Cowboy Shootin - Novel appearance

[Coho]

My book, Rhunken Chronicles - Tongass, came out this past July. Living in Juneau Alaska I was hoping to capitalize on the tourist trade with the local story. However, it turned out to bad timing due to COVID. I hope that next year will be better. This being my first book of a series (I hope), I spent time building the characters to support this book as well as future ones. One of the subtle details I planted for the main protagonist was he shoots Cowboy Action.

 

 “She walked over to the shelves and checked out the pictures,

knickknacks and other mementos, telling her a lot of Brad’s past.

There were pictures of a younger Brad in a Navy uniform, his daughter

at various ages, and his late wife, all with happy faces. A shadow box

held some military shooting medals, some dating back more than

twenty years, and eight fancy championship belt buckles with recent

dates from state, territorial and national cowboy shooting events. A

current photo of Brad in a cowboy outfit at a shooting competition

made her smile. “Boys will be boys,” she said quietly.”

In this book the Cowboy action shooting doesn’t play a big part but the plan is to have it make appearances in subsequent novels. I think the more press our sport gets the better, even if it’s just in passing.

 

Coho

[Nasty Newt # 7365]

 

Good for you.  I've thought about a novel, or maybe a short story, about a time-travelling cowboy action shooter who finds himself in the old west.  It could be fun.

 

[Charlie Harley, #14153]

Good for you getting the novel published, even if the timing was off with COVID. 
 

10 minutes ago, Nasty Newt # 7365 said:

 

Good for you.  I've thought about a novel, or maybe a short story, about a time-travelling cowboy action shooter who finds himself in the old west.  It could be fun.

 

 

Ask around the Wire and Saloon to see if anyone still has a copy of “Anachronism”. It’s a short story written by a cowboy shooter maybe fifteen years ago. I won’t spoil the plot line, but it was along the lines you described but with some real head twisters. I loved it. 

[Alpo]

I was just thinking about that one. Sergeant somebody-or-other wrote it. Wore a red bandana tied around his neck, and the bad guys called him the redneck.

 

I wish I still had it, but that was four maybe five computers ago.

[Black Angus McPherson]

7 minutes ago, Alpo said:

I was just thinking about that one. Sergeant somebody-or-other wrote it. Wore a red bandana tied around his neck, and the bad guys called him the redneck.

 

I wish I still had it, but that was four maybe five computers ago.

 

Sgt. Drydock?

 

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Don't go into too much detail about the sport. It can detract from your story line and may only interest fellow CAS people.

Example: A buddy of mine has written a number of books, but his first, (The Gothic Tunnel)while a good read, went into too much detail about the sewer system where the protagonist was holding a girl he had kidnapped. (Brian is a hydraulic, waste water and sewer engineer and expert on flow dynamics)

[Alpo]

17 minutes ago, Black Angus McPherson said:

 

Sgt. Drydock?

 

I think it was.

[Ozark Shark]

Cowboy Action Shooting is the new passion of the protagonist in Stephen Hunter's 2009 novel, I, Sniper.  Of course the names have been changed to protect the author, but the three who get whacked by a sniper in the opening chapters are most obviously Jane Fonda, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn and the protagonist is Ted Turner.  I think it was Hunter's way of putting a dig into all four of them.

I'm married to a novelist.  She often uses a coffee cup that reads, "Don't piss off the author or she will put you in her next book and kill you."  I keep that in mind daily.

 

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

Nice! I get a kick out of movies where they show either the good or bad guy using their reloading gear. Shooter and Jack Reacher are a couple of them.

[Smuteye John SASS#24774]

2 hours ago, Ozark Shark said:

I'm married to a novelist.  She often uses a coffee cup that reads, "Don't piss off the author or she will put you in her next book and kill you."  I keep that in mind daily.

 

The SciFi world refers to that as "red shirting". Most of the time, it's a cool way for the author to recognize fans.

 

Then, there's the case of Joe Buckley- a real guy that pissed off a couple authors over at Baen publishing many years ago and an informal contest has arisen  between the authors to see wno can kill him off in the most gruesome way.  Killing off a Joe Buckley has became a tradition.

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

1 hour ago, Smokin Gator SASS #29736 said:

Nice! I get a kick out of movies where they show either the good or bad guy using their reloading gear. Shooter and Jack Reacher are a couple of them.

I  Jack Reacher. A friend gave me one of the books and I bought all of the others. I had to force myself to not read one-a-day.

[Ozark Shark]

1 hour ago, Smuteye John SASS#24774 said:

The SciFi world refers to that as "red shirting". Most of the time, it's a cool way for the author to recognize fans.

 

Then, there's the case of Joe Buckley- a real guy that pissed off a couple authors over at Baen publishing many years ago and an informal contest has arisen  between the authors to see wno can kill him off in the most gruesome way.  Killing off a Joe Buckley has became a tradition.

We're both very familiar with "red shirting," but Joe Buckley is new to us.  Great story.  Thanks for sharing.

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

13 minutes ago, Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217 said:

I  Jack Reacher. A friend gave me one of the books and I bought all of the others. I had to force myself to not read one-a-day.

I've read about all of them too. Reading a Mitch Rapp one now.

[Charlie MacNeil, SASS #48580]

4 hours ago, Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217 said:

I  Jack Reacher. A friend gave me one of the books and I bought all of the others. I had to force myself to not read one-a-day.

And in the interest of doing my part to hijack the thread  , I'm on Reacher 17. Reading them in numerical order. This is the first one I haven't read before...

[Charlie MacNeil, SASS #48580]

7 hours ago, Ozark Shark said:

Cowboy Action Shooting is the new passion of the protagonist in Stephen Hunter's 2009 novel, I, Sniper.  

 

And Hunter took considerable liberties with his depiction of the game. That having been said, it was still a great book. My advice to the OP is to not go into too much detail unless it's a major factor in the story, but make what you do say about it accurate...

[Smuteye John SASS#24774]

4 hours ago, Ozark Shark said:

We're both very familiar with "red shirting," but Joe Buckley is new to us.  Great story.  Thanks for sharing.

Baen has even put together a 'highlight reel' called "The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley'.

 

My vote for most gruesome is either being (slowly) absorbed by a living space ship or the scientist Joe Buckley that made a mistake in his calculations for a FTL drive and blasted both him and his ship into sub atomic particles scattered all over subspace.

 

One of my favorites is a PDA with an unstable AI that's based on a version of Joe.  If you turn up its' awareness too high for too long it basically has a massive panic attack and 'dies' or resets itself.  Every time a 'buckley' 'comes back to life' after a reset, it's in a panic.

 

When asked, the author said that he wanted a way to kill Joe over and over again.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

About 15 years ago I met Tex, one of the SASS founders and at that time editor of The Chronicle. It was his job to make sure that Cowboy Action Shooting was always the term used in The Chronicle.  The phrase he used was “Cowboy shooting is illegal even in Texas.” It looks like you have your Ts dotted and Is crossed in that regard.