"Devil's Tower"

Devil's Tower (Mark Sumner)

Here's an interesting concept: The post-civil war Wild West, except people are developing magical powers (and no, this is never explained). The book starts off well ("The shaman rode into town on a dead horse"), and exploring the wild west with magic is fun, but the book doesn't stay that great, unfortunately. It's hard to put my finger on why; The book is competently written, and the setting is certainly imaginative. I think what it comes down to are two connected issues, namely the book's pacing, and the author's decision that Custer should be the main villain, but then doesn't appear until the heroes attack him at the very end of the book.

(spoiler alert!)

The secondary villain, Quantrill, shows up and murders a bunch of people and sells the female lead into prostitution, but he dies three quarters of the way through the book. Then the heroes decide that they need to go stop Custer, although he has only appeared in flashbacks, and only then killing someone in a legal duel. It's like if Star Wars had Princess Leia blow Darth Vader's head off 3/4 of the way through and then Luke was like "Well, I guess we should go fight the Emperor" - it doesn't really make any sense, and drains most of the tension and drama.

(There's also the minor issue of our hero being a generic boring white guy, whereas his supporting cast - the aforementioned female lead, and the moronically named "Bred" who can turn himself into a giant bear - are much more interesting.)
Overall, this book isn't bad, and I guess I got my $3 out of it, but I wouldn't be running out to pick it up, unless you really love wild west were-bears.

Grade: C