The Train Through Hell!

By: Jason Forbis

Narrated by: Jason Forbis

This isn’t the West you know. Things have gotten weird. Prairie dogs as big as a calf, gilas longer than a dinner table, and beings scouring the plains and towns looking for souls. Since the barrier between the worlds of the living and dead were broken, danger and horrors awaited everyone.
Anchor Kessel had left behind the cattle drives and long, hard trips across open ground to push cows to market for another man to rake in money. It was time for him to find his own fortune. Riding a train into the New Mexico territory seemed like a good way to start. He couldn’t have been more wrong. He went from staring at the backside of a wandering cow to fighting demons for his very life. It seems he traded one task for the charge to save his friends, himself, and possibly the territory as a whole. It was not what he planned for his retirement from cow punching, but as he has said, “Everybody’s got to be somewhere, I guess this is where I’m supposed to be.”

©2024 Jason W. Forbis (P)2024 Jason W. Forbis

The Start Of A Strange Journey

As an avid reader of "Supernatural Westerns", I was very eager to check out this book.

Short review: I think that this novel would fit perfectly, whether in a digital library or on a bookshelf, as a nice palette cleanser between the fantastic works of Joe R. Landsale's "Jonah Hex" stories and Jonathan Mayberry's "Deadlands" series. The story kept moving along at a great pace, and there were some interesting visuals the would certainly shock me to see in real life. An easy listen / read, and worth listening to just for the smooth narration alone.

Some nitpicks - Warning: spoilers ahead!



After listening to it twice, it comes off as more of a "cozy mystery novel". You know, those types of books that usually involve an unsuspecting lead character solving a mystery in a small town scenario. Because, this premise is not a new one: A town is burdened by an entity, and a gunslinger is tasked with figuring out the solution. Regardless, it's still a premise that holds to be tried and true, and brings us back like a weekly episode of "Have Gun, Will Travel".

However, our lead character isn't given enough breathing room, or exposition for us to care about him YET. If this were a one-and-done story, I totally get that, But he is displayed as a fairly generic gunslinger, trying to solve a local problem, and then move on. So our connection to him isn't strong enough to worry about his injuries or perilous situations.

However we do get a lot more connection to the secondary characters, especially the female character, as she is demonstrated to be a more dynamic character with juxtaposing unsuspected ability and feminine mystique, and seeing how she adapts in various scenarios.

While there is a lingering sense of an overarching storyline, which isn't really made known except for a little "tag" at the end, everything buttons up way too easily, and make this novel absolutely feel like a standalone piece instead of the first novel in a series. Outside of the little "tag" at the end of the book, which almost feels like an afterthought thrown in before publication, there isn't enough cliffhanger in the end to make me feel like I have to see what happens next.

I would have preferred to read further adventures of the the main character and secondary female character without their fully formed romantic attachment already in place. While there was some fun but innocent sexual tension between them throughout the story, it all felt a bit forced and quickly acted upon in the end. It would have been fun to see more of that tension in various scenarios in the future.

Regardless, I am a fan of the narrator, and that usually attracts me to listen to audio books that maybe wouldn't get my attention otherwise. I will, no doubt listen to future continuations of this series, and who know, by the next novel my little nitpicks might be resolved, and this review would be a moot point.

Aside from these points, nice job Jason, I will be following along in this world that you're building.