Fishing for Dinosaurs

So I’m going to rave about a book by my favourite author, that as far as I can tell only exists in a limited edition hardback that costs more than most books I ever buy, but even so I bought it because it is by my favourite author.

Joe Lansdale writes yarns. Good stories that move along like a train on fire with characters that stride right out of the page and punch you on the nose with reams of endlessly quotable dialogue. None of which I’m going to quote because trying to pick a good example is like trying to grab a particular drop of water when you’re standing at the bottom of Niagara Falls.*

Fishing is collection of novellas describing the - slightly fictionalised - 1874 battle of Adobe Walls between buffalo hunters and Comanche warriors; the true story behind Tarzan, the Ape man (as told by the real Tarzan’s ape half-brother, who developed a taste for fine cigars and good living in Hollywood); a battle on a prison graveyard island with the Golem; and another search in the Wild West for stolen gold stored on a boat in a hidden lake surrounded by inhabitants happy to make your worst nightmare look like an episode of My Little Pony.

*Oh, all right. This is from the opening story.

‘Only thing I could come close to thinking [the whisky] reminded me of was once, when I didn’t have no place to sleep, I slipped under a porch in Abilene and was awakened by a yellow cur pissing on my face, and right into my open mouth. This wasn’t quite that tasty, but it was similar.’

I will never stop buying Joe Lansdale’s books.