Wraiths of the Broken Land
by S. Craig Zahler
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A brutal and unflinching tale that takes many of its cues from both cinema and pulp horror, Wraiths of the Broken Land is like no Western you've ever seen or read. Desperate to reclaim two kidnapped sisters who were forced into prostitution, the Plugfords storm across the badlands and blast their way through Hell. This gritty, character-driven piece will have you by the throat from the very first page and drag you across sharp rocks for its unrelenting duration. Prepare yourself for a savage show more Western experience that combines elements of Horror, Noir and Asian ultra-violence. You've been warned.Praise from Kurt Russell, Joe R. Lansdale, Booklist, Jack Ketchum, and Ed Lee:
"Zahler's a fabulous story teller whose style catapults his reader into the turn of the century West with a ferocious sense of authenticity." -Kurt Russell, star of Tombstone, Escape from New York, Dark Blue, and Death Proof
"If you're looking for something similar to what you've read before, this ain't it. If you want something comforting and predictable, this damn sure ain't it. But if you want something with storytelling guts and a weird point of view, an unforgettable voice, then you want what I want, and that is this." -Joe R. Lansdale, author of The Bottoms, Mucho Mojo, and Savage Season"
"[C]ompulsively readable.... Fans of Zahler's A Congregation of Jackals (2010) will be satisfied; think Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. [C]lever mayhem ... leads to a riveting climax." -Booklist
"[A] classic Western that's been twisted into the shape of a snarling monster...." -Gabino Iglesias, Out Of The Gutter Online
"It would be utterly insufficient to say that WRAITHS is the most diversified and expertly written western I've ever read."-Edward Lee, author of The Bighead and Gast.
"WRAITHS always rings true, whether it's visiting the depths of despair, the fury of violence, or the fragile ties that bind us together for good or ill. It's a Western with heart and intelligence, always vivid, with characters you will detest or care about or both, powerfully written." -Jack Ketchum, author of Off Season and The Girl Next Door
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Member Reviews
(2026) fantastic. This book hits fast and hard. I was invested in each and every character. Despite the book not being very long, it is quite descriptive. Just a brutal and wonderfully graphic book.
H O L Y S H I T
This book was recommended to me after I gushed to an acquaintance about S. Craig Zahler's films not knowing that the Director/Screenwriter/Composer of both Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99 was also an author. I mean COME ON... Calm down, dude. Or don't. Actually don't... Please don't... Don't stop... Give me MORE!
I went into this with eyes wide open. I knew that this book was going to have some tense, brutal, heart-wrenching, violent, and gruesome moments. I looked forward to them, in fact. And yet I was left slack jawed from the sheer barbarity and depravity of the opening paragraphs of the very first chapter. This book should really come with a trigger warning.
More importantly, however, I was also hoping for show more the same character driven storyline that held me absolutely captivated when watching Bone Tomahawk and I was not disappointed. Much like the film, the book follows a small group of men on a mission to rescue two kidnapped sisters being held captive and forced into prostitution in Mexico. The interplay between them with their disparate dispositions and temperaments is the real driving force of this book. You get to know just enough about the characters to genuinely care about them. And there’s the rub… because if you know Zahler, you just know that you shouldn’t get attached. But you do.
I’d like to have given this book 5 stars but for the first 50 pages or so Zahler seems irrationally determined to use language so arcane as to make the prose impenetrable. I’m a lover of lexicon but having to wade through clunky, verbose descriptions drowning in highfalutin $10 words made my head spin and, frankly, annoyed the living crap out of me. At first I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt... maybe he was using language to set the mood? maybe The Gentleman, being well educated, would use such elaborate language?... but just no. It didn’t work. There wasn’t a single word that I didn’t know (or couldn’t extrapolate the meaning of) and yet some passages (sentences even!) were so chock full of unnecessarily inflated vocabulary that it was downright distracting. There were several rolls of my eyes and I even snorted derisively more than once. Luckily, however, he seemed to have lost his thesaurus somewhere along the way and then it was pretty much smooth sailing. If smooth sailing can include lots and lots and lots of turbulent mayhem.
All that said, I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed his films or anyone who loves a truly hardcore story. show less
This book was recommended to me after I gushed to an acquaintance about S. Craig Zahler's films not knowing that the Director/Screenwriter/Composer of both Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99 was also an author. I mean COME ON... Calm down, dude. Or don't. Actually don't... Please don't... Don't stop... Give me MORE!
I went into this with eyes wide open. I knew that this book was going to have some tense, brutal, heart-wrenching, violent, and gruesome moments. I looked forward to them, in fact. And yet I was left slack jawed from the sheer barbarity and depravity of the opening paragraphs of the very first chapter. This book should really come with a trigger warning.
More importantly, however, I was also hoping for show more the same character driven storyline that held me absolutely captivated when watching Bone Tomahawk and I was not disappointed. Much like the film, the book follows a small group of men on a mission to rescue two kidnapped sisters being held captive and forced into prostitution in Mexico. The interplay between them with their disparate dispositions and temperaments is the real driving force of this book. You get to know just enough about the characters to genuinely care about them. And there’s the rub… because if you know Zahler, you just know that you shouldn’t get attached. But you do.
I’d like to have given this book 5 stars but for the first 50 pages or so Zahler seems irrationally determined to use language so arcane as to make the prose impenetrable. I’m a lover of lexicon but having to wade through clunky, verbose descriptions drowning in highfalutin $10 words made my head spin and, frankly, annoyed the living crap out of me. At first I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt... maybe he was using language to set the mood? maybe The Gentleman, being well educated, would use such elaborate language?... but just no. It didn’t work. There wasn’t a single word that I didn’t know (or couldn’t extrapolate the meaning of) and yet some passages (sentences even!) were so chock full of unnecessarily inflated vocabulary that it was downright distracting. There were several rolls of my eyes and I even snorted derisively more than once. Luckily, however, he seemed to have lost his thesaurus somewhere along the way and then it was pretty much smooth sailing. If smooth sailing can include lots and lots and lots of turbulent mayhem.
All that said, I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed his films or anyone who loves a truly hardcore story. show less
A thesaurus book. Would make another good movie by the author/director.
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- Wraiths of the Broken Land
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- 109
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- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.76)
- Languages
- English, French
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- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
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