[sinclairfan]

I just read the Lily Shivers vs Wil Jeffreys fight.  Pro's and con's were:

Pro's
(1) The fight is topless from start to finish.  Lily has just taken a shower and is relaxing in her room, Wil strips down voluntarily during the buildup.  They fight in a locked, cleared room.

(2) Lily sends a message to have the doctor downstairs "stick around".

(3) Every style of fighting, but with the outcome decided by punches.

(4) The fight has been building for the girls' entire lives, with stolen boyfriends in their history.

Con's
(1) Mid-fight, one of the girls turns her back after thinking she's knocked the other girl out, and gets jumped.

(2) 2 chapters later, the girls regret fighting.  Huh?

[JT Edson]

I just love JT Edson books. I don't think I have that one. I will have to look for it.

[maine516]

I've read 31 JT Edson westerns so far and this is one of my favorites, for all of the "Pros" listed by sinclairfan.  I also agree with his first Con, but less so with the second.  I believe the women were friends earlier in life but had became rivals.  Anyway, I enjoyed them rehashing some of the details of the fight when they met a few days later.  I like the build up to JT's fights and when he mentions or discusses the fights afterwards.

I just finished reading "The Texan", which has a pretty good fight between Pauline Cushman and Iris Pendleton.  It takes place outdoors in a corral as a showdown between the women.  Watched by a crowd, it's a rough even battle with a close, but definite winner.  Both women are stripped to the waist and their dresses are split up the sides.  My only wish was that the fight was longer and done in private.

I'm reading "Back To The Bloody Border" now and it has a forced fight in a cantina along the Texas border with both women stripped to the waist and barefoot to begin the battle.  The fight is a rematch between Belle Boyd (Rebel spy) and Eve Coniston (Yankee spy).  They had a good battle on a sandbar in the prior book "Boody Border"  You guys might like this one if you haven't already read it. 

A number of his westerns were published in the 50's and 60's.  Some of these contain really good fights and some of them are actually just good western stories, like "A Town Called YellowDog", but don't have any catfights.   There are several titles that I don't have any info in.  I may post some of these titles here to see if anybody has read them.  I'll also offer to comment on any titles I've read if someone here mentions a specific title that they are wondering about.  I'll at least say if the book as a catfight and let you know what I recall about the fight.  Having read so many of his books, I'm certainly not recalling all the details but I'm tracking and rating them (based on what I like and what I'm looking for). 

[sinclairfan]

Unless I'm mistaken, Pauline Cushman and Eve Coniston turn out to be the same woman.

[sinclairfan]

One of the Rockabye County books has a scene where the woman cop drives, intentionally not bringing her gun and badge, to another woman's house, specifically so they can fight.  If I remember correctly, the resulting epic catfight includes biting.

[JT Edson]

Thank you all for sharing. I would love to find more of these books.

[maine516]

I haven't tried any books from the Bunduki series yet; the ones I've seen available are a bit on the pricey side.  The one I'm most interested in is titled "Fearless Master Of The Jungle".   Is that one of the 2 you've read samrose?  If so, can you tell us something brief about the fight and how good you think it is?  The Bunduki books are less available and more pricey than the westerns so I'd want to spend wisely on these.

I recently bought "The Deputies" from the Rockabye County series in the hope it had the tantalizing catfight described by sinclairfan.  It does have a good catfight with the female star Alice Fayde from that series, but it's not the one he describes.  If anyone knows the title of the book with that catfight, please let us know.  I'd definitely would want to get that book.

Interesting about Pauline Cushman and Eve Coniston being the same woman.  I haven't come across anything on that yet but they would both be about the same age, a few years older than Belle Boyd.  According to a footnote in one of the Belle Boyd books, Pauline only appears in The Texan.  There's also a comment made by the character Mark Counter in The Texan as he's speaking with Pauline that if she and Belle Boyd ever fought, it would end in an even draw.  Belle fights Eve twice and wins both times, so maybe they are not the same.  With so many more of JT's westerns yet to be read, I'll keep an eye out for this to see if it shows up anywhere.

[sinclairfan]

After the Dawn Drummond fight, she receives a note from her opponent telling her she can have a rematch anytime she wants one.

