The Quick and the Dead Books

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD is really two supplements; one is extra toys and background for a Deadlands game and the other is a gazetteer from The Epitaph.

The first part I can take or leave. It has new hexes, new guns, rules for knacks and black magic, new archetypes, new monsters, new edges/hindrances, just more of everything. It's nice, but I can sit down and make those up too. The additional Marshal's background is interesting and adds more depth to the Deadlands world. But the really useful part is The Epitaph - no player or Marshal should be without it.

This issue of The Epitaph is pretty much a Player's Guide to the Deadlands. It explain politics, geography, history, famous people, famous places, monsters, diseases, and a whole host of other things. The information here helps to define the borders of the Deadlands space. After reading it, I had a much better feel for what my characters might encounter in different parts of the country or what and where might be interesting to investigate. Don't leave this important issue out of your collection.

This books adds some welcome new seeds for characters and stories alike, along with more than a few bits of humor (Roswell, NM and "Fort 51", to name the two most obvious). Though the basic game book alone provides an excellent skeleton and generous portions of meat (and gore), herein is a second and third helping of tasty ideas. Naturally, there's still lots of room on the plate for the Marshall to add his (or her) own special touches without seeming too sparse. Overall, a well-done supplement that belongs in the library of every posse and Marshall.

Another fine entry in this compelling series set in the gritty underbelly of Batman's Gotham City. The plot increasingly focusses on Det. Rene Montoya, which is fine by me (although I'm waiting for her partner, Crispus Allen, to come out of the box a bit more...) Author Greg Rucka's debt to HBO-TV's "The Wire" is increasingly obvious, but that's mighty fine source material.

In this volume, a booby trap set by one of the Flash's foes, Mr. Alchemy, sets Montoya and Allen on a trip to Keystone City, where Alchemy pulls a "Silence Of The Lambs" taunt-the-cops number... Although the story gets more wrapped up in super-doings than earlier story arcs, Montoya's eventual beat-down of the bad guy, though emotionally satisfying, sets the stage for her to begin questioning her own attraction to extreme violence. I predict an even stronger, richer storyline further down the road.

Great entry in a very strong series, compulsively readable from start to finish.

This entire series is excellent! Rucka & Brubaker are NOT my favorite people for Superhero books but they do EXCEL at crime stories. Gotham Central is an excellent "reality" approach at one of comic-dom's most famous cities. Not everything in a town like Gotham is about Mr Freeze or the Joker but even when they are, Batman isn't the only one working on it. Love this series and highly recommend it to ANYONE who likes Law & Order, Batman and maybe even The Untouchables.

be amazed at the beauty and delicay in which different artists at different times try to express and show the wonders of the human body.

i was left in awe, looking over the pages again and again, captivated by the words along with the images. and maybe just a bit brighter in the world of science.

Gross Anatomy has always sounded to the lay public as some kind of perjorative about what medical students due, what pornographers do, and what artists perch above the cadaver to represent. Actually nothing could be further from the truth. For centuries artists and scientists have been joined at the hip - witness Vesalius and his immaculate engravings of the musculature and skeltons of the dissected bodies obtained by grave robbers under the umbrella of education. In this superbly written and illustrated volume Deanna Petherbridge and Ludmilla Jordanova have gleaned some of the finest examples of the study and representation of the human body resulting from this still ongoing duplicity between anatomists/physicians and artists. The journey here is well documented from the earliest forms to the latest depictions of how intensive visual and manual dissection of the human body has contributed to some of the finest art in the world. Bravo to the authors for opening a door to the lay public to once and for all subsume the negative implications of the term Gross Anatomy. Superb book!

