New Blurb for "Trail Riders"

   If you liked "The Three Mesquiteers," "The Range Riders," and other classic Western movies, you will love reading this homage from the amazing imagination of Charles Lee Jackson II.

   Some of the roaring in the Roaring Twenties was from six-guns! At the end of WWI, three

soldiers set out to bring law and order to still-untamed reaches of the West. US Marshal Kit Cassiday, his singing sidekick Slim Rafferty, and their comical partner, Alibi Jones, earn a reputation for protecting the innocent and fighting villains—whether those villains break the law or hide behind it. Dubbed "The Trail Riders" and mounted on their faithful steeds, Gent, Duster, and Unk, these three out-ride, out-shoot, and out-think train robbers, cattle rustlers, claim jumpers, and other lawbreakers.

   Their rootin’-tootin’, rip-snortin’, gun-slingin’ adventures begin in "The Secret of Cibola," when Kit and Slim come to the aid of their old pal Alibi, who's been accused of robbery and murder. Next Slim and Alibi land in plenty of trouble when an entire train is stolen right out from under them—but Kit helps uncover the astounding how and why as they seek the “Train to Los Padres”. Then the trio investigates spooky doings when a herd of cattle vanishes into thin air, seemingly the loot of “Phantom Rustlers”. Finally, when the mail doesn't go through, and the US Mail driver is missing, the boys become "Cowboy Couriers", only to be drawn into a deadly trap by a very pretty young woman…

   More exciting adventures set in Charles Lee Jackson II's pulp and comic book inspired "Emperorverse," which has been compared to Lester Dent's over-the-top, widely beloved Doc Savage adventures. This new pulp novel, drawn from the Emperor's Secret Files, features a youthful Kit Cassiday, the retired lawman who many years later would sell the Emperor his Three-bar-R ranch and become one of his trusted advisers.

Read Trail Riders for only 99 cents at Amazon. Click on this line.

"TRAIL RIDERS" - CHARLES LEE JACKSON II'S HOMAGE TO THE THREE MESQUITEERS, THE RANGE BUSTERS & OTHER WESTERN TRIOS

Charles Lee Jackson's Trail Riders is an exciting entry in The Emperor's Secret Files series. But it is also his homage to the kind of 1930s-40s B-movie cowboy "trio" series kicked off by the 1936 film, The Three Mesquiteers (adapted from the novel of the same name by William Colt MacDonald).

MacDonald's book told of three disparate cowboys, Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith, and Lullaby Joslin, returned from fighting in World War I, who decide to take up ranching only to discover themselves more in need of firearms than farming implements.
     The film based on the book clearly captured something of which western audiences were in need, because the series lasted eight years and fifty-one installments (eight of which starred that scintillatingly handsome young actor, John Wayne as Stony Brooke).
   The series was so successful that rival studios soon began their own western series built around a similar trio of heroes, such as the Range Busters, the Rough Riders, and the Trail Blazers. To add insult to injury, these studios even lured away major stars from The Three Mesquiteers for their series. Which explains the turnover in the actors who play the three heroes of the Mesquiteers over the years. Tucson Smith, for instance was played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Bob Steele, and even Ralph (Dick Tracy) Byrd. While his compadre, Stony Brooke, was portrayed by Bob Livingston, Tom Tyler, and of course John Wayne.

The actors who played comic relief Lullaby Joslin were as peripatetic as the character, Max Terhune, Rufe Davis, Jimmy Dodd (of  Disney's 'Mickey Mouse Club' Mouseketeer fame),  and Sid Saylor, with Raymond Hatton, coming in as his cousin Rusty Joslin.

You can see the first film in the series, The Three Mesquiteers, the one that launched a legend, at YouTube by clicking below:
                 
    Take me to that legendary first movie! 



    Many movies in the Three Musquiteers series are available free on the internet.

       

Below is a complete list of the Three Mesquiteers films. Enjoy.  And you might want to check out Charles Lee Jackson II's homage, Trail Riders. Only 99 cents for this full-length western novel at Amazon Kindle.

1. The Three Mesquiteers
2. Ghost-Town Gold
3. Roarin' Lead
4. Riders of the Whistling Skull
5. Hit the Saddle
6. Gunsmoke Ranch
7. Come on, Cowboys
8. Range Defenders
9. Heart of the Rockies
10. The Trigger Trio
11. Wild Horse Rodeo
12. The Purple Vigilantes
13. Call the Mesquiteers
14. Outlaws of Sonora
15. Riders of the Black Hills
16. Heroes of the Hills
17. Pals of the Saddle
18. Overland Stage Raiders
19. Santa Fe Stampede
20. Red River Range
21. The Night Riders
22. Three Texas Steers
23. Wyoming Outlaw
24. New Frontier
25. The Kansas Terrors
26. Cowboys from Texas
27. Heroes of the Saddle
28. Pioneers of the West
29. Covered Wagon Days
30. Rocky Mountain Rangers
31. Oklahoma Renegades
32. Under Texas Skies
33. The Trail Blazers
34. Lone Star Raiders
35. Prairie Pioneers
36. Pals of the Pecos
37. Saddlemates
38. Gangs of Sonora
39. Outlaws of Cherokee Trail
40. Gauchos of El Dorado
41. West of Cimarron
42. Code of the Outlaw
43. Raiders of the Range
44. Westward Ho45. The Phantom Plainsmen
46. Shadows on the Sage
47. Valley of Hunted Men
48. Thundering Trails
49. The Blocked Trail
50. Santa Fe Scouts
51. Riders of the Rio Grande

 

The Emperor and the Masters of Disasters - Newest Thriller in the Emperor Saga Published

MORE COMIC BOOK THRILLS AND PULP MAGAZINE CHILLS

WITH THE DEBONAIR CRIME FIGHTER KNOWN AS "THE EMPEROR"

AND HIS INTREPID BAND OF ADVENTURERS

Earth's weather turned into a deadly engine of destruction against humanity!

