Lila Bowen “Wake of Vultures” (Orbit, 2015) & “Conspiracy
of Ravens” (Orbit, 2016)
I grew up watching Westerns.
There was a time that TV was desperate for cheap things to air, &
old shows and movies from the 50s fit the bill.
That meant war movies & westerns.
So you could say that I have fully absorbed the tropes of the
genre. And I have to admit that I still
love a good western. Now the problem is
that there’s a lot of problematic stuff baked into the genre. Racism, sexism, manifest destiny, the list
goes on & on. So how in the world can a social justice warrior enjoy
themselves a good oater?
Lila Bowen has certainly figured out a way. Her Shadow
series (currently consisting of Wake of
Vultures & Conspiracy of Ravens)
features a biracial protagonist who just so happens to be a trans man. She’s friends
with Native Americans, immigrants, & even a couple of people who could be
in the cast of a traditional western.
Wake of Vultures
introduces the story & is a coming of age story. Nettie Lonesome runs away from her “home”
& eventually finds out that she is so much more than she could have even
imagined.
The down side is that Wake ends in a hard cliffhanger
(literally).
The good news is that Conspiracy
of Ravens picks up where Wake leaves off.
We follow the transformation of Nettie into the eventual Rhett Walker, a
Ranger who hunts down monsters.
Now it’s hard to just the flow of a series without having
read all the books, but there does still seem to be a mid of mid-series flab in
Conspiracy. There are new characters, new aspects to the world, but some
fundamental questions still unanswered.
Rhett’s not my favorite person, but I read him as being in a
continuum of western anti-heroes. There’s
a strong tradition of bad men doing good things (think Clint Eastwood). Rhett’s
world is dangerous & kind of awful.
We certainly see a lot more people in misery than happy people.
I really enjoyed both of these books. If you are a fan of
weird westerns, you should definitely check them out.
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