I first encountered this book when I was in Medical hold awaiting outprocessing after a serious injury. It was an older book so I was kind of hesitant about it thinking it was going to be an old uninteresting pointless novel with no depth to it, but as more time went on while I was in bed I found myself tempted to read it and soon it was drawing me into it. Seeing the War in Vietnam from the prospectives of several different characters military and civilian for and against the war. It describes in detail the politic views of the world populous at that time through unique characters and it definitely kept me entertained I read it over about four times before I finally shipped out to go home. I strongly recommend you read this book

I rated this book a 5 star rating. I am a fan of Louis L'Amour because his books are clean, not full of sex and other junk. I bought this particular book because I wanted to compare it to the movie with the same title (with Sam Elliott). You have to buy the book to see if there is a difference.

A family traveling west. They meet a man named Vallian who helps them along to the west. Pa doesn't trust him much. But Tom (The boy) does and Ma does. If vallian hadn't been there, though, the men chasing them who thought there was gold in their wagon would have killed them. This is a really good Louis L'amour book. I have about thirty-five or fourty.

My VERY favorite is, THE MAN CALLED NOON.




William Andrews

I really like the title of this old Louis L'Amour book. Obviously Hollywood liked it as well since you can find several movies with the same name. After the title, I found the book to be a little of a let down. When a band of outlaws decide to take a wagon load of goods going west from an unsuspecting and unprepared family of three, they never counted on Con Vallian. He could care less about anything but himself, but the coffee that lady made sure was good. He found himself entangled in a fight that they could not win without him. There must have been some decency in him afterall. He hangs around to save the day. It is short and worth the read, but don't expect too much!

The Quick and the Dead is about a family traveling west and meeting up with a stranger named Vallian.There's also a band of murders who think they are carrying gold.It is full of action-packed adventure!I liked it.Maybe you will to!

I started reading The Quick and The Dead in New Mexico last year at a bed & breakfast and only now got a copy and finished it. L'Amour's style of writing is exceptional and his ability to spin a yarn is enviable.

The Quick & The Dead is a page-turner and, like other works of the author, can teach people about the rough and rugged outdoors and the challenges faced by trekking out into the wilderness. It cannot, however, convey what would possess a sophisticated family to leave the safety and security of the East and head out to a land with no doctors, no lawmen, but with plenty of Indians and bad sorts.

The suspense in the book may keep you up late at night reading it, but the last few pages wrap up very quickly -- maybe too quickly. Almost as if L'Amour was late fer dinner and his wife was callin' him to c'mon. But it also ends wonderfully and the book is highly recommended.

I want to read more of this author. And there's plenty to choose from.

Although Walls of Jericho was a terrific and interesting read, I was ecstatic at the return of Blaine McCracken, Johnny Wareagle and Sal Belamo. Even though we did see a fallible side to "Blainey" at first, which was a first for this character, he recovers most dramatically. A bit less intriguing than other McCracken adventures, reading this book was still time well spent.

Perhaps Mr. Land was feeling tired after writing an outstanding book like The Walls of Jericho, or maybe Blaine McCracken is just getting "too old for this s--t." In any case, Land's latest doesn't even come close to matching his earlier books. Maybe he should go back to Jerusalem and create a new series with the characters from The Walls of Jericho. Good book, but not his best.

Mr.Land keeps up the traditon of a established author by keeping us entertained with favorite characters with a story that starts out great and keeps you reading until the predictable end, which while not leaving you disappointed, does leave you a little flat on the story. Hopefully Mr. Lands next story will combine the characters of "Dead Simple" and "The Walls of Jericho" into a true story of international suspense. To those who read the reviews Mr Land does pay attention to his readers

Once again Jon Land has outdone himself. Dead Simple is full of fast hard hitting action and in depth charactar relationships. Blaine and the Indian once again go up against a totally evil, larger than life villian, with a powerful weapon and an even more powerful past! The assortment of fellow bad guys leaves little to be desired. The government bads guys shine in this one also. And Blaine gets hurt pretty bad for the first time. As an avid Jon Land fan, this book does what all of his books do, they force you to keep on reading on the edge of your seat to the very finalle. And Dead Simple has a wopper of a finalle! Enjoy, people, enjoy.

