Dead Man's Hand

An Anthology of the Weird West

By: John Joseph Adams - editor

Narrated by: Phil Gigante, Natalie Ross

Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The weird, wild west - an American frontier populated by gunslingers, rattlesnakes, outlaws, zombies, aliens, time travelers, and steampunk! Twenty-three of science fiction and fantasy's hottest and most popular authors create all-new tales, written exclusively for this anthology. Aliens and monsters, magic and science are introduced to the old west, with explosive results.

The copyright information can be found below:

• “Introduction” by John Joseph Adams. © 2014 by John Joseph Adams.

The following are original to this volume:

• “The Red-Headed Dead” by Joe R. Lansdale. ©2014 by Joe R. Lansdale.
• “The Old Slow Man and His Gold Gun From Space” by Ben H. Winters. © 2014 by Ben H. Winters.
• “Hellfire on the High Frontier” by David Farland. © 2014 by David Farland.
• “The Hell-Bound Stagecoach” by Mike Resnick. © 2014 by Mike Resnick.
• “Stingers and Strangers” by Seanan McGuire. © 2014 by Seanan McGuire.
• “Bookkeeper, Narrator, Gunslinger” by Charles Yu. © 2014 by Charles Yu.
• “Holy Jingle” by Alan Dean Foster. © 2014 by Alan Dean Foster.
• “The Man With No Heart” by Beth Revis. © 2014 by Beth Revis.
• “Wrecking Party” by Alastair Reynolds. © 2014 by Alastair Reynolds.
• “Hell from the East” by Hugh Howey. © 2014 by Hugh Howey.
• “Second Hand” by Rajan Khanna. © 2014 by Rajan Khanna.
• “Alvin and the Apple Tree” by Orson Scott Card. © 2014 by Orson Scott Card.
• “Madam Damnable’s Sewing Circle” by Elizabeth Bear. © 2014 by Elizabeth Bear.
• “Strong Medicine” by Tad Williams. © 2014 by Tad Williams.
• “Red Dreams” by Jonathan Maberry. © 2014 by Jonathan Maberry.
• “Bamboozled” by Kelley Armstrong. © 2014 by Kelley Armstrong.
• “Sundown” by Tobias S. Buckell. © 2014 by Tobias S. Buckell.
• “La Madre Del Oro” by Jeffrey Ford. © 2014 by Jeffrey Ford.
• “What I Assume You Shall Assume” by Ken Liu. © 2014 by Ken Liu.
• “The Devil’s Jack” by Laura Anne Gilman. © 2014 by Laura Anne Gilman.
• “The Golden Age” by Walter Jon Williams. © 2014 by Walter Jon Williams.
• “Neversleeps” by Fred Van Lente. © 2014 by Fred Van Lente.
• “Dead Man’s Hand” by Christie Yant. © 2014 by Christie Yant.

©2014 Brilliance Audio (P)2014 Brilliance Audio

Solid Anthology and Great Narrator

The main narrator is awesome and the other is good. The stories are generally good and none of them were bad enough that I regretted listening to them. The Golden Age is probably favorite, in part because the narrator got to do some thing different. Overall, the anthology does a great job of showing the variety in Weird West stories.

Fun good collection

Lot of good stories, some better than others most worth listening to. Narrators are fantastic. Overall great collection

SHE'S NOT YOUR FAKE WIFE, I AM

REIGNING KING OF THE ANTHOLOGY WORLD
I have tooted Adams' horn before. That title should be reigning king of the original anthology world. Dozier is the reigning king of the best of anthology world. I would think original anthologies would be harder. Your not picking from he best, you are picking writers and hoping they will not let you down. Adams is starting to get competition from George R.R. Martin and this book did not help his efforts. While this was a great subject, Adams was let down by some big names. I was expecting some good stuff from Lansdale, Card, Reynolds and Howey, but there stories were just phoned in. THERE WEREN'T NO BRAINS IN THIS OPERATION.

