration came from, no matter what form their creative devices took shape, a new perspective of the west was emblazoned in the imagination of these early adventurers. Throughout this collection, one will find their original musings, accounts, depictions, etc. of western life. The whole of what differ considerably from the picture painted in our history books and silver screens. A west of dinosaurs, of flying machines, of monsters and the like. Suffice to say, it is a very different image than what we have come to know it today. A west not defined by its lawlessness or ruggedness but in its wonderment and curiosity.