This was a very good book written by Land. The book starts with Blaine McCracken being wounded severely by a terrorist. He has to go to Florida to recover from his wounds. He is ran through a recovery program by his old sergeant. In the meantime "Jackie Terror" and his gang of psychos has hilacked a truckfull of Devil's Brew(A dangerous explosive).Blaine's old sergeaent has to leave and go help his daughter and is promptly Kidnapped.The bad guys.led by Jackie Terror and his gang also a[[ear. McCracken gathers his old troops(7 foot tall Johnny Wareagle) in order to do battle with Jackie Terror and his gang.This book is action packed from beginning to end. You will find it hard to put down. Another good book from Jon Land.

I'd read anything Lawrence Block wrote, cereal boxes, if necessary--that's how much of a fan I am. His only competitor in a narrow field is Donald Westlake, and Block is a tad or so better.

The plot of "Long Line" involves a tontine, a club of disparate men who meet once per year to see who has died. Unlikely? Yes, but bear with it. After a time it appears that the members are dying faster than normal, and Scudder is hired to find out why. It's been done before with different twists (e.g., Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None"), but it's not bad. I would add only that the first pages were a bit tedious--until Scudder takes the reins. Then the book moves. But it's not the plot that makes this book worthwhile.

Block's characters, the ambience of New York City and the dialogue, especially the latter, are what carry this. Block's people are full of contradictions. Too often writers invent characters who stay on a narrow track, but never Block. For example, unlicensed detective Scudder is devoted to his main squeeze, but now and then he strays. His main squeeze is an ex-call girls who has an artsy Manhattan shop and an eye for what is "in" with the artsy buyers. She can sell "paint by the number" works for hundreds of dollars if the painting is in an expensive frame. Block's African American friend talks jive and straight, and the reader is never sure which is his real voice.

Block invents some streets and byways of the City, but that causes no harm. I wouldn't nitpick that. Block's city is very much alive. His most obvious talent, however, is in writing dialogue. No one does it better. It's funny. It's real. There are very funny throwaway lines.

While this is not my favorite Block novel, it's a worthwhle read--and a good deal better than most other crime novels.

A boring pastiche of "koko" (Peter Straub) and "10 little indians" (Agatha Christie) with the best parts missing. The rest of the plot is a dreary Alcoholic Anonymous polemic. Avoid.

This is an exemple of how to make a very good book from a good idea. This was my first Scudder's book and still one the very best.

There is something appealing (to some people, including me) about a 'secret society' that only meets once a year or so and whose membership is selected with no particular requirements beyond the nomination, even though it is a matter of the whim of the nominator. No dues, no qualifications, no rules (except silence about the club). This one has just 31 members, the last one living selecting the next 30, and has gone on for umpty generations. Now somebody is killing the members -- is it to 'inherit' the chairmanship? Apparently not, since a leading member asks Scudder to investigate. Like Rex Stout's "League of Frightened Men" this is a classic of this sub-category of detective-novel themes. The mystery is intriguing, and I am happy to say that Matt Scudder is selected to become a new member in spite of there being some survivors. He should be very proud to belong to such a society (even though it isn't mentioned in subsequent books, but maybe that's because it's supposed to be a 'secret society' -- in which case why did Scudder write about it? -- oh, well, that's the only way first-person narratives get written in the first place). Great idea for an old-man club, though they start out young. Meet once a year, eat well, and sigh 'well, I'm still here'.

Multi-award winner Block combines the mystery puzzle format with the gritty style of the American private eye iin this 1994 Matthew Scudder novel.

Scudder himself is a somewhat unsettling character - a forthright, thoughtful recovering alcoholic who lives with an ex-prostitute and claims as his best friend a hard-drinking killer.

The story's premise is instantly tantalizing, bristling with curiosities. Scudder's new client, Lewis Hildebrand, belongs to an unusual club - 31 men who meet annually to reflect on the year's changes in their lives and to take reverent note of those members who have died. Members speak of the club to no one, not even wives.

