• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
FanFiAddict

FanFiAddict

A gaggle of nerds talking about Fantasy, Science Fiction, and everything in-between. They also occasionally write reviews about said books. 2x Stabby Award-Nominated and home to the Stabby Award-Winning TBRCon.

  • Home
  • About
    • Reviewers
    • Review Policy
    • Stance on AI
    • Contact
    • Friends of FFA
  • Blog
    • Reviews
      • Children’s / Middle Grade Books
      • Comics/Graphic Novels
      • Fantasy
        • Alt History
        • Coming of Age
        • Epic Fantasy
        • Fairy Tales
        • Grimdark
        • Heroic Fantasy
        • LitRPG
        • Paranormal Fantasy
        • Romantic Fantasy
        • Steampunk
        • Superheroes
        • Sword and Sorcery
        • Urban Fantasy
      • Historical Fiction
      • Science Fiction
        • Aliens
        • Artificial Intelligence
        • Alt History
        • Cyberpunk
        • Dystopian
        • Hard SciFi
        • Mechs/Robots
        • Military SF
        • Space Opera
        • Steampunk
        • Time Travel
      • Thriller
    • Guest Posts
    • Lists
    • Neurodivergence in Fiction
    • Why You Should Read…
    • Interviews
      • Book Tube
      • Authorly Writing Advice
  • Fear For All
    • Demons
    • Ghosts
    • Gothic
    • Lovecraftian
    • Monsters
    • Occult
    • Psychological
    • Slasher
    • Vampires
    • Werewolves
    • Witches
    • Zombies
  • SFF Addicts
    • SFF Addicts Clips
    • SFF Addicts (Episode Archive)
  • TBRCon
    • TBRCon2025
    • TBRCon2024
    • TBRCon2023
    • TBRCon2022
  • FFA Book Club
  • FFA TBR Toppers
    • Advertise Your Book on FFA!
  • Writer Resources
    • Artists
    • Cartographers
    • Editing/Formatting/Proofing

Review: His Ragged Company by Rance D. Denton (The Testimonies of Elias Faust #1)

July 9, 2024 by Tom Bookbeard Leave a Comment

Rating: 9/10

Synopsis

Imprisoned and tortured, Town Marshall Elias Faust is made to recount a series of vignettes around how he became entwined with a well of power. Faust recalls his marshalling of a small town against the threat of an evil warlock and his army of sand shades, otherworldly beings and shootouts with bandits in this violent weird western.

Review

Hums the Magnificent Seven theme. Saddle up, pardner and grab your Colts. Rance D. Denton is in town and this mean suna’bitch outlaw is bringing violence. Not in my town. His Ragged Company is a tale straight outta the weird west and it’s a ride.

The premise is pretty simple actually. A mean town marshall in Elias Faust has to dig deep to keep the law in a lawless frontier town. HRC duly throws all manner of weirdness at the guy but he stubbornly refuses to die each and every time. Things really take a turn for Faust when he guns down Billy Gregden, a no-good outlaw. Before he dies, Gregden evokes a powerful magic that sets Faust on the road to some serious arcane fuckery.

See, Billy Gregden is part of the Gregden gang, and they’re led by a sadistic warlock who goes by the name Magnate. Magnate Gregden gets plenty time to show what a power-hungry bastard he really is, one that will nonchalantly treat his sons as meat shields from one moment to a vengeful father the next. When you have a bad guy with a mean streak like this it makes his hubris all the sweeter.

This is all where Denton’s book simply works. The character work is sublime. Faust’s testimonies are gritty and gruesome. The people we meet in this story all bring their various flaws and imperfections to make this a prairie page-turner. This book gives everything you’d expect from a land where magic and the wild west collide. Faust himself is a great lead, he doesn’t excel at anything other than to be real stubborn and quicker in a shootout than a lot of the outlaws he faces down.

Denton’s turns of phrase had me rolling throughout. Whether it’s the monologuing Magnate or someone telling Faust to go fuck himself (the audiobook, incidentally, is great), the writing consistently strikes true. One of the best examples is in the following clip:

“If girls falling from the sky were the start of the sentence and drunken miners with vendettas the period, I was the dumbass comma crushed in between.”

*Chef’s Kiss*

Once Upon a Time in the Weird West
I keep telling you about books you shouldn’t give to Grandma. Yeah, this is one of those you really don’t give to Grandma. You know there’s some real sickly moments thrown into the mixer for good measure. Brain worms, blood and guts, extremely graphic dismemberment; the author’s social media handle of “Violence Obscene” ain’t for nuthin’. But HRC gives us the chance to splatter and swear our way through a kooky western with all the obscene violence of a Tarantino flick. Seriously, what’s not to like about that?

Filed Under: Blog Posts, Fantasy Horror, Reviews, Splatter Western, Weird, Weird West, Western Tagged With: Rance D. Denton, Self Published, Weird Western, Western

About Tom Bookbeard

Former chef turned constantly hungry foodie, TTRPG nerd, writer of fantasy stories about sky pirates. Currently working on The Sky Whale Trilogy. Beards.

Other Reviews You Might Like

Review: The Girl in the Walls by Meg Eden Kuyatt

Review: The Vengeance (The Vampires of Dumas #1) by Emma Newman

Review: Overgrowth by Mira Grant

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Sponsored By

Use Discount Code FANFI For 5% Off!

FFA Newsletter!

Sign up for updates and get FREE stories from Michael R. Fletcher and Richard Ford!

What Would You Like To See?(Required)
Please select the type of content you want to receive from FanFi Addict. You can even mix and match if you want!

FFA Author Hub

Read A.J. Calvin
Read Andy Peloquin
Read C.J. Daily
Read C.M. Caplan
Read D.A. Smith
Read DB Rook
Read Francisca Liliana
Read Frasier Armitage
Read Josh Hanson
Read Krystle Matar
Read M.J. Kuhn

Recent Reviews

Recent Comments

  1. Mark Matthews on COVER REVEAL: To Those Willing to Drown by Mark MatthewsJanuary 7, 2025
  2. Basra Myeba on Worth reading Jack Reacher books by Lee Child?January 5, 2025
  3. Ali on Review: Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav BarsukovJanuary 5, 2025
  4. Carter on So you want to start reading Warhammer 40,000? Here’s where to start!January 4, 2025
  5. M. Zaugg on Bender’s Best LitRPG reads of 2024January 3, 2025

Archive

Copyright © 2025 · Powered by ModFarm Sites · Log In