GUNSLINGER: THE DRAGON of YELLOWSTONE (Mythic West Series)(kindle) by Edward Knight

 









Published in April of 2021 by WordFire Press.

Gunslinger: The Dragon of Yellowstone is part of a series of books set in post-Civil War years, but with a major twist - the giants from Norse mythology crossed through a thin spot between their reality and Earth in an attempt to conquer Earth. 

The fighting began in Andersonville, Georgia. It interrupted the Civil War but everything East of the Mississippi was basically lost. As the army of the giants pushed west, they were finally stopped in an epic battle featuring a number of names that were big names in the normal timeline of the Old West and an uneasy truce is in place, mostly because both sides have exhausted themselves.

This book features a threat to end that uneasy truce that is investigated by a minor character from other books in the series, a teenaged gunslinger named Beth who was trained by none other than Wild Bill Hickock himself. 

I really appreciate the world building that went into this series. This reminds me of the kind of work that Harry Turtledove does (with a little extra oomph) and I liked the combination of Norse myths and American history. 

I also liked the way that characters just didn't simply shake off injuries. When a character got hurt, they had to deal with the injuries for an appropriate amount of time. 

However, I kept feeling like I was reading a story where the best parts were being hidden from me.  I was getting a little tiny story when I really wanted to know about the bigger story. Did Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln decide to join forces? Did Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant make a mega army? How hard was it for the two sides to put aside their differences, or did they just fight independently and maybe even continue to fight one another?  How badly did those Civil War armies maul the invading giant army? How was the entire East lost? From what I can tell, those stories have not been told in this series, which is too bad.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GUNSLINGER: THE DRAGON of YELLOWSTONE (Mythic West Series)(kindle) by Edward Knight.

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