Showdown at Guyamas by Logan Winters - Spectros 1

Showdown at Guyamas

by Logan Winters (Paul Lederer)

Spectros 1

1978 Manor Books

Read the series overview for an introduction to the characters and formula.

Spectros and crew get mixed up with a range war and train heist.  The cover and branding of this first installment don't betray any of the series' supernatural elements.

Some good storytelling, but Lederer is juggling so many plotlines I got lost trying figuring out what character is in what subplot and how they knew where everyone else was.  People just kind of show up when they're needed.

I know he needs to keep the villain alive for the next book, but don't make it so obvious.

Spectros

Spectros

by Logan Winters (Paul Lederer)
5 installments 1978-1981

Click cover for review if available.

Doc Spectros was shanghaied to the Orient, where he fell in love with a woman named Kristina. Kristina is kidnapped by the evil wizard Blackschuster. Spectros spends years learning the occult arts to face Blackschuster and rescue Kristina.

He is joined by three companions:

Ray Featherskill - womanizing gunfighter

Montak - giant mute and knife expert

Inkada - Also a gunfighter, wields a kris.  Might be an eastern Moor or East Indian.

There's some room for some Doc Savage style cast of colorful backup characters, but this hasn't been developed much in the installments I've read.

The series formula is in the Fugitive model.  The team comes to town chasing after Blackschuster and his henchman Wango.  They involve themselves in two stock western scenarios, one of which involves Blackschuster trying to get silver for his magic fumes he uses to keep Kristina in a trance.  One of the team will be briefly separated from the rest before rejoining them later without incident.  It ends with Blackschuster basically being allowed to escape and nobody making any effort to rescue Kristina.

Not a lot of magic going on.  Doc Spectos can turn himself into young gunfighter Kid Soledad for brief periods of time, and both wizards can turn themselves into animals for the two sentence animal fight that throws down each installment.

Lederer basically weaves three stories together in not much space.  The first book has a kindle page count of 138 pages, and 20% of that is an excerpt from the next book.  What he leaves out are backstory, characterizations, and decent action scenes.  What's left seems to be characters just going from point a to b to c to move the story along.

The numbering is a bit confusing for this series. The first is Showdown at Guyamas published in 1978 as a standalone for Manor books.  The series started again with number one for the next four installments at Tower, all published in 1981 with better covers and branding.

Being used to the Piccadilly Cowboys around the same era I found Spectros very old-fashioned, more Tom Mix than Clint Eastwood.  I like my westerns violent and/or gimmicky, and this wasn't enough of either for me.

The third book has Bigfoot and the fourth has zombies, so I might come back to this series later.

All five are available for Kindle from Amazon.

Spectors 2 - Silverado by Logan Winters

Silverado
Spectros 2 (1st for Tower)
by Logan Winters
1981 Tower Books

The least weird Weird West I've seen, and a real missed opportunity.  Dr. Strange, I mean Spectros, was shanghaied years ago and ended up in a monastery in the Himalayas.  He was betrothed to the lovely Kirstina before she was kidnapped by Baron Mordo, I mean Blackschuster.

And that's our back story, in not many more words than that.  Now, decades later, Blackschuster keeps Kristina in suspended animation in a glass coffin, while Dr. Spectros chases him with his various companions: womanizing gunfighter Ray Featherskill, giant mute Montak, eastern moor Inkada, and his horse Khamsin.

Dr. Spectros has exactly two spells.  He can turn into young gunfighter Kid Soledad which he does off page in a completely unspectacular manner.  As in "Dr. Spectros is sleeping in the wagon, but I'm here now, somehow," or "I'll tell you the truth now, I am also Dr. Spectros, but I changed a little while ago."

He can also change into an animal in an equally unspectacular manner.  In one scene he becomes a cougar, possibly while also being Kid Soledad - the scene is a titch ambiguous.  Later he becomes a kestrel to stop an Indian uprising.

And that's the grand sum of all things supernatural in Silverado.  There's kind of a plot, but mostly we've just got people talking about going places, going places, and other people talking about who went where.

There's something about a tapped out silver mine that Blackschuster needs to keep up his supply of silver for his alchemy, but that gets abandoned for a bank robbery that turns out to be a distraction for, well I didn't really catch that either.  Spectros doesn't even show up for the denouement that has Blackschuster running off - without Kristina, who's also been forgotten about.

A shame, because it's pretty well written, it just doesn't have a lot going on and doesn't make use of its premise.