The Doctor and the Kid
Resnick, Mike. The Doctor and the Kid (also The Doctor and the Kid: A Weird West Tale, or, in parentheses, Weird West Tales, #2). Amherst, NY: Pyr, 2012. See Internet Speculative Fiction Database for verifications.[1]
Publisher's Weekly blurb (19 Sept. 2011):
Resnick follows the first Weird West Tale, 2010’s The Buntline Special, with another dime-novel adventure featuring famous gunslinger Doc Holliday. [...] Seeking the bounty on Billy the Kid, the self-deprecating Holliday teams up with Thomas Edison and Ned Buntline to pit their science against the magic of the Indians while avoiding feminine wiles and local law enforcement. Resnick has done his research, and fast guns, fast plotting, and a comfortably entertaining writing style make this novel a rollicking Western with a steampunk tweak.[2]
Reviewed by Nicole Kilpatrick-Copeland, who notes Edison's creation of "new electrically charged guns, nitroglycerin bullets, and ways to break the sound barrier and reduce a mine to rubble" and praises the novel for "Resnick’s concept of the Wild West being protected against the expansion of the US Government by the powerful magic of native medicine men" and as "more than just a steam punk novel, more than just science fiction, more than simply a reimagining of the Wild West. It is a combination of all three and written in a way to hold the interest of someone who is already a fan of the genre and Resnick’s previous works, as well as the reader who is venturing for the first time into the realm of battery-operated high-powered pistols and air conditioned horseless carriages" (SFRA Review #300 [Spring 2012]: pp. 26-27).[3]
Other books in Resnick's steampunk Weird West Tales: The Buntine Special (#1) as mentioned, The Doctor and the Rough Rider (#3), and The Doctor and the Dinosaurs (#4).[4]
See for genre mixing and the opposition/juxtaposition of science and technology on the one hand and magic on the other. Kilpatrick-Copeland comments usefully that in The Doctor and the Kid "Resnick’s use of Thomas Edison’s genius and progress in the field of electricity were not so out of the realm of possibilities, even for the time period of the novel. [...] Edison’s harnessing of electricity and sound waves for use against the magic and protection of the shaman could be explained in a 'real world' sense as the use of gun powder and technology that was actually used against the native people in the actual expansion efforts" (pp. 26-27).
RDE, finishing, 15Jun21
