The Space Western Canon

Jefferson Nighthawk–known and feared by many as the Widowmaker, the consummate bounty hunter–has been frozen for a century in order to defeat a deadly disease. Only now the cost of his care has risen, so the Widowmaker is called out of retirement for one special commission, and a very large chunk of cash. A notorious assassin has been wrecking havoc on the Frontier; who better but the Widowmaker to defeat him?

Jefferson Nighthawk, once the galaxy’s most feared killer, is cloned again and given a new mission. This time he is armed with the Widowmaker’s killing skills and his lifetime of knowledge. The new mission involves the rescue of a corrupt politician’s daughter, and the assassination of the rebel leader who holds her captive. But the daughter offers a fortune if Nighthawk kills her father instead. While the odds are overwhelming, the price may be right.

Jefferson Nighthawk has been awakened from his frozen sleep, his deadly disease cured. But although he still has the experience and instincts of the legendary Widowmaker, Nighthawk is now biologically in his sixties. His reflexes slowed by age, looking only to live out his days in peace, he decides on a quiet retirement on a Frontier world. Easier said than done…

Meet Spike and Jet, a drifter and a retired cyborg cop. They’ve formed a partnership in a bounty hunting enterprise that specializes in adventure and cash. Using an old converted ship called the Bebop, with the help of the intelligent data dog, Ein, the mysterious and vexing femme fatale, Faye Valentine, and Ed, the genius hacker — Spike and Jet scour the galaxy to clean up space, one bounty at a time.

Gene Starwind and his partner Jim Hawking run a small business on the backwater planet of Centinel 3. But all that changes the day that Hilda hires them for a bodyguard job. Now, thrust into a mystery they don’t fully understand, they’re on the run from the cops, the pirates, an angry alien, and a mysterious assassin. But they’ve got one thing going in their favor: they have the galaxy’s most advanced ship.

In the 26th century, Marshal Jim Raynor is pulled into a conflict, not just a civil war between the Terran Governments The Confederacy of Man and the rebellious Sons of Korhal, but also between to warring alien tribes, the insectoid Zerg and the psionic Protoss.

The continuing story of Vash the Stampede: Vash the Stampede has been missing for two years, and a pseudo-Vash is terrorizing a town with his gang. At the same time, Wolfwood tracks down Vash to tell him that every man, woman, and child is missing from another village and the only clue is the name Knives scrawled across a monument. After they defeat the impostor, Vash and Wolfwood head out to track down Knives.

American astronaut John Crichton is flung through a wormhole and comes out in the midst of an interstellar prison escape on the other side of the universe. When the Peacekeepers mark him as the new public enemy number one, Crichton is forced to ally himself with the outlaws: hulking warrior D’Argo, blue-skinned priest Zhaan, fugitive Peacekeeper Aeryn, exiled king Rygel, and Pilot, the giant insectlike nerve center of their living ship, Moya.

A dangerous criminal named Riddick is being transported to prison in a deep space transporter when the spaceship is damaged by comet debris and makes an emergency crash landing on a desolate desert planet circled by three suns. It’s discovered that the planet suffers a total eclipse every 22 years, which is when the hibernating, flesh-eating inhabitants awake and hunt. Riddick joins forces with the surviving crew and other passengers to develop a plan to escape the planet.

This volume reexamines the themes of space and the frontier in science fiction in light of recent scientific and literary developments. From this new perspective, we discern previously unnoticed commentaries from older authors, while newer writers either remain within a reassuring but obsolete tradition, venture into unexplored new realities, or abandon space to focus on other frontiers.