Set in the alternative 19th century American Old West of the Wild West Exodus tabletop game, Sarah Cawkwell’s Lazarus is an action-packed tale of gunslinging lawmen, soldiers, spirit magic and horrifying technological experimentation. In this Dystopian Age blending steam power and hyper-advanced technology, Major Willa Shaw of the Union of Federated States is dispatched to the arid lands of Arizona to investigate the destruction of a young mining town named Provenance. Along the way she’s unhappily reunited with a figure from her past in the shape of Deputy Doc Holliday, the two of them forced together by circumstance as they piece together a puzzle involving questions over Provenance’s fate, horrifying human/machine constructs, and a dangerous new narcotic called Lazarus. The trail of death and destruction they follow leads inevitably to the threat of newfound conflict, and the unhinged genius of Lady Annabelle Hamilton.
There’s something deeply fascinating about the Wild West, about stories seeped in dust and dirt and blood and booze, and Cawkwell nicely captures that tone here, drawing upon historical figures (not just Doc Holliday but also names like Tesla and Wyatt Earp) and adding in madcap technology to give things an intriguing mix of tradition and modernity. All the Western cliches are present and correct, from rough and tumble saloons filled with rugged men and beautiful women to fast-shooting gunslingers, tragic backstories and evocatively-named towns like Howling Rock and Little Beam. The sometimes cool, sometimes horrifying Enlightened technology adds its own feel to proceedings though, with tech that feels wildly futuristic for the time but still rooted in the tone and style of a Western. The sudden influx and different uses of this technology, some for genuine good and other for terrible, bloody purposes, provides a surprisingly relevant theme exploring the cost of unfettered technological advancement with no ethical constraints.
Set to this backdrop, Willa and Doc make an engaging pair of protagonists, each with their own agenda and objectives, and with a complicated shared history affecting their decision making. As much as it is about weird techno-zombies and the Warrior Nation’s powerful spirit magic (can’t say too much about this strand of the story for risk of spoilers…but it’s really cool), this is really a tale of two stubborn people trying to figure out how to put the past behind them and start to heal. Events proceed pretty much as you’d expect, their investigation increasingly bringing the unlikely pair into conflict with the bizarre results of Lady Hamilton’s experiments, and the inevitable action and excitement is entertaining…but it’s the dynamic between Willa and Doc which really adds satisfaction to the story. Hamilton herself is a bit of a cliche but still brilliantly bonkers; weirdly endearing on the surface despite the petulance and the narcissism, but utterly appalling underneath.
It is in fact quite a bit darker than it might appear at first glance, and pretty gruesome in places – Cawkwell certainly doesn’t pull her punches in the action scenes or with descriptions of Hamilton’s experiments, and Willa and Doc certainly don’t have things easy. All told, as a tie-in novel exploring this entertaining setting there’s a lot to recommend this – it’s not the most complicated or unpredictable of plots, and it does have a slightly confusing tendency to jump perspectives in the middle of a scene (and that’s really a case of personal taste), but really it’s just good fun, and boasts some great characters (just wait until you meet Sergeant Irwin). The occasional references to other events, factions and concepts in the setting will likely appeal to existing fans, but there’s nothing stopping someone totally new to the IP [like me] from enjoying this as a standalone story – and either way, there’s more than enough mystery and entertainment to want to know more!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
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