[maine516]

Thank you samrose for the tip about JT's Ladies - I'll plan to get that book shortly.  I have JT's Ladies Ride Again but didn't find that one to be as good as I expected.  I did see a copy of "Bunduki" available for about $5, so I may get that one at some point.  I saw a copy of Fearless Master available for about $32.  Not bad, but still far more pricey than many of the JT westerns.  I look forward to your comments about the fights.

[maine516]

Finished reading book #32 - "Back To the Bloody Border".  Two very good fights.  A topless and barefoot all out fight between Belle Boyd (Rebel Spy) and Eve Coniston (Yankee Spy) that takes place inside a fort in front of an audience, and a deadly sword duel between Belle and Sylvie Calliard in private in a locked office. 

The sword fight is not a catfight, but it is well done with a nice build up over preceding chapters.  The description of the duel runs a few pages.  If it also had turned into a topless fight after the women disarmed each other, it would have been classic. 

[JT Edson]

Thank you all for sharing this information. I need to see if I have all these books so I can sit down and enjoy!

[CoffeeMug]

In the last few weeks I have ordered several used copies of Edson's books from Amazon, and over the last few years I have downloaded everything of Edson's they have on Kindle (everything I could find, anyway).  What I write here is all my opinion, of course.  To each his own.  And all of my comments here are about the books' fights.  What little I have to say about the rest of them is at the end.  Several of the titles I talk about have already been discussed in the thread, a few haven't.  Again, just my two cents.

Kindle

I don't think what's on Kindle is his strongest work, fight-wise.  Overall, I'm not a big fan of the Calamity Jane fights (I understand the appeal for other people here, though).  There's often a whip or gun involved, and that isn't my thing.  Maybe it's because the fights are rather similar, or the other girl always seems overmatched against Calamity.  Probably the latter.  I will say that while reading these I've become a big Belle Starr fan, and Waco's Badge is easily my favorite of what's on Kindle.  Texas Killers is the only other book I could find on Kindle that isn't about Calamity, and it's ... fine.

Used Hard Copies
Hell in the Palo Duro:  Belle Starr vs. Emma Nene.  Excellent build up, excellent fight, excellent material after the fight.  An A+.  Probably my favorite out of all of these.

Go Back to Hell:  The sequel to Hell in the Palo Duro.  No fights that I could find, although it does have some continued tension from the previous book between Belle Starr and Emma.  

Bloody Border:  Belle Boyd vs. Eve Coniston, round one.  A fistfight between the two that ends in a draw, or close to one.  It's good material, but I don't think it's in the same as league as some of the others here.  

Renegade:  Belle Boyd vs. Eve Coniston, round two.  Better than the first one by a long ways.  Great tension between the two women, great fight.  I'm not a fan of the implied rape surrounding the fight, which knocks it down a bit for me.  As someone else said, there's also a sword fight involving Belle Boyd and a cruel, busty blonde woman.  It didn't turn into anything that interested me in particular, but man I wished it would have.    A B+ or A-.

Slip Gun:  You guys have already talked this one up quite a bit.  I loved it.  Another A.

Cards and Colts:  Belle Starr and an equally stacked girl fight over a card game.  It doesn't have quite the build up as a few of these others, but I loved the fight itself.  An A or A-.  Worth noting, there's a story on Sea King's site called "Western Wildcats" that takes this fight and spins it out into an entire novella (very nearly stealing from it word for word in spots).

Troubled Range:  Three long short stories, three fights.  The first is Belle Starr vs. Calamity Jane.  Excellent build up, very good fight.  The other two fights I found to be forgettable.  Worth buying for the first fight.

I'm waiting for the mail to bring me Wanted: Belle Starr, J T's Ladies, and The Quest for Bowie's Blade.  I have high hopes for two of those.

And on the books themselves ... the writing and the parts of the books that aren't leading up to catfights, I would call very typical of pulp Westerns.  However, the books do have political threads running them.  Some of what I've noticed is mostly cheap shots at how "liberals" are secretly bigots or similar things (dumb, imo, but whatever), but there are also repeated defenses of the Confederacy and slavery itself.  I found in two separate books comments strongly implying that slaves liked being slaves and resented Northerners for trying to free them.  I can ignore the racism for the descriptions of the fights, and honestly, I just skim these looking for the material about the female lead characters, but I thought it needed to be said that the pro-slavery material was there.

