Space Cowboys 2 is live! Check it out on Amazon.
Mosey on down if you’d like to read an excerpt from “Pard”, my story in the anthology.
Bob is stranded on the planet Fair Play, and working as a cab driver. When he gets stiffed by a fare, he ends up meeting Roy, a fox-like alien sporting a stetson, cowboy boots, and a love for the Wild West of Earth…
“What part of Earth are you from, Bob?”
“Well, mom’s side of the family was from India. We moved around the US a bit when I was younger, but when my dad got out of the army, we settled in Texas.”
“America! Texas!” Roy sat up straight, quivering. “The mountains, the rivers, the wide open ranges!”
I laughed. “Well, not quite. I spent my teenage years outside of Houston. More suburbia than western frontier.”
“Can I ask you something, Bob? As an Earthman and a Texan?”
I shrugged. “As long as it’s not too personal, I’ll do my best. Shoot.”
“I learned much from your classics. Books by L’Amour, Grey, McMurtry.” He shook his head. “So many! You have read them, of course?”
I nodded. You don’t grow up in Texas without at least trying L’Amour.
Roy grinned. “Those were interesting, but you your video productions? The visuals! The depictions of life in the great west. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. ‘A Fistful of Dollars’! ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!’ ‘Django’! The classics!”
“Wait. You learned about cowboys from spaghetti westerns?”
“Yes! That is the term I have read!” Roy bounced in his seat, then stilled, looking very serious. “But you are the first Earthman I have met. So I have to ask you something that I have always wondered.”
“Oh-kay… shoot.”
“Exactly what part of America was Spaghetti in?”
— excerpt from “Pard”, available now in Space Cowboys 2: Electric Rodeo
Dude, #2 in SF anthologies on the Zon. *clapping*
I love that story, Sam, and I’m glad it was accepted for the anthology. *two thumbs up*