Space Westerns

Space Westerns is an entertaining e-zine publishing stories "with themes from the Western genre set in Outer-space..."

I'll admit to having avoided Firefly when it was on TV, because I assumed anything mixing Westerns and SF would be rather awful. Yes, I now know that I was as mistaken as the record company executive who passed on the Beetles. So, determined not to make the same mistake twice, I checked out this e-zine. And while it's not Firefly, it is quite good. I read the two most recent short stories and both were entertaining.

"A Few Sunsets Too Many" by Amanda Spikol is a dark story of a world-weary bounty hunter who is on a job. Well written.

There were four of them, all men so far as she could tell, two on horseback and two on foot. They all carried blaster rifles. Siker dismounted, smiling coldly, and tipped back her hat so her spiky black hair showed.

"The Clone-Wrangler's Bride" by Camille Alexa is an off-beat story about a betrothed woman, her robot, Mars, and some guys with odd priorities. Sometimes humorous, sometimes campy, a pleasant read throughout.

“Wait!” screamed Matty as she and the mandroid sailed through the air into the open life pod behind her and the hatch began to spiral shut. “My dowry! I need my dow—”

Space Westerns is here. Seriously, don't make my Firefly mistake; check this site out.