{"id":5198,"date":"2018-03-10T10:18:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T15:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2018-03-14T12:41:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T16:41:50","slug":"legends-of-the-dragon-cowboys-by-david-b-riley-and-laura-givens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/book-review\/alternate-history\/legends-of-the-dragon-cowboys-by-david-b-riley-and-laura-givens\/","title":{"rendered":"Legends of the Dragon Cowboys, by David B. Riley and Laura Givens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Legends-of-the-Dragon-Cowboys-by-David-B-Riley-and-Laura-Givens.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-5199\" src=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Legends-of-the-Dragon-Cowboys-by-David-B-Riley-and-Laura-Givens-162x250.jpg\" alt=\"Legends of the Dragon Cowboys, by David B Riley and Laura Givens book cover\" width=\"162\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Legends-of-the-Dragon-Cowboys-by-David-B-Riley-and-Laura-Givens-162x250.jpg 162w, https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Legends-of-the-Dragon-Cowboys-by-David-B-Riley-and-Laura-Givens.jpg 324w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 162px) 100vw, 162px\" \/><\/a>Genre: Western Fantasy<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Publisher: Hadrosaur Press<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Published: 2017<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Reviewer Rating:\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-274\" src=\"http:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/uploads\/2001\/12\/fourstars.gif\" alt=\"four stars\" width=\"45\" height=\"13\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Reviewer: David L. Felts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gave you read this book?<br \/>\n<span id=\"post-ratings-5198\" class=\"post-ratings\" data-nonce=\"30ac71e5ce\"><img id=\"rating_5198_1\" src=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-postratings\/images\/stars\/rating_on.gif\" alt=\"1 Star\" title=\"1 Star\" onmouseover=\"current_rating(5198, 1, '1 Star');\" onmouseout=\"ratings_off(4.5, 5, 0);\" onclick=\"rate_post();\" onkeypress=\"rate_post();\" style=\"cursor: pointer; border: 0px;\" \/><img id=\"rating_5198_2\" src=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-postratings\/images\/stars\/rating_on.gif\" alt=\"2 Stars\" title=\"2 Stars\" onmouseover=\"current_rating(5198, 2, '2 Stars');\" onmouseout=\"ratings_off(4.5, 5, 0);\" onclick=\"rate_post();\" onkeypress=\"rate_post();\" style=\"cursor: pointer; border: 0px;\" \/><img id=\"rating_5198_3\" src=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-postratings\/images\/stars\/rating_on.gif\" alt=\"3 Stars\" title=\"3 Stars\" onmouseover=\"current_rating(5198, 3, '3 Stars');\" onmouseout=\"ratings_off(4.5, 5, 0);\" onclick=\"rate_post();\" onkeypress=\"rate_post();\" style=\"cursor: pointer; border: 0px;\" \/><img id=\"rating_5198_4\" src=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-postratings\/images\/stars\/rating_on.gif\" alt=\"4 Stars\" title=\"4 Stars\" onmouseover=\"current_rating(5198, 4, '4 Stars');\" onmouseout=\"ratings_off(4.5, 5, 0);\" onclick=\"rate_post();\" onkeypress=\"rate_post();\" style=\"cursor: pointer; border: 0px;\" \/><img id=\"rating_5198_5\" src=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-postratings\/images\/stars\/rating_half.gif\" alt=\"5 Stars\" title=\"5 Stars\" onmouseover=\"current_rating(5198, 5, '5 Stars');\" onmouseout=\"ratings_off(4.5, 5, 0);\" onclick=\"rate_post();\" onkeypress=\"rate_post();\" style=\"cursor: pointer; border: 0px;\" \/>  (<strong>2<\/strong> votes, average: <strong>4.50<\/strong> out of 5)<br \/><span class=\"post-ratings-text\" id=\"ratings_5198_text\"><\/span><\/span><span id=\"post-ratings-5198-loading\" class=\"post-ratings-loading\"><img src=\"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-postratings\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" class=\"post-ratings-image\" \/>Loading...<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Legends of the Dragon Cowboys, by David B Riley and Laura Givens consists of two tales, with each tale comprised of a series of interconnecting shorter stories. The first is The Venerable Travels of Ling Fung, by David B. Riley, and the second is Chin Song Ping and the Long, Long Night, by Laura Givens. Both tales present Chinese protagonists forging their own eccentric paths in the wild, wild west of the later half of the 1800s.<\/p>\n<p>The Venerable Travels of Ling Fung is a more straightforward tale, as Fung relays his various adventures first hand. In\u00a0Chin Song Ping and the Long, Long Night, Givens uses the frame of a narrator telling the stories, that narrator being the grand-son of\u00a0Chin Song Ping and his audience a group of fellow American serviceman currently held in captivity by German soldiers during World War II.<\/p>\n<p>The result is two enjoyable novellas sure to entertain any fan of western-style fantasy akin to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kung_Fu_(TV_series)\">TV series Kung-Fu<\/a>\u00a0or a melding of East and Wild West a la <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0184894\/\">Shanghai Noon<\/a>. The writing is up to the task, although I found Givens&#8217; tale to have a smoother and more pleasing flow. I found Riley&#8217;s dialog and narrative inconsistent in that sometimes Fung spoke with some sort of stilted English, and other times not.<\/p>\n<p>Both of the main characters share some similarity: Chinese, highly skilled (one at Kung Fu, the other at acrobatics), and sanguine and pragmatic and seemingly unperturbed about the remarkable circumstances they so frequently find themselves in.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed both quite a deal, although I give the edge to\u00a0Chin Song Ping and the Long, Long Night which I thought more inventive and more smoothly presented.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone whose a fan of the weird west, or the wild west with some weirdness present, is sure to enjoy this one. It&#8217;s short length, fun stories, and originality make it easy to recommend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Genre: Western Fantasy Publisher: Hadrosaur Press Published: 2017 Reviewer Rating:\u00a0 Reviewer: David L. Felts Gave you read this book? Legends of the Dragon Cowboys, by David B Riley and Laura Givens consists of two tales, with each tale comprised of a series of interconnecting shorter stories. The first is The &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[175],"tags":[866,9,1277,1276,912],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5198"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5204,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions\/5204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfreader.com\/r\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}