Roswell, Texas – Saddle up Boys!

Well, there it is, Roswell, Texas - the book I have coveted  for the past  two years but somehow just never got around to reading. Now I know why, because  this  multi layered volume of  ‘twisted Texas tawdriness’ pretty much soaked up every insomniac moment I had and then some. Daylight came and went for a solid week and yet I remained somewhere in the desert lost in the mountains hovering aloft over Roswell waiting to return to my senses – I’m still waiting for that to happen.

And no, I didn’t partake of the peyote while searching for spaceships on my vintage Indian motorcycle….I just felt like I did. From start to finish this book conquers the alternate history/alternate reality storyline; it takes it up in its hairy alien bosom and lovingly guts it from the inside out. No kidding. I still walk by the night stand, see it laying there and shake my head in disbelief at what those pages contained. It’s just not possible….it’s too much to comprehend at once. It reminds that I will one day actually have dementia and that my days past  might just  be remembered a lot like this story line plays out, Tall tales interspersed with a bit of truth with a lot of  incoherent rambling.

I blame Scott Bieser and that cowgirl chick art for getting me into this  – God, that’s a great  cover.

Lets start from the beginning, it will be so much easier that way and it might even make sense, even though it didn’t the first time around. I am terribly tempted to steal the blurb from the back of the book just so you can get a really clear picture of what happens in this story. Is that allowed? I’m the reviewer right…. and I need that blurb or I’m going to totally botch this. So, here goes my blurb theft – I’m telling you right now THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS, I DID NOT WRITE THE BLURB DOWN BELOW, I WOULD LOVE TO GIVE CREDIT TO WHOEVER WROTE IT BUT I CAN”T FIND  THEIR NAME. SO WHOEVER YOU ARE THANK YOU! YOU ARE  OBVIOUSLY A HISTORICAL GENIUS…..or crazy.

“In an alternative universe, Davy Crockett survived the 1836 siege at the Alamo, and Santa Ana did not. This changed history for all of North America: Texas remained an independent republic; Mexico fell under rule of the French and did not regain her independence.

In 1947, Texican President Charles A. Lindbergh learns that a flying Saucer has crashed near the far west Texas town of Roswell. He dispatches his best friend, “Wild Bill” Bear, and three of his best Texas Rangers, to investigate. Our four heroes find themselves in a race against agents from the United States, the Franco-Mexican Empire, the California republic and the Third -and-a -half Reich, to find that crashed saucer and learn its secrets.

And as a result, they will change the course of history again”

Yeah, See what I’m saying about this book? Trust me if  I had indulged in the peyote not even that blurb up there would be making the little sense that its making right now.

Somehow Smith,May,Bieser and Zach makes this  massive thing work. I was hooked & confounded  the moment I started reading, it wasted no time stirring my brain into a pile of confusion while dousing it with intellectual carnage. At times I just simply sat staring in awe at of the artwork ( because the story had totally lost me….. shhhhhhhhh) the scene that plays out on pages 30& 31 of the book are a perfect example of the caliber of talent at work here . Look closely at the panels on those pages, the art hanging on the wall changes to mimic the conversation taking place ! …. and  thank God for those visual  hints or  I’d thought this book was totally about something else…aliens right?

And a  lot of this book was lost on me but that’s my fault. I’m just not history savvy enough to have  gotten all the subtle  references and plays with the historical aspects. Those that I did get where brilliant laugh out loud moments. And I can say that the characters chosen as alternate historical figures are hilarious and  dead on perfection of their real life counterparts. The ‘Disney’ references alone made this book so worth attempting. I’ll be laughing about that for years to come because once I understand it might not be so funny or it could be funnier. I have a feeling there’s a weird sort of political irony underlying all this farcical pseudo Texas history. A ring of truth in a last minute knockout round ? maybe, a Tall Texas Tale — Definitely.

I did feel like there was a hell of a lot of lead up to the actual ‘alien event’. It comes so near the end of the book and is so totally odd and weird that you wonder if this was really the point of the whole trip. I’m not saying the alien  aspect was disappointing- it did after all boast half naked girls, I’m just saying it felt tacked on and summed up really fast. It wasn’t what I expected ,but then again nothing in this book was what I expected. So I guess the alien part works just fine if you look at it that way.

All in all this was an  incredible story with some exceptional art to back it up and if you happen to be a Texan this book will be more than enough to make you   proud of your Lone Star heritage. But  I’m thinking Platinum Studios up coming Cowboys & Aliens may be more my speed – less history more aliens.  I will however be framing the Roswell, Texas  cover …..somehow I’ve managed to discern it’s meaning just fine.

Roswell, Texas is published by Big Head Press (2007)

L.Neil Smith, Rex F May, Scott Bieser and Jen Zach are the talent behind the book.