Lone Star And The Badlands War (Lone Star #16)

Lone Star and the Badlands War, by Wesley Ellis

November, 1983  Jove Books

It’s been forever since I read a Western; I’ve never been a fan of the genre, though there was a brief time in middle school when I read a few volumes of Lone Star, The Gunsmith, and Longarm; yes, even then I gravitated toward the sleazier representatives of the genre. In fact I have a vivid memory of sitting outside during recess one day in middle school, my back against a brick wall, reading a volume of The Gunsmith that was about hunting Bigfoot while my classmates were playing basketball or whatever; this was sometime in the mid-late ‘80s, probably when I was 12 or 13, and I remember the class bully came by to make fun of me for reading while everyone else was playing sports. I should’ve just showed him the dirty parts in the book. And I also recall he wasn’t even really making fun of me, more like just shaking his head that someone would read instead of playing sports...that said, I also recall the school bully actually never messed with me and generally left me alone.* 

At that time Lone Star and other Western paperbacks were ubiquitous, or at least they were in West Virginia in the 1980s. My dad was a big Western reader, but I don’t think he read any of the “adult Westerns.” I am sure I found my Westerns at the local library – the Fort Ashby Public Library (still there, it appears, the same little building and everything!) – where they were on a spinner rack beside the men’s adventure novels. In fact I bet I grabbed up the Westerns precisely because they were beside the men’s adventure novels. 

Well anyway, I know I read a Lone Star or two at the time, probably because I figured they were like a Western take on The Destroyer, in that they paired a westerner and an Asian. Only in the case of Lone Star there’s no parody or satirical elements, and the westerner is a hot-blooded, hot-bodied redhead named Jessica Starbuck and the Asian is a slender half-Japanese samurai named Ki. And I also bet it was Ki that drew me to the series; this was the mid-to-late ‘80s, when ninja mania was at its peak, and I probably figured the karate-fighting dude on the Lone Star covers was like a ninja or something. In fact I recall thinking he looked like the GI Joe character Quick-Kick. 

The series ran for a long time. I was shocked to recently see how long Lone Star and Longarm actually ran. In the case of the latter it went on for decades and decades. Lone Star ended sooner, and James Reasoner wrote the last volume of the series; it was the only one he wrote. 

Speaking of James, I reached out to him to see if he knew who might’ve written this volume of the series, which was one of three I found recently at a used bookstore – and, contrary to the ubiquitousness of the 1980s, it would seem that Lone Star is not as easy to come across these days. I went to three different Half Price Books in the DFW area a few months ago, and only one of them had any Lone Star books; I bought all three books they had, and this is the earliest of them. 

Per James, The Badlands War might have been written by Jeff Wallmann, but there’s no verification available. Also per James, Wallmann wrote the majority of the Lone Star books, but there were some other series authors that I’m unfamiliar with, like Neal Barrett Jr. and Will C. Knott. 

Whoever served as “Wesley Ellis” for this one, his (or her!) writing is very polished, to the point it is a little sedate. This is very much a long-simmer yarn, and even the expected sex scenes are few and far between…but when they do get started, they go on for quite a while. In this regard the book reminded me of The Baroness; very “upscale” otherwise, but down and dirty and graphic in the sexual material. 

Personally, I love the idea that the Wild West was made up of randy women with the bodies of Victoria’s Secret models, and such is the case of Jessica “Jessie” Starbuck, she of the “flaming red tresses” and big breasts. She’s an interesting character for sure; scion of the Lone Star estate after the murder of her father (by recurring series villains “the cartel”), and thus fabulously wealthy, but also fabuously beautiful and a deadly shot with any weapon. She’s kind of modern in the regard that she’s a “woman with agency” per the latest trendy term, yet at the same time she is not an insufferable ball-buster like a similar female character of today would be; Jessie likes her men, and she likes to give ‘em a good time. 