The last living member chooses 30 new members and the club goes on. That day is quickly approaching.

Hildebrand hires Scudder to investigate the alarming death rate among members. As Scudder looks for a thread linking the disparate accidents, suicides and murders, the questions multiply and the angles proliferate. Motive is baffling and the only suspects are the surviving club members.

As always, Block's writing is excellent with a tight plot, unusual characters and intelligent dialogue. One of Scudder's better outings.

It was definitely a good read. The author did a great job developing the characters.

First off,to the Reader From Toronto above:the answer to your question is YES!Ms.Williams other works are just as wonderful as TQATD.Especially the novel, "Breaking and Entering",which is somewhat similar in feel.And the book of stories,"Taking Care",which is where I first discovered Williams work.And I do agree that this should have won the Pulitzer.But why should we expect those judges to ever think outside the box and use their imaginations-LOOSEN UP already!And I'm in agreement with the prior reviewer that Flannery O'Connor is Williams'obvious antecedent -an excellent model to follow,nuff said.

This is a darkly comedic novel by one of America's premiere writers of fiction. Reviewers have compared her to Flannery O'Connor and that comparison is valid in terms of originality and the ability to cut through the pretense of life and reveal what people do and what they think beneath the surface of convention. But Joy Williams does not have Flannery O'Connor's polished sense of story and structure; however she doesn't need it. She has instead an eagle's eye for detail and an awesome command of language. Her characters are alive with the quickness of life, its strange twists and turns, its Shakespearean absurdity and its banality and wonder. So insightful and so sharply rendered is her prose that it alone carries us along. Into the mouths of babes she puts words of wisdom and out the mouths of her everyday people emerge worldly philosophies.

Thus 8-year-old Emily Bliss Pickless, who likes to pour dirt on her head and to pretend she doesn't know how to read to see if adults will try to mislead her, observes, "You had to act dumb around adults, otherwise there was no point in being around them at all." Assessing her mother's new boyfriend, she concludes, "...mother lacked all discrimination when it came to men." (p. 167) When she has finished re-educating the proprietor of the stuffed animal/trophy museum, we find it shut down with her sign out front, accurately announcing, "CLOSED FOR RECONSIDERATION."

Thus Nurse Daisy, as she washes Freddie Fallow, an elderly 350-pound mountain of an old man (who had to be hoisted into the tub with the aid of block and tackle), muses, "Isn't water a remarkable element? It's exempt from getting wet. It's as exempt from getting wet as God is exempt from the passion of love." (p. 169) Or, "Birth is the cause of death," and "The set trap never tires of waiting." (p. 170) Or even, "Our capacity to do evil has nothing to do with our innocence." (p. 171) Or--most especially--her description of Freddie's impending death as, "the evaporation of your little droplet above the sea..." (p. 172)

This last is an echo of Buddhism that Williams wants to satirize, as she does through the person of the undead Ginger, whose husband Carter has taken a fancy to his gardener, Donald, who espouses trendy Eastern philosophies. She begins, "What's he doing tonight, out hand-pollinating something?" She goes on to say, "Slow white dudes studying Buddhism make me sick," and finishes up with, "I can just hear him. It's only death, Ginger. Everything is fine...Does he say, Thank you, Illusion, every time he manages to overcome some piddling obstacle in his silly life?"

