Maybe it was the success of The Executioner and other similar Pinnacle series that made someone decide that what the world needed was an ultra-violent western series. They found it in the Edge books. I never read any of them back in the '70s, but the other day I was in a Half-Price Books and saw a stack of them priced right, so I picked them up. The first in the series was among them, and I figured I'd give it a try.It's plenty violent, all right. Edge is Josiah Hedges (a mispronunciation of his name leads to his becoming Edge), and when he returns from the Civil War, he discovers that his brother and his dog have been brutally killed in a scene described in detail in the book. Edge sets out to find the men responsible, and along the way gets into a number of situations that serve the purpose of getting more violence into the book. Eventually he tracks down the men he's after and kills them.
It's all pretty straightforward, not a lot of twists involved. Or none. If you're looking for an ultraviolent western, this is what you're looking for. I'm not so sure I'll be reading any of the others in the series, but I might give one of the later ones a try just to see how things progress. In the stack I bought was one book with a different Gilman character, the Undertaker, and one features Edge along with yet another Gilman creation, Steele. Maybe I should try one of those.
7 comments:
I read a few of the Edge books back when I was a mudlogger in the oilfield. They were a bit too violent for my taste.
EDGE is ultra violent as are the other Gilman series. Those books are scarce around here.
I read quite a few of these in my late teens, early twenties (30 years ago? Really?), and I can't say the later ones are any better. They become very formulaic. I seem to remember some went back in to his time in the Civil War and were perhaps more entertaining, though I might be misrememberating (made up word, thus not a misspelling).
The Undertaker series were perhaps the most violent books written under that name, in my opinion anyway.
I used to see them in England all the time. Not for me, then or now.
When are these people going to learn that killing a guy's dog is the worst thing you can do. First JOHN WICK, then this. Also, we watched the first episode of LILYHAMMER on Netflix last night, and there was a similar occurrence.
I like the Edge books, but you have to be in the right mood for them.
I've read a few and the one thing that stands out in my memory is that nobody survives except Edge. Nobody.
I tend to rate them all at a 2 or 3 stars but I read them because, like you say, they're straightforward and simply plotted. That makes 'em quick reads. They're colorful.
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