I could NOT put this wonderful book down! The writing is so so good! Great descriptions and wonderful prose.
I wasn’t sure I would like it because of the bit of supernatural parts of Ovid’s experiences. But my! They were told in a way that wasn’t super scary and at most times very interesting.

Ovid has visions and adventures that take him to alternate universes. His journey across the west, following the Civil War is a historical fantasy that is truly enjoyable. I didn’t want it to end.

My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for an advance copy of this novel that is a mix of western adventure, Old Gods and Dreamscapes, and a look at how effects those involved long after peace has been declared.

Many moons ago I went to Texas to help a friend move. This was Western Texas near the New Mexico border and was a place that was quite different than the East Coast I was familiar with. Everything went south as they say with a lot of problems, a lot of blaming and a lot of recriminations. At one point I went for a walk and within a few minutes was totally lost. This again was not like walking out the door and being in the woods, again like being in New England. The world was flat, kind of sandy maybe, at least I think. I really had no idea. Everything seemed vast, wrong, and odd. The night was making sounds, the sky didn't even seem to have the right stars. Just as I got really, well concerned, I heard what sounded like a tree fall, though there were no trees around and things seemed to snap back into place. I could see a house, hear arguing voices, familiar voices, and I returned to a house of chaos, but normal human chaos. One reads about this in the West, animal noises that are unfamiliar, creatures flying in the sky. People disappearing and never found. The West might have been won, but won but who. Into this steps a man looking for something to explain what he saw on the battlefield, visions that drive him, but to what he doesn't know. Though it makes for a good story. The Country Under Heaven by Frederic S. Durbin is a weird western tale about men being evil, creatures bumping in the night, and a man on a quest for something he knows not, pursued but something he once saw in battle, and has taken a bit of him everytime they meet.

Ovid Vesper served the Union well during the Civil War, fighting the Rebels at Bull Run and other battles. It was at the Battle of Antietam that Ovid nearly met his maker, blown high into the sky and left dizzy and confused. And where he saw the craither for the first time. A craither that haunts him, sucking his life from him, and occasionally helping him, for reasons Ovid can't understand. Ovid also has visions, things that drive him to do things, sometimes brave, sometimes stupid, and sends him wandering around the West of a country coming to grips with itself. Ovid meets faith healers who promise words from the dead, and people in caves who crave the flesh of other humans. Ovid helps two children not of this world, find their way home, while earning the enmity of a dangerous gang. Ovid finds loves, loses love, makes friends, and buries a lot of enemies, seeing things that shouldn't be, and haunted by the things that he has seen and done.

One of the best written works of fiction I have read in quite awhile. An amalgam of western, horror, war stories, and even a little bit of romance. Durbin writes like a poet, describing the country side, the people, and the creatures in ways that make a reader stop, and reread passages just to hear these words in their brain again. The comparisons to both Louis L'Amour and H.P. Lovecraft but there is also a bit of Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer here, a mix of myth and legend, with human interest. Durbin can write action, but can also write about just looking at the plains and thinking about the past. And horror. Durbin can do horror, from eldritch, to the just the normal evil that humans can do to each other. I really can't praise this book enough, nor say how much I enjoyed it.

Fans of Joe Lansdale, Wellman, Jonah Hex comics, Lovecraft, even Robert E. Howard will enjoy this. This is a very well written piece of western fiction, with a prose that feels very much like poetry. With plenty of scares. Role players might like this too, seeing how to build characters, have characters deal with high strangeness, and frankly because it is a good story. This is my first adventure with Frederic S. Durbin, I can't wait to hit the road again with him.