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unapersson 's review for:
Nunslinger: the Complete Series
by Stark Holborn
I picked up this book as the author was on a panel discussing Weird West fiction and the title intrigued me enough to look into it further. It can be read as a novel quite happily though it definitely has the structure of a serial due to it being a collection of twelve short novellas. It follows the adventures of a nun who is drawn through circumstance into a life on the run, and it is an odyssey of surviving against all odds. It hearkens back to those long running adventure serials, but unlike Zorro and his fight against oppression, her's is a more personal fight.
She is no revenging Angel of the Lord but that does not stop her being portrayed as one, and the story is as much about the legends that build up around anyone who achieves notoriety and how those legends can be exploited. It plays with the idea in so many ways, both in Sister Josephine's interactions with others and in the overarching narrative that comes to a dramatic conclusion at the end.
The tone is perfection, maintaining that gritty dark western feel without veering into the exploitation style content that movies often slip into, it respects its characters no matter what harrowing situations they may find themselves in. Sister Josephine never loses track of who she is, holding her faith even as the world around her resembles hell. The backdrop of the civil war is ever present, touching at one point on the assassination of Lincoln, but not at all heavy handed.
It is not without elements of dark humour, drawing as much on the situations and frequent desperate escapes and coincidences as anything directly in the prose. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended to those who like a good old rollicking adventure serial on the road.
She is no revenging Angel of the Lord but that does not stop her being portrayed as one, and the story is as much about the legends that build up around anyone who achieves notoriety and how those legends can be exploited. It plays with the idea in so many ways, both in Sister Josephine's interactions with others and in the overarching narrative that comes to a dramatic conclusion at the end.
The tone is perfection, maintaining that gritty dark western feel without veering into the exploitation style content that movies often slip into, it respects its characters no matter what harrowing situations they may find themselves in. Sister Josephine never loses track of who she is, holding her faith even as the world around her resembles hell. The backdrop of the civil war is ever present, touching at one point on the assassination of Lincoln, but not at all heavy handed.
It is not without elements of dark humour, drawing as much on the situations and frequent desperate escapes and coincidences as anything directly in the prose. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended to those who like a good old rollicking adventure serial on the road.