Walking Wolf: A Weird Western

By Nancy A. Collins

Book Overview

The Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Sunglasses After Dark chronicles the life of a werewolf who becomes part of the human--and inhuman--history of the Old West.

More than 150 years old, Billy Skillet looks back on his life existing between Native Americans and white men on the frontiers of a growing America, always on the edges of reality and unreality.

Born of a werewolf father and human mother from the Old Country, Billy is the only member of his family who survives a vicious attack. Found alive in the rubble of their homestead by a Comanche, Billy is taken in by the tribe. From there, he finds that--as a skinwalker--he is revered by the Native Americans, though reviled by the white man.

Battling powerful instincts and his own moral code, Billy embarks on his life's never-ending journey, first learning the ways of the settlers at the hands of a brutal and drunken reverend, then with a charismatic con man peddling elixirs in a traveling show. He survives a lynching, becomes the manservant of a vampire, and battles one of his own kind, a beast consumed by evil ambition. He sees the rise and fall of legends, the births of his own children, and the deaths of his loved ones. And never far behind, Billy's nemesis: a bounty hunter known as Witchfinder Jones, who, even now, may still be out there, willing to go to the ends of the earth to destroy him . . .

Originally published in Dead Man's Hand

Praise for Nancy A. Collins

"Possibly the most original voice in the world of vampire fiction since Anne Rice published Interview with a Vampire." --Film Threat

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 150407484X
• ISBN13: 9781504074841
• Release Date: March 2022
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
• Length: 158 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Western With Teeth: The Perfect Blend of Horror and the Wild West

This is one of the few original werewolf stories I've read in a long, long time. Nancy A. Collins takes you on a no-holds-barred walk through the wild West or, as the subtitle calls it, the weird West. It is, in turns, brutal, violent, honest, truthful, sad, hopeful but, at all turns, very well written. This is a story of redefinition and living in very different worlds; Walking Wolf, never knowing who his parents really are to begin with (and, therefore, not exactly a part of the Comanche tribe that raises him) leaves his Comanche life mostly out of self-guilt for a crime that is a crime in only his eyes and becomes Billy Skillet in the world at large (the world of the White Man, as it were) and, through a series of turns and events that I don't want to delve into for fear of ruining the story for a first-time reader, ends up living with the Sioux tribe. Even when he finds his own people and gains a family, he is always an outcast and always dealing with loss. He attains noble victories of high morality at a high cost. Collins manages to make a perfect blend of both the horror and Western genres. I was personally amazed at how seamlessly she weaved actual discussions of the history of Native Americans into Walking Wolf's first-person narrative. None of it is heavy-handed nor distracting. In fact, it adds to the story. We've all heard of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and maybe Red Cloud, but how many times have we seen or heard of the likes of Rain-in-the-Face, Black Kettle, Little Robe, Blue Horse, Dull Knife, Pawnee Killer, Little Thunder, Spotted Tail, etc? She's done her research. This is also one of the few books where the cover almost makes the book. It's a picture of a Native American brave with a wolf's head seamlessly transposed on its body; the wonders of photoshop or did someone actually go through the effort of blending two negatives in the dark room? Either way it's an awesome picture. You have to see it to believe it. This is a book that should ever remain in print for the simple fact of seeing a writer can go out on a limb and step completely out of genre distinctions and blend things together to make a grand tale. I'd almost go so far as to say this is more for Western readers who have always ached for something different, but I think horror readers would be gravely, hugely mistaken for missing it. Undoubtedly a five-star book.

Move over Wild Blood... Walking Wolf is a better book..

A surprisingly great book with very few downfalls. The life of Bill Skillet (Vargr) is one adventure after another... It hard to believe all he has went through in his short pretender life. I enjoyed this book a great deal more that Wild Blood. The charters and descriptions of the events around the storyline were much more interesting and entertaining. The two downfall of the book: 1. Might of had a little to much Indian history in it. 2. Book was to short.(only 181 pages). I could of read 300 pages or another book on Walking Wolf. Would highly suggest this to any fan on Horror, Werewolves, or Vampires. Give it a 5......