Thus Joy Williams's characters are vehicles for the author's expressions and her starkly original slant on the living and the dead. But what Joy Williams does so well is that she plays fair. The words of quirky wisdom come not necessarily from characters who represent her own views, such as Alice and Emily (although sometimes they do) but they can even come from the most minor of her human creatures. Thus Ottolie "who resembled an iguana" tells Alice from her bed, "I never sleep, you know...Never. Someone sleeps for me. She lives in Nebraska." Ottolie adds, "Aksarben. That's where I get a lot of my people. You have to learn how to delegate tasks." (p. 117)

Some have criticized this novel as "structurally a mess." Not so. Williams has her own organizing mechanisms. Characters flow from one to another; incidents are connected by invisible synchronicities; people appear to further the plot, and then disappear, but they are melded into the psychological and atmospheric structure of the novel. One sees this in the rednecks who seem to appear just to finish off poor Ray of the slanted mouth, but actually they are essential fixtures of the landscape as they smoke dope and shotgun saguaros, observing that "Shooting felt good..." consisting in "the increase of one's power," or that "Paranoia is having all the facts." (p. 152)

Sometimes what is best about Joy Williams is the sheer dazzle of language. Thus the unrelenting Arizona sun is made manifest through metaphor: "The sun shone like oil upon the limousine's hood, which had been waxed to the shine of water." Or the boy Alice sees whose hair was "as white as glare." (pp. 303-304) And sometimes the best thing is her revelation of character with just a phrase or two. Thus we know what Annabel is like because she worries about things like running out of avocado butter or whether she can actually wear beige or not. On page 163 a waiter, who wore "white clinging plastic gloves" comes to life with just these words:

"Have a nice remainder of the rest of your life," the waiter said. "Gotta cough." He turned away.

Or the two loud women at a nearby table who "had poured sugar on their food so they wouldn't eat anymore."

People yearn for things that cannot be, and that is life. Thus Ginger yearns for Carter to renew their vows of love and for him to join her, but he prefers to conjoin with Donald. And Alice is strangely smitten with the tuxedo-wearing piano player who is (unknown to her, but Annabel sees this clearly) irrevocably gay. But some people do indeed find love or something akin, as the stuffed animal museum owner and his adored Pickless, or Carter with Donald, or Annabel and Paris. Or the "pretty lizard" with J.C.'s missing "Little Wonder."

"The Quick and the Dead" (Second Timothy: 4:1; also The Book of Common Prayer) is a work of art that finds its own structure, that reveals itself to us in its own way. It is a fascinating reading experience, alive and vital, a tour de force of language and character, a darkly comedic romp through the sunshine of our psyches.

Read the review by Matthew S.; I agree completely. I am amazed by all the 5 star reviews, so I must be missing something (like drugs). I got all the way through the book and took myself out for dinner as a treat for accomplishing the task. I give this book 1 star as there is no selection for 0 or, better yet, -1. I found the characters to be out from left field and behaving and thinking in ways far beyond their years. The book was not believable and was boring.

This is one of my favorite novels of all time. It is absolutely flawless - a deranged, bizarre trip into the heart of the desert and the mind's of the characters who populate that arid climate and their own internal, personal, emotionally devastating landscapes. Joy Williams creates a world of heartlessness, beauty, insincerity, twisted motivations, utterly believable and flawed characters, and the most quotable dialogue I've found in any book. This novel was up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 but Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" took home the prize. Joy should have won, no question, but if she had to lose to someone I suppose I'm glad it was Mr. Chabon. Anyway, back to Joy - not only does she create a world of dazzling brilliance, she quite effectively mocks our modern culture and comes up with characters that are utterly distinct and memorable and also human - I dare anyone to read this novel and not find at least two characters they can strongly relate to and could mistake for themselves. Joy Williams, simply, is one of the best writers around, and this is one of the best things I've ever read. It's absolutely teeming with originality, genius ideas, and wonderful execution. I wish I'd written it. It's a novel that you don't so much read as experience, it's something that pulls you in with it's hooks and releases you, at the final page utterly changed. It will stick with you. I loaned out my hardback copy almost two years ago to my cousin, who is an English teacher, she's read it several times now and has yet to return it. I had to go out and buy another copy, just because I couldn't handle being without it for so long. When I first discovered this book, I carried it with me nearly everywhere I went, just wanting to keep the characters and the pages close within my reach - it's hard being away from this book, it's become a part of me, almost as vital and important as an organ. This book has a heart of it's own, and you can feel it beating below the surface, you can taste the blood and muscles and sweat when you read. It's simply impossible to describe the passion and art that are contained within these pages. I think everyone could benefit from reading this. It is the great American novel - it touches and comments upon nearly everything in our society that one can think of, it points out what is wrong, it so perfectly describes people and their personalities and actions and it even has elements of the supernatural. Yet for all of Joy William's sarcasm and harsh wit, she loves her characters and does not judge them. Ultimately, we may not be left with answers to every question, but we are left with hope, as delicious as honey from a thorn.

