The Trailsman is a series of short Western novels published since 1980 by Signet books, a division of New American Library. The series is still published under the name Jon Sharpe, the original author of the series, although it is now written by a number of ghostwriters under contract. The publisher releases 12 editions of the serial a year, with longer Giant Trailsman titles appearing periodically. The first title was Seven Wagons West: Seven Ways to Die, which was recently reissued in print.
Trailsman stories are short, usually under 200 pages, and feature the hero, Skye Fargo. Skye is known for his "lake blue" eyes, and despite his sexual prowess with women, he is single by choice. His sidekick is his unnamed horse, known only as "the Ovaro", and his gun of choice is a .44 Colt.
The Trailsman series was created by John Joseph Messmann aka Jon Messmann. He wrote most of the first 200 books in the series before retiring in the late 1990s. Messmann died in 2004. He also wrote many novels in the classic Nick Carter series. Messmann later created another western series featuring Canyon O'Grady, a western detective. In The Trailsman #87 Skye Fargo and Canyon O'Grady joined forces. Messmann got his start in writing by scripting comic books beginning in the 1940s.
Richard Burton Matheson was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
A pen name, also called a nom de plume or a literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
Robert Rick McCammon is an American novelist from Birmingham, Alabama. One of the influential names in the late 1970s–early 1990s American horror literature boom, by 1991 McCammon had three New York Times bestsellers and around 5 million books in print. Since 2002 he’s written several books in a historical mystery series featuring a 17th-century magistrate’s clerk, Matthew Corbett, as he unravels mysteries in colonial America.
Leslie Charteris, was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of his charming hero Simon Templar, alias "The Saint".
Peter O'Donnell was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of Modesty Blaise, an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic historical romance novelist who wrote under the female pseudonym Madeleine Brent, in 1978, his novel Merlin's Keep won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels ; however, he also wrote historical fiction, science fiction, non-fiction (Frontier), as well as poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death almost all of his 105 existing works were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and Louis L'Amour from the mid-20th century. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books.
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake is perhaps best-remembered for creating two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hardboiled Parker, and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.
Michael Collins is the best-known pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, an American author who primarily wrote mystery fiction.
Gareth John Pritchard Roberts is a British television screenwriter and novelist, best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who. He has also worked on various comedy series and soap operas.
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter, publisher and producer known for his bestselling novels Lost Hills and True Fiction and his work on a wide variety of TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk.
Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois was an American writer of comic book stories and comic strips, as well as Big Little Books and juvenile adventure novels. Du Bois wrote Tarzan for Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics from 1946 until 1971, and wrote over 3,000 comics stories over his career.
James Reasoner is an American writer. He is the author of more than 350 novels and many short stories in a career spanning more than thirty years. Reasoner has used at least nineteen pseudonyms, in addition to his own name: Jim Austin; Peter Danielson; Terrance Duncan; Tom Early; Wesley Ellis; Tabor Evans; Jake Foster; William Grant; Matthew Hart; Livia James; Mike Jameson; Justin Ladd; Jake Logan; Hank Mitchum; Lee Morgan; J.L. Reasoner ; Dana Fuller Ross; Adam Rutledge; and Jon Sharpe. Since most of Reasoner's books were written as part of various existing Western fiction series, many of his pseudonyms were publishing "house" names that may have been used by other authors who contributed to those series.
Jon Sharpe was the original author of The Trailsman series of Western novels. The century series, which has run since the early 1980s, was created by author Jon Messmann, who wrote most of the first 200 books in the series under the Jon Sharpe pseudonym until his retirement in the late 1990s.
Nick Carter-Killmaster is a series of spy adventures published from 1964 until 1990, first by Award Books, then by Ace Books, and finally by Jove Books. At least 261 novels were published. The character is an update of a pulp fiction private detective named Nick Carter, first published in 1886.
Reginald Alec Martin was a British author of a children's series and other novels. He wrote under a series of pseudonyms, including E. C. Eliott and Rex Dixon.
Peter Baptisto Germano was an American author of short stories, novels, and television scripts. He began his career with short stories. He wrote articles documenting the Marines in World War II as a combat correspondent. He wrote novels, most of which were westerns, but also wrote science fiction. And, as television became ever-present in American culture, Germano wrote numerous television scripts for western, science-fiction, drama, and cartoon series.
Robert Joseph Randisi is an American author, editor and screenwriter who writes in the detective and Western genres.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was an American pulp fiction author. He wrote in a wide variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mystery, western, and romance. His United States publisher and distributor is Galaxy Press. He is perhaps best known for his self-help book, the #1 New York Times bestseller Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and as the founder of the Church of Scientology.
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