I ask because last weekend I found a bunch of Louis L’Amor books for a quarter a piece because the couple was moving so they just wanted to get rid of a lot. Also, found the Lonesome Dove book (may be multiple stories in one because it’s very thick).
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Most of the Western fiction I read is only tangentially related to the genre (I read more SF/fantasy set in the West than straight Westerns), or is foreign graphic novels (Blueberry, 'nough said).
But, I can recommend one Western TV show...
Have Gun, Will Travel: most episodes were written by a nobody you've never heard of, one Gene Roddenberry. Civil War soldier gets exiled to California by his family for being an embarrassment, he becomes a vigilante for hire.
I recently saw a couple of episodes of HGWT.
I was surprised not only by the appearance of Boy, who was every Asian stereotype of the era, but by Girl, who was far closer to a modern depiction of such.
Knowing this, Roddenberry writing it makes a lot more sense.
Boy is actually fairly well written, but it comes off as period camp on the surface. It's implied that either Paladin knows enough Mandarin to understand him, or that Boy has taught him enough Mandarin over the years, because Paladin can go to Chinatown and follow conversations and obey the cultural rules.
Kinda like Nichols (Uhura) figuring out that Star Trek was morality tales IN SPAAAAACE, Have Gun Will Travel looks a lot like a standard 50s/60s Western on the surface... then you start peeling layers back. By the beginning of the final season, there are a couple of metaphysical/spiritual levels added (the man who created his persona as Paladin looked exactly like him, everyone who knew him in his former life who tries to out him dies before they can speak his name, he can seemingly travel much faster than people expect) that cause it to be something very different.
Ackchyually their names are “Hey Boy” and “Hey Girl.”
I mainly watch older tv shows so I’m aware of that show. Very good. Sci-Fi/Fantasy are my favorite genres to read but westerns do have Sone similarities to sci-fi in the sense of settling on unknown territories