DEAD WHITE MEN ARE GENEROUS.
Seanan McGuire a.k.a. Mira Grant wrote the best story. There were also some strong showings by Resnick, Winters, Yu and Williams. I am finding that at least in the short story genre, Tad Williams can always be counted on to write something interesting and entertaining.

IF YOUR GOING TO KILL ME, DO IT TO MY FACE
I have read all three of Frederick Douglass' biographies, but in Tobias' Sundown I heard some exciting stuff not included in any of these biographies.

EVERYTHING STARTS WITH ONE PERSON
While Gigante is a good narrator, I would have liked to have heard a lot more narrators. Ross did good, but in my favorite story by McGuire, her male character had a tendency to drop his words at the end of a sentence and often I could not tell exactly what he said. The story was still good enough to make this a minor problem.

I have listened to this book at least twice

I have listened to this book at least twice.
And some of the tales more times.
There are many good variations of tales, some good, some great. And only a few less good.

If you listen and remember the spirit of short stories on a usual subject. You will enjoy them.

My favorite was the golden age. Chapter 22.
Enjoy

Superb for fans of Deadlands!

Great collection of stories of the weird and macabre set in the American West. There is something for everyone, including Steampunk, Weird West and even a well written homage to Batman!

Great Anthology and awesome readers

Yes, there were a couple stories that did nothing for me but the rest kept my mind busy long after the story was finished. This was very well assembled.

Loved it!

I was entertained the entire listen. All the stories were great, some more than others. Creative, amazing, and exciting.

Lots of good variety - many hit, some miss

Overall, I enjoyed the variety of stories quite a bit. And, as expected in an anthology - some will be to my tastes, and others...not so much. However, I can't say that any single story jumped out at me as being, "OMG, that was SO cool! How did the author ever come up with THAT idea?" And, no one story really riveted or captivated me thoroughly. But, by and large, most of the stories were entertaining and fun. I like having a central theme, around which authors can express their creativity - so that was a treat for me. Also, I listened to this novel in audiobook form. The narrators - Phil Gigante and Natalie Ross - did a fairly decent job. The trouble is - when you have one primary narrator (Phil Gigante) pulling the majority of the load (male voices), it must be incredibly difficult to keep coming up with new voice intonations and tones to separate characters across almost 2 dozen stories - and across a wide variety of nationalities and dialects. So, at times, the narration seemed a bit lack-luster, or may have missed the mark a bit. But, that said, at times, it was also very well done. I would not avoid the audiobook version - just be aware of what you're getting into if you select that format - and cut the narrator(s) some slack! Overall, it was pretty well done. I do not regret my time with this anthology. Well-done to the Editor (John Joseph Adams) for compiling such a remarkable cast of authors, and for bringing together an enjoyable array of ideas. I will be reading other of his anthologies in the future - since I have already obtained (but yet to read) "The Way of the Wizard" and "Help Fund My Robot Army" (both in ebook/print format, this time). I anticipate that they will be equally enjoyable.

Good value and variety

This guy does anthologies right. All 23 short stories get their own individual chapter, and proceed in the order listed in the summary (starting at Ch2)- only thing better organizationally would have been to provide the titles in the Table of Contents.

There’s occasional cussing, indirect sex references and the violence and character ignorance you’d expect from stories set in the 1800s. Some weird westerns go full-on horror, while others embrace the steampunk, philosophy, mysticism, aliens, or time bubbles. There are a couple of shorts that push the envelope, but nothing blew my mind. Still, I count collections a good deal if at least half entertain, and this batch easily met that bar.

Mr. Gigante narrates nearly all of the shorts, except for a couple where the MC is female. There’s also a short where Ms. Ross provides duet narration to great effect. As much as I respect Mr. Gigante, however, using him for everything brought a certain sameness to the shorts. Perhaps that’s why I liked the last half dozen or so shorts the least.

great collection!

Great variety of subjects, scenarios, and perspectives. One of the better anthologies I've had the pleasure of listening to.