Tuesday 21 January 2014

Keeping the Edge

Now available as eBook
No one could reasonably deny that Leone’s best work was not as defining and important to the western genre, as the best of John Ford or Anthony Mann. Leone’s westerns were spawned from imitation and yet became vastly imitated themselves.Inhabiting the West of the American movies Leone gave the genre a much needed kick, created a heightened reality, both surreal and stylized. He gave the stock gunslingers and cliched bounty hunters a coolness that appealed to the counter culture. Much the same argument can be used with the Edge novels of George G. Gilman – they too were born out of imitation, influenced by the films of Leone and other European directors who were themselves indebted to the Americans. And they too were widely imitated and like Leone they too redefined the western. For where Leone started out as an imitator he ended up creating a sub-genre of his own, as did George G. Gilman. It was the tremendous success of the Edge series that kicked off the boom in Adult western novels.

They are without doubt the most important of the British westerns – true J T Edson was more prolific but, although highly readable, he took his influences first hand from the great American westerns, while Edge drew from a well polluted by the excesses of Leone, Corbucci and others. This resulted in Edge proving popular with a younger, more hip readership than was usual for the western genre.

A man without fear
A man without remorse
A man who survives because he has … the Edge
Edge comes to eBook



#1: The Loner
#2: Ten Grand
aka Ten Thousand Dollar American
#3: Apache Death
#4: Killer’s Breed
#5: Blood on Silver
#6: The Blue, the Grey and the Red
aka Red River
#7: California Killing
#8: Hell’s 7
aka Seven Out of Hell
#9: Bloody Summer
#10: Vengeance Is Black
#11: Sioux Uprising
#12: Death’s Bounty
aka Biggest Bounty
#13: A Town Called Hate
aka The Hated
#14: Big Gold
aka Tiger’s Gold
#15: Blood Run
aka Paradise Loses
#16: The Final Shot
#17: Vengeance Valley
#18: Ten Tombstones to Texas
#19: Ashes and Dust
#20: Sullivan’s Law
#21: Rhapsody in Red
#22: Slaughter Road
#23: Echoes of War
#24: The Day Democracy Died
aka Slaughterday
#25: Violence Trail
#26: Savage Dawn
#27: Death Drive
#28: Eve of Evil
#29: The Living, the Dying and the Dead
#30: Waiting for a Train
aka Towering Nightmare
#31: The Guilty Ones
#32: The Frightened Gun
#33: Red Fury
#34: A Ride in the Sun
#35: Death Deal
#36: Town on Trial
#37: Vengeance at Ventura
#38: Massacre Mission
#39: The Prisoners
#40: Montana Melodrama
#41: The Killing Claim
#42: Bloody Sunrise
#43: Arapaho Revenge
#44: The Blind Side
#45: House On the Ranged
#46. The Godforsaken
#47: The Moving Cage
#48: School for Slaughter
#49: Revenge Ride
#50: Shadow of the Gallows
#51: A Time for Killing
#52: Brutal Border
#53: Hitting Paydirt
#54: Backshot
#55: Uneasy Riders
#56: Doomtown
#57: Dying is for Ever
#58: The Desperadoes
#59: Terror Town
#60: The Breed Woman
#61: The Rifle
For more than twenty years the Edge books dominated the western scene, equally successful in the UK and US and in fact translated into ten different languages. Many of the Edge titles are available in eBook

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

its probably a stupid question.if josiah c hedges was mexican-swedish halfbreed.what would his accent be like.i am imaging sterling hayden swedish accent in terror in a texas town.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Um - I reckon more like a cross between John Inman and Bob Hoskins.

Anonymous said...

strange.it sounds like benidorm kenneth du beke star tony maudsley would be fontrunner to either play george g.gilman edge or dubb burt reynolds voice.

Anonymous said...

fans of george g.gilmans the edge should look at photos of actor mads mikkelsen western the salvation and ask who that look like.

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