Never read it, but my dad wrote it

This book took me to the depths of boredom. The characters are all to typical and predictable. The story is mundane and without meaning. The author should get out of the bussiness. Although, the book does serve as a fine paperweight.

Southern literature tends to be stamped with the obsessions of William Faulkner: doomed and crazy families, legacies of guilt and grudges. The Quick and the Dead maintains that tradition. Wilson chronicles tribal hatred in an Alabama hill-country clan headed by a self-taught itinerant preacher, Robert Treadwell, who speaks in earthy parables and commits self-mutiliation. The book begins and ends with fireball confrontations between the evangelist and his firstborn son, recalled by another son, Luke. The rest, rich in incident, sounds the depths of sexual betrayal and despair. Treadwell calls himself a storyteller, a term that provides a sly, apt link between novelist and revivalist. Each, Wilson suggest, is trying in his way to explain the randon nature of fate. In both the father's febrile sermons and, in the son's cool observations, there is no justice, no fairness. There is, however, the restless energy of a fine writer.

This exciting novel shows the South of the 40's and 50's edging toward secularism. For a short time, Robert Treadwell, a fundamentalist with a violent temper, fuses two Southern traditions -- storytelling and preaching -- into a charismatic ministry among the hill people by telling them contemporary versions of New Testament parables. Before his ministry begins, however, Robert's fanaticism has led to the death of one of his twin sons, and later causes his younger son to be beaten up by bullies, and his oldest son, Will, to retaliate against Robert and then to die. The surviving twin, Luke, narrates parts of the novel. Luke, who can't accept his father's religious mania, nevertheless is haunted by visions of his dead twin, intimations of the "community of the quick and the dead, that those of us alive should could the dead among us, as the dead, I assumed in a spaceless, timeless realm, numbered us among them." Elizabeth, the other narrator, seeks spiritual fulfillment, first through dance and music, then through missionary work as Robert Treadwell's earliest disciple, and fainnly through the flesh with her dead sister's husband, the sensualist Will Treadwell. "The Quick and the Dead" is eloqunet on the anquish of reaching spiritual understanding . . . .

Carol Ames, The New York Times, August 8, 1986

This is a really great, and thoroughly sad book about what happened in Bosnia in the early-mid 90's during the war. It focuses primarily on Sarajevo and it's time under siege by the Serbs. Janine Di Giovanni adds the element of peoples' personal stories and struggles during the war (and after, for some), which helps really bring it a lot closer and puts a face on what people were actually going through, and how the horrors of war affected them. They are also her personal stories as well. She did cover what happened in a few other towns outside of Sarajevo as well, in particular, Mostar, the city of a once beautiful and age-old bridge.
It concentrates almost entirely on the experiences of the Bosnian-Muslim population, since they were the ones under siege in Sarajevo. She does mention a few encounters with Serbs, none positive.
Another element I really am glad she included, was some of the history, as cursory as it was and had to be for such short book, it was enough gain a very basic understanding of what happened and a slightly better idea why.
Finally, she brings in the point that the world stood by so long and watched what was happening, and what human beings, once again, and tragically so, were doing to each other. She makes it so personal, to our benefit, so it's not just news anymore, ordinary people, like you and me, in extrodinary circumstances, and it made me wonder what it would have been like had it been me and family and friends suffering.