It’s often overlooked in speculative fiction that “urban fantasy” refers to an urbanized society rather than a strictly urban area. It is, in fact, quite possible for a novel in this genre to exist in a less dense location, like the expanses of the American West.
That is what D.J. Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey have done in The Cunning Man, published by Baen Books in 2019.
The stock market has imploded. The economy has crashed. It is the dark depths of the Great Depression in Utah, and miners and mine owners are locked in deep struggle, the former to survive as people, the latter to wring more dollars out of the former.
Into this volatile situation come two people, father and son, with a sincere desire to help, an earnest faith in God as they understand Him, and well-honed abilities in the workings of a wide variety of folk magic.
Continue reading “The Cunning Man”