"Charles Lee Jackson's 'The Emperor' novels are fun, snappy, and a reflection of the pulp fiction that readers have read and loved for decades. Jackson couples original characters with seductive situations that will have you on the edge of your seat." –J. D. Crayne, author of How to Bonk a Zombie.

Enemy aliens from the planet Randnar are here and they have a master plan for conquest and destruction. From blasting a hole in our vital ozone layer to creating a super hurricane, halting the Gulf Steam, and stirring up a mega-tsunami, their campaign moves from doom to doom – Earth's doom!

And it’s up to The Emperor and his fearless band of crime-fighters to try to stop the world-wide ruin of civilization! The battle is so intense that The Emperor even calls on that blonde bombshell, Solara, in the war between The Emperor and the Masters of Disaster!

Plus, as a bonus, "The Emperor Faces the Truth!". A classic Emperor pulp short story from "CLJII Presents, No 1, Summer 1992. Random murder attempts lead the Emperor onto the trail of a megalomaniacal fiend who controls his minions with a magical demonic mask! 

Then he turns its powers on the Emperor, to add our hero to his list of slaves. Has the Emperor met his match at last?

Click below to get it – on sale now at Amazon for Kindle - only 99 cents!

The Emperor and the Masters of Disasters

From FuturesPastEditions

Free - Hear Bill Mills Sing All 5 Classic Cowboy Songs from New Secret Files Book - "Trail Riders"

Five old-time cowboy songs that Slim Rafferty sings in Charles Lee Jackson II's newest entry in the Emperor's Secret Files series, Trail Riders:  "Streets of Laredo," "Home on the Range," "Foggy Foggy Dew," "The Old Chisholm Trail," and "Sweet Betsy from Pike".

Of these CLJII writes that: "Streets of Laredo" is a traditional US folk song derived from

the English folk ballad "The Unfortunate Lad"; "Home on the Range" was written by Brewster M. Higley and Daniel E. Kelley, and arranged by David W. Guion; "Foggy Foggy Dew" is a traditional English Folk Song; "The Old Chisholm Trail" is a traditional US folk song; "Sweet Betsy from Pike" was written by John A. Stone."

* * *

Now Bill Mills, the real-life singer/performer who also appears as a character in  The Emperor's Gambit and other Emperor adventures, has recorded all five songs and you can hear them free.

The Emperor says: "Join in the extra fun of Trail Riders with this special bonus feature. Yuh kin hear Slim Rafferty's songs, performed by my own sidekick, Bill Mills (yuh 'member him from The Emperor's Gambit and The Emperor Marked for Death, right?). Yuh kin kick up yuhr heels and dance, or jest sing along with these traditional Western tunes."

Click here to go to Bill Mills' Trail Riders Songs page.  

And to celebrate the opening of this blog
 you can get Trail Riders in Kindle for only $0.99.

99 Cents - for Fans of B-Westerns - "Trail Riders" - Newest Emperor's Secret Files Out in eBook

The Emperor reaches into his Secret Files and pulls out old-fashioned Western Adventure with a added bushel of belly-laughs!

If your heart beats to old-fashioned westerns, Saturday afternoon movie serials, the early TV adventures of Kit Carson, the Cisco Kid, and Annie Oakley, or the novels of Louis L'Amour, "Trail Riders" is what you've been lookin' for.

It ain't just the Emperor and his pals who fought crime. Their grandpaws and grandmaws was a'fightin' crime in the olden days, afore 'em. A while ago the Emperor's sometime gal-pal, "Kit" Cassiday, donated a yellowing journal to the Secret Files. That there document was the memoirs of her granddad, who had been a certified gun-tottin', horse-ridin', automobile-drivin' U.S. Marshal out West back in the 1920s, when a new kinduh firepower, a new kinduh crime and a new kinduh criminal was bringing back that Old West feel. All a marshal could count on was his horse, his shootin' iron and his saddle pals. Along with his sidekicks Slim Rafferty and Alibi Jones, and their faithful steeds, Gent, Duster, and Unk, Marshal Cassiday rode the range in the closing days of the Old West. They were lonesome cowpokes, and the lyrics of the trail songs they sang - like "Streets of Laredo," "Home on the Range," and "Sweet Betsy from Pike" - spice these pages.

Here, released for the first time from "The Emperor's Secret Files", are four rootin’-tootin’, rip-snortin’, gun-slingin’ adventures in the California desert, with the boys out-ridin’, out-shootin’, and out-thinkin’ train robbers, cattle rustlers, claim jumpers, and more. Kit and Slim come to the aid of their old pal Alibi when he’s accused of robbery and murder, and end up in deadly danger as they discover “The Secret of Cibola”. Slim and Alibi are in plenty of trouble when they lose an entire locomotive and cars, but still help Kit as he seeks the “Train to Los Padres”. The boys work to solve the mystery of cattle that seem to have vanished into thin air, victims of a gang of “Phantom Rustlers”. A missing US Mail driver and a pretty girl draw the boys into a trap, but you can bet they’ll find a way out, to become “Cowboy Couriers”.

More exciting adventures from the Emperorverse, by Charles Lee Jackson, II. Pull up a chair and download a copy right now.

Only 99 cents. What are you waiting for?
Get Trail Riders in Kindle for only $0.99.

 
And to celebrate the opening of this blog, FuturesPast Editions, official publisher for the Emperorverse, is dropping the price of the first Emperor book, The Emperor's Gambit at Amazon to $2.99.
Get The Emperor's Gambit in Kindle for only $2.99.