The Country Under Heaven

Who does not love a genre mash up? The industry certainly does as they ride that Romantasy train all the way to the bank. Although I do not mind a whimsical fantasy, I would not consider it my favourite genre. A mash up of genres needs a little more bite to interest me. How about Westerns with the Old Gods? Now you are talking, Frederic S. Durbin’s The Country Under Heaven is the first book I have read in the Cthuern genre, a mix of cowboys, and Gods that break the minds of men. 

Ever since surviving an explosion during the Civil War, Ovid Vesper has seen visions. With nowhere to settle after the war, Vesper roams the Great Plains of America following where his visions take him. Over the next decade or so, Vesper becomes involved in more than one adventure that flirts with the uncanny. Rather than running away in terror, Vesper straightens his hat and tackles the terror like only a cowboy can. 

Mixing classic feeling Western fiction with H P Lovecraft is not something that I would think of as a good fit, but Durbin proves in Country that it not only works but makes for an excellent novel. If the Old Gods were destroying minds in the cities surely they would be prevalent as well in the vast lands that span America. The book takes the form of a series of stories from Vesper’s life, reading more like a short story collection than a narrative whole. It is Vesper who is the glue that holds the book together, and despite skipping years at a time, his character development holds true throughout. 

I really enjoyed this book because it stayed true to the Western genre. Vesper is not the Man with No Name, but he is not the chattiest. This is a practical character of good morals just trying to get by, picking up work where he can. This may be helping with harvesting the crops or leading a herd across the plains. Vesper’s live is not all demons, most of it is pretty plain. We are just given an insight into the stranger tales of his life. 

You have tales that are a wonderful mix of Urban Fantasy and Western. You can start a tale about returning two green skinned children to their own land, only for it to end in a classic feeling shootout. Vesper may be asked to help a widow to carry her departed husband to his final resting place, because his ghost is haunting her, only for it to end in betrayal and tragedy. 

The only thing that remains steadfast in all the stories if Vesper’s attitude. A wonderfully practical character who deals with the problem in front of him, no matter the nature of it. This is an age when people did not feel that they knew everything about the world, there is a willingness in the West to believe that odds things may just be supernatural and to deal with them as you would the natural. 

What Durbin does best in the book is blend the natural and supernatural, even playing with the reader at times. Lulled into a sense that the book is packed with Cthulhu, some of the evil in the book proves to be far more human. There are moments of horror and fantasy, but this is a Western book at heart, with a sprinkling of spicy supernatural flavour added to the mix. The sense of place and people feels like the Old West should do and it is how you imagine they would deal with odd goings on. The book follows most of Ovid Vesper’s life, but I hope that there are some more hidden tales for him to tell in a future book.