Merkabah Rider Tales of a High Planes Drifter

The last of an ancient order of Jewish mystics capable of extraplanar travel, The Merkabah Rider roams the demon haunted American West of 1879 in search of the renegade teacher who betrayed his enclave. But as the trail grows fresher, shadows gather, and The Hour Of The Incursion draws near... Four novella episodes in one book.

In a town hungry for blood, the Rider encounters a cult of Molech worshippers bent on human sacrifice('The Blood Libel'). A murderous, possessed gunman descends upon a mountain town, and only the Rider stands in his way ('Hell's Hired Gun'). A powerful ju ju man with powers rivalling the Rider's own holds a fledgling Mexican boomtown in his sway ('The Dust Devils'). Finally the Rider faces the Queen of Demons and a bordello full of antedelluvian succubi ('The Nightjar Women').

"Just might [be] one of the genre's standout books this year.... [Erdelac's] descriptive skills are top-notch and he exhibits particular skill at knowing when to throw in a bit of extra gore."
--Lincoln Crisler, Shroud Magazine

'The stories....are intelligent and gripping, with enough action to escape and enough history and mysticism to educate. Erdelac shows himself to be a potential new addition to the ranks of Howard and Lansdale.' --Craig Clarke, Somebody Dies Blog

"Riding out of the Old West comes the Merkabah Rider, a Hasidic gunfighter who owes his provenance as much to the nasty inhabitants of Elmore Leonard's westerns as he does his piousness to Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane. This highly original episodic series breathes new life into the overworked western with tight action, inglorious heroes, and unpredictable plots." - Weston Ochse, award-winning author of SEAL Team 666 and Scarecrow Gods.

"The Rider is a fabulous character, in all senses of that word, and Erdelac's a fabulous writer. High Planes Drifter contains all the demons, ancient gods, and gunplay a lover of weird westerns could want, but told from an angle no one else has touched before. Where else are you going to find a Jewish Doctor Strange packing heat in the old west? Nowhere, that's where. This is crazily entertaining stuff." - Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Pandemonium and Raising Stony Mayhall

"Edward M. Erdelac's Merkabah Rider: Tales Of A High Planes Drifter is without reservation one of the best Weird Westerns to roll into town in the last decade, if not the best." - Cory Gross, Voyages Extraordinaires