Most of Frederick Faust's popularity has grown because of his novels. But it's likely that during his career he wrote more stories of novelette length than he did full-length novels.
Many of his novelettes featured series characters, such as Bull Hunter, Reata, and others. Some of his publishers during the years have pasted together these novelettes to form novel-length books. In some cases, this practice worked. In others, the stories were cut and edited to form amalgamations that didn't quite reach the quality of the original stories.
If you haven't yet tried Faust's writing, the original novelettes are a nice place for starting out. Jon Tuska of the Golden West Literary Agency, which represents Faust's work, has done a great job of making these shorter works available again to readers -- so you don't have to spend all your hard-earned cash on crumbling issues of pulp magazine. Tuska has been assembling what he calls Western Trios -- books comprised of three Faust novelettes and published under the Max Brand name. Many of these have first appeared in hardcover under the Five Star Western imprint of Gale books or the Circle V or Sagebrush Large Print Westerns -- imprints of Thomas T. Beeler Books -- then later in paperback from Leisure Books.
The Max Brand trios feature otherwise hard-to-find stand-alone stories along with the stories -- in their original form -- that chart the careers of Faust's great series characters, such as the already-mentioned Bull Hunter and Reata, as well as James Geraldi, Sleeper, Perry Woodstock, and others.
My first exposure to Faust's writing was through the Tuska-edited Trios. After reading a few of these, I was hooked on Faust, and soon began searching out his novel-length works. But Faust's work in the shorter form still holds a special attraction for me, because Faust was a master of the long story/short novel.
Below is a partial listing of the Max Brand Western Trios. You'll find plenty of adventure, humor, Brand's special psychological examinations, and mythic western thrills in each of these volumes. Try one, you'll like it.
Links:
You can find the Five Star Books section of the Gale site by clicking here.
You can visit the Thomas T. Beeler site by clicking here.
You can reach the website for the Westerns section of Leisure Books, an imprint of Dorchester Publishing, by clicking here.
Click on the images for a larger, pop-up version. Click on the titles to visit Amazon for more info on each book:
The Abandoned Outlaw: "The Gold King Turns His Back," "The Three Crosses," "The Abandoned Outlaw"
Bells of San Carlos: "Cayenne Charlie," "Bells of San Carlos!" "Between One and Three," "The Gift"
The Gauntlet: "The Blackness of MacTee," "King of Rats: A Reata Story," "The Gauntlet"
Men Beyond the Law: "Werewolf," "The Finding of Jeremy," "The Trail Up Old Arrowhead: A Bull Hunter Story"
The Oath of Office: all stories about the character, Chip -- "The Fall and Rise of Newbold," "The Ivory Portrait," "The Oath of Office"
Safety McTee: "Little Sammy Green," "Black Sheep," "Safety McTee"
Two Sixes: "Winking Lights," "The Best Bandit," "Two Sixes"
Posted by ds at September 20, 2002 01:06 PM