Humorously, there’s a part early in The Badlands War where Jessie wonders to herself if she’ll ever get married. Given that the series went on for 150-some volumes and she had at least one man per volume, I think it’s safe to say Jessie might never have gotten married, but who knows. Even in this one she basically falls in love with a Clint Eastwood-esque “gunslinger” (who also falls in love with Jessie), but the guy is brushed off into the narratorial carpet at novel’s end. Jessie needs to ride on to the next volume – and her next male conquest. One wonders if she had female conquests as well, but I doubt Lone Star went that direction…even The Baroness didn’t. (Though Dark Angel did!!) 

Ki is also a character who seems to have stepped out of the 20th Century: a half-Japanese karate master who prefers bladed weaponry. If the series had been created a little later he doubtless would’ve been a ninja, and I’m betting there had to have been a volume of Lone Star that tapped into the ‘80s ninja craze. Ki gets along fine in this one; I expected there would be a lot of parts where slackjawed yokels would call him racial slurs, but there’s none of that in this volume…for most the part. 

It’s made clear that Jessie and Ki are not and have never been an item; theirs is a platonic relationship, actually more of a sibling one. We’re told in brief flashback that Jessie was young when Ki first started working for her father, so Ki is clearly older than her, but other than that we aren’t given much to go on. Then again, this is volume 16 of the series, so doubtless stuff like that has already been explained. 

There’s also the question of the year; given the appearance of a 20-something Theodore Roosevelt, The Badlands War must take place in the 1880s. And also Jessie and Ki do a helluva lot of traveling for the era; in this one they’ve come all the way up to the Dakota territory by train and by horseback, to check in on a ranch owned by the Starbuck enterprise that is in danger of being taken over by a sadistic Frenchman named Beaumont. 

Truth be told this is rather a slow-moving yarn, with little in the way of action. It operates on more of a long-simmer vibe, with Jessie slowly figuring out if Beaumont really is a bad guy who has his sights set on the Starbuck ranch here in the Dakotas while Ki meanwhile gets friendly with a Mexican bar whore named Olivia and has infrequent run-ins with Beaumont’s chief gunslinger, Korman. 

There’s also young Teddy Roosevelt, a minor presence in the novel; more focus is placed on Hawthorne, Roosevelt’s taciturn guide in the Dakotas, a Clint Eastwood-style cowboy who serves as Jessica’s only conquest in the novel. I’m wondering if Jessica only ever gets one bang per book, or if the ghostwriters and edtors ever got risque and let her have more than one guy. As for Ki, he too only scores with Olivia. 

This brings me to the subject of the sexual material, always one of the key features of an Adult Western. I was surprised to discover that Lone Star was also like The Baroness in that the sex scenes go on for a few pages instead of just a few paragraphs. No detail is spared and the author clearly has his tongue in cheek with the many memorable anatomical metaphors. 

Action as mentioned is sparse; The Badlands War is more of a suspense story, with it slowly becoming apparent that Beaumont is indeed a villain and has been killing people to take over their ranches. He sends Korman out to murder several people during the course of the book, from a newsman to a family that works at the Starbuck ranch. But it isn’t until the end of the novel that he’s given his comeuppance. 

The climax sees Jessica, Ki, Hawthorne, and some locals staging an ambush on Beaumont’s chatteau; I was surprised (SPOILER ALERT) that Ki took out Korman while Jessica meanwhile ensured Beaumont was arrested…we’re told she’s good with a gun, but she only shoots down a random thug during the climax. 

Ki features in more of the action scenes, like for example an alleyway fight with Olivia’s brother where Ki shows off his “samurai” moves. Also Ki’s sex scenes are written from an “Oriental” perspective, with Ki all concerned with pleasuring his lady and going down on Olivia, essentially blowing the young woman’s mind, as she has never even heard of such things. 

All told I enjoyed Lone Star and the Badlands War, but I’d wager there are certainly better volumes in the series. As mentioned I did pick up a few more, so will be reading them anon.

*After a bit of research I’m fairly certain the Western paperback I was reading was The Gunsmith #21: Sasquatch Hunt, published by Ace Books in 1984 – meaning it was another I got from the library spinner rack.