Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club

TERRITORY
by
EMMA BULL
Territory hardcover cover art Territory (2007)
World Fantasy Award nominee

Tor hardcover
318 pages (left)

Tor paperback
432 pages (right)

cover art by John Jude Palencar (both)
 		 Territory paperback cover art
From the inside flap of the hardcover:
       Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday. Ike Clanton.  You think you know the story.  You don’t.
       Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881 is the site of one of the richest mineral strikes in American history, where veins of silver run like ley lines under the earth, a network of power that belongs to anyone that knows how to claim and defend it.
       Above the ground, power is also about allegiances.  A magician can drain his friends' strength to strengthen himself, and can place his friends between himself and danger.  The one with the most friends stands to win the territory.
       Jesse Fox left his Eastern college to travel West, where he's made some decidedly odd friends, like the physician Chow Lung, who insists that Jesse has a talent for magic.  In Tombstone, Jesse meets the tubercular Doc Holliday, whose magic is as suppressed as his own, and attracts the sorcerous attention of Wyatt Earp.
       Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making her living as a newspaper typesetter, and -- unbeknownst to the other ladies of Tombstone -- selling tales of Western derring-do to the magazines back East.  Like Jesse, Mildred has episodes of seeing things that can't possibly be there.
       When a failed stagecoach holdup results in two dead, Tombstone explodes with speculation about who attempted the robbery.  The truth could destroy Earp's plans for wealth and glory, and he'll do anything to bury it.  Meanwhile, outlaw leader John Ringo wants the same turf as Earp.  Each man courts Jesse as an ally as they struggle for control of the territory.....

Read for group discussion on April 8, 2009
RATINGS:
How we each rated this book
Dan - Amy 6 stack of books 10   Wow! Don't miss it
8-9  Highly recommended
7    Recommended
5-6  Mild recommendation
3-4  Take your chances
1-2  Below average; skip it
0    Get out the flamethrower!
U    Unfinishable or unreadable
-    Skipped or no rating given
Cheri - Barb -
Aaron - Cynthia -
Jackie 5 Ron 5
Jennifer 3 Stephanie 5
Our book group has also read the following books by Emma Bull:
-- Finder  in August 1995
-- War for the Oaks  in September 2001
Bibliography:
Emma Bull (1954-    ) is a US writer and musician.

Awards
1987 Locus Award for Best First Novel for War for the Oaks

Her science fiction books are Falcon (1989) and Bone Dance: A Fantasy for Technophiles (1991).  Bone Dance was nominated for the Hugo Award.

Finder: A Novel of the Borderlands (1994) is a fantasy.

She collaborated with Steven Brust on Freedom & Necessity (1997) which is a historical fantasy / mystery novel.

Territory (2007) is a fantasy novel set in Tombstone, Arizona.  Territory was nominated for The World Fantasy Award.

Emma Bull edited with her husband Will Shetterly, and contributed to, the shared world anthologies of Liavek.  There are five books in the series.
-- Liavek (1985)
-- Liavek: The Players of Luck (1986)
-- Liavek: Wizard's Row (1987)
-- Liavek: Spells of Binding (1988)
-- Liavek: Festival Week (1990)

Double Feature (1994, with Will Shetterly, limited edition) is a story collection.  The Princess and the Lord of Night (1994) is a children's book.

Emma Bull is Executive Producer and one of the writers for Shadow Unit.

Links:
Our book club's page for War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
Emma Bull - Wikipedia
Bookslut | Territory by Emma Bull
Green Man Review | Emma Bull, Territory: A Unique Retelling of An American Legend
Territory | Book Reviews | SCI FI Weekly
Shadow Unit

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E-mail: SFandFBookclub@aol.com
 This page was last updated April 18, 2009