[JT Edson]

In the last few weeks I have ordered several used copies of Edson's books from Amazon, and over the last few years I have downloaded everything of Edson's they have on Kindle (everything I could find, anyway).  What I write here is all my opinion, of course.  To each his own.  And all of my comments here are about the books' fights.  What little I have to say about the rest of them is at the end.  Several of the titles I talk about have already been discussed in the thread, a few haven't.  Again, just my two cents.

Kindle

I don't think what's on Kindle is his strongest work, fight-wise.  Overall, I'm not a big fan of the Calamity Jane fights (I understand the appeal for other people here, though).  There's often a whip or gun involved, and that isn't my thing.  Maybe it's because the fights are rather similar, or the other girl always seems overmatched against Calamity.  Probably the latter.  I will say that while reading these I've become a big Belle Starr fan, and Waco's Badge is easily my favorite of what's on Kindle.  Texas Killers is the only other book I could find on Kindle that isn't about Calamity, and it's ... fine.

Used Hard Copies
Hell in the Palo Duro:  Belle Starr vs. Emma Nene.  Excellent build up, excellent fight, excellent material after the fight.  An A+.  Probably my favorite out of all of these.

Go Back to Hell:  The sequel to Hell in the Palo Duro.  No fights that I could find, although it does have some continued tension from the previous book between Belle Starr and Emma.  

Bloody Border:  Belle Boyd vs. Eve Coniston, round one.  A fistfight between the two that ends in a draw, or close to one.  It's good material, but I don't think it's in the same as league as some of the others here.  

Renegade:  Belle Boyd vs. Eve Coniston, round two.  Better than the first one by a long ways.  Great tension between the two women, great fight.  I'm not a fan of the implied rape surrounding the fight, which knocks it down a bit for me.  As someone else said, there's also a sword fight involving Belle Boyd and a cruel, busty blonde woman.  It didn't turn into anything that interested me in particular, but man I wished it would have.    A B+ or A-.

Slip Gun:  You guys have already talked this one up quite a bit.  I loved it.  Another A.

Cards and Colts:  Belle Starr and an equally stacked girl fight over a card game.  It doesn't have quite the build up as a few of these others, but I loved the fight itself.  An A or A-.  Worth noting, there's a story on Sea King's site called "Western Wildcats" that takes this fight and spins it out into an entire novella (very nearly stealing from it word for word in spots).

Troubled Range:  Three long short stories, three fights.  The first is Belle Starr vs. Calamity Jane.  Excellent build up, very good fight.  The other two fights I found to be forgettable.  Worth buying for the first fight.

I'm waiting for the mail to bring me Wanted: Belle Starr, J T's Ladies, and The Quest for Bowie's Blade.  I have high hopes for two of those.

And on the books themselves ... the writing and the parts of the books that aren't leading up to catfights, I would call very typical of pulp Westerns.  However, the books do have political threads running them.  Some of what I've noticed is mostly cheap shots at how "liberals" are secretly bigots or similar things (dumb, imo, but whatever), but there are also repeated defenses of the Confederacy and slavery itself.  I found in two separate books comments strongly implying that slaves liked being slaves and resented Northerners for trying to free them.  I can ignore the racism for the descriptions of the fights, and honestly, I just skim these looking for the material about the female lead characters, but I thought it needed to be said that the pro-slavery material was there.

This is great. Thank you for sharing. By the way, how does one get to See King's site?

[sinclairfan]

Chapter 7 of " The Bloody Border" implies that Pauline Cushman and Eve Coniston are the same woman.

Eve is reputed to be quite the fighter, but we never see her actually score a decisive victory, and in fact, she's always angling for a way to fight with an advantage in terrain or surprise.

Calamity Jane and Belle Boyd and Belle Starr have an any woman/anytime/anywhere attitude.

[CoffeeMug]

This is great. Thank you for sharing. By the way, how does one get to See King's site?

http://www.seakingsfemfight.com/

You want to look under "2011 stories" for an author named Diane.  It's "Western Wildcats." 

If you're new to Sea King's, you have a whole lot of reading in front of you.  Honestly, most of it is trash, but there are some gems in there.