In this debut novel, acclaimed short-story author Tim Pratt delivers an exciting heroine with a hidden talent—and a secret duty. Witty and suspenseful, here is a contemporary love song to the West that was won and the myths that shape us. . . . As night manager of Santa Cruz’s quirkiest coffeehouse, Marzi McCarty makes a mean espresso, but her first love is making comics. Her claim to fame: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, a cowpunk neo-western yarn. Striding through an urban frontier peopled by Marzi’s wild imagination, Rangergirl doles out her own brand of justice. But lately Marzi’s imagination seems to be altering her reality. She’s seeing the world through Rangergirl’s eyes—literally—complete with her deadly nemesis, the Outlaw. It all started when Marzi opened a hidden door in the coffeehouse storage room. There, imprisoned among the supplies, she saw the face of something unknown . . . and dangerous. And she unwittingly became its guard. But some primal darkness must’ve escaped, because Marzi hasn’t been the same since. And neither have her customers, who are acting downright apocalyptic. Now it’s up to Marzi to stop this supervillainous superforce that’s swaggered its way into her world. For Marzi, it’s the showdown of her life. For Rangergirl, it’s just another day. . . . *Starred Review* Marzi works at Genius Loci, a coffee shop in Santa Cruz, California, whose claim to fame is the murals in it, painted by Garamond Ray, who disappeared after the 1989 earthquake. Marzi also writes a neo-western comic called The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl , in which the heroine battles otherworldly versions of the villains of westerns. When one of the shop's regulars shows up claiming to worship the god of the earthquake, and moments later a quake rocks the place, and Marzi sees an oddly dressed figure running off--well, then, things are clearly becoming strange. Life begins to imitate art too closely for comfort: a woman made of mud, part of a story in Marzi's comic, is wandering the streets trying to achieve her own mysterious goals, and the villain of the same piece--a primal force from the otherworld behind the locked door in the Desert Room of Genius Loci--turns out to want to destroy California. With Lindsay, a friend from art school, and Jonathan, who lives in Genius Loci's attic apartment while he is studying the murals for his thesis, Marzi travels beyond the possible into a grand and magical western, indeed. Regina Schroeder Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Tim Pratt's The Strange Adventures of Ranger Girl is a two-fisted meta-fiction of old west mythos and modern day -- sharp writing, cool characters, fascinating ideas, and the courage to have fun. Readers of comics and classics and both will enjoy this novel." -Jeffrey Ford, author of The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque "Rangergirl is a fine blend of imaginative and engaging -- a tale well-told." --Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing and author of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town "Quirky and fun."- -Rocky Mountain News Tim Pratt has been nominated for the Nebula award and for the Campbell Best New Writer award, and his fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror . He lives in Oakland, California, where he co-edits a literary 'zine, Flytrap, with his fiancee, Heather Shaw. Skull Cracker Marzi leaned on the counter and watched, with dread twisting in her belly like a knot of rattlesnakes, as Beej trudged up the stairs. The worst of the morning rush was over and Hendrix was in the back watching his thirteen-inch portable TV, so Marzi would have to wait on Beej herself. He was talking to himself in a dreamily pleasant tone, which was somehow worse than mere ranting, and Marzi heard her own name several times in his otherwise incomprehensible monologue. Beej had always been a slob, but his hygiene and dress sense had deteriorated completely over the past few weeks. His carrot orange hair hung in greasy clumps around his face, and his ever-present black leather jacket—which must have been stifling in this heat—was smeared with mud and bits of grass. Marzi wondered if he’d lost his apartment or something; if he was sleeping outside. Beej still came into the café every day, and Lindsay said he was still attending art classes, but clearly something had come catastrophically loose in his life. Marzi had seen heroin addiction in action, and it looked something like this, but she didn’t think drugs were Beej’s problem. Something in his eyes, the way they seemed to roll around loose lately, made her think he was having problems inside his head. Beej clumped up to the counter, grinning at her, showing teeth that had gone too long without cleaning. He dropped a handful of coins, a few bottle caps, a beer can pull tab, and several pieces of a shredded photograph onto the counter. “Lemon tea, Beej?” she said lightly. “No. A mocha.” He gripped t