It’s a delight to be back in the saddle with the Six-Gun Vixen! Did you always intend to write more stories with this character/world and how did this particular one come about?

I’ve always wanted to return to the world of Six-Gun and it was only a matter of time before a new one found me. Before, I was always locked into back-to-back trad publishing contracts (80 books, not counting other commissioned projects!). Now that I’m full indie and have found a loyal, growing readership online, I can’t write new stories fast enough to satisfy the demand. It’s a Golden Age for publishing at least for indie authors and this is only one of a series of Six-Gun stories I have lined up. Yeehaw to all weird Western fans–and fans of Weird Westerns too!

I love how you have fused old story types and tropes into something entirely new and distinctly Ashok Banker. I’m curious about your personal history with Western (as in the genre) stories. Are there examples of books, movies, comic books, etc. that particularly inspired you or perhaps galvanized you as you imagined the Six-Gun Vixen? Any you might recommend to fans of this story?

I’ve always loved Westerns. They’re one of the great American contributions to culture. In a sense, all externalized storytelling today borrows liberally from the Western. I go back and read the old classics from time to time – Max Brand, Louis L’Amour, Zane Gray, Elmore Leonard, they all hold up so well! There’s a bunch of excellent newer Western indie authors also working now and thanks to the boom in indie publishing, they’re easier to find and read than ever. You couldn’t go wrong if you just start reading almost any of the indie Western authors on Amazon Kindle. Growing up, I devoured Westerns in every form – among the comics, Jonah Hex was always a treat, as were the Weird Western comics. Movies, of course, remain the fullest realization of the genre. And right now, on TV, we’re also treated to a new Golden Age of Westerns and neo-Westerns, with the one-man writing industry named Taylor Sheridan. He’s brilliant. 1883 is great. The entire Dutton family saga through its many series and iterations is probably the most compelling sustained Western storytelling we’ve had since since the days of the classic TV series.

One of the highlights for me in this story were the PeyoCoyos – such a vivid and unique concept! Can you share a little more about where and why you decided to push your world into more fantastic directions? Do you have a sense of what might be too weird or too mundane for a Six-Gun Vixen story?

At heart, I’m a horror writer and so, no, there’s nothing too weird, but mundane, definitely. I’m not interested in writing a literary Western. The PeyoCoyos are an example of the mind candy treats that would make me want to live permanently in the weird fantasy/scifi world of characters like Six-Gun forever. Where did they come from? I live in a suburb of Los Angeles where I can look out my window or step out of my house at night and see packs of coyotes and bobcats and raccoons roaming my backyard. There’s a young coyote that visits my neighborhood on a daily basis, and is friendly enough that he’ll come right up to me and sniff my hand like a dog before running off in search of actual prey. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine creatures like the PeyoCoyos.

There are a few characters in this story that seem to be part of the privileged class/dominant social order but that are ultimately decent and even come through for Six-Gun Vixen in a pinch. I’m thinking about Morton, Sheriff Hayes, and McGraw. In a setting full of outlaws and outsiders, why was it important to have some good “insiders?”

I guess that’s just the way the world is, real or fictional. The internet has lulled people into believing that there are good tribes and bad tribes and never the twain shall meet. But the reality is that there people who are ultimately decent and people who are not at all decent in every place, every structure. It takes push-comes-to-shove times for them to reveal their true nature, and with a heightened story like this one, I guess we see that the privileged/dominant ones can be just as good–or just as awful–as the underprivileged and “oppressed”. I like the simplicity with which Nora Jemisin expresses this when she says “People are just…people”.

What other projects of yours do you think we should check out or look forward to?

Tons. Most of what I publish these days isn’t under my “Ashok Banker” pen name, and I prefer to keep my readerships separate, as it just works better for branding and marketing reasons. But I’m approaching the 200 book mark this year (of which less than 80 have been under “Ashok Banker”), and that’s not counting stories, screenplays, and other adaptations. But since you’re asking specifically for my “Ashok Banker” work, well, “Six-Gun Vixen and the Machinist of Doom Valley” is one of the last ones I submitted a few years ago so I hope readers enjoy it as a kind of unofficial swan song. Happy Reading!