Last week, a friend asked me a question: If I could pick just one book for the world to remember me by, which would it be?

After much hemming and hawing, I chose Unicorn Western. I love all of my books, but in a pinch I had to give UW the win. It's just so ... WEIRD and UNUSUAL and LIKE NOTHING ELSE. I like the idea of being known for something truly wacky -- something that manages to be bizarre and profound at the same time.

The problem is, a lot of my readers haven't read Unicorn Western. Some don't even know it exists! This is an intolerable situation, so I decided to fix it by putting the complete, 9-book Unicorn Western omnibus on sale this week for ONE THIRD of its normal price.

​Click here to get the enormous, quarter-million-word Unicorn Western Full Saga for only $5.99​

(Normal price is $16.99 because it's nine books in one).

What's Unicorn Western, you ask?

Well, let's start with the cover. The cover will tell you 90% of what you need to know. But brace yourself, because shit is about to get real in this email:

YES: YOU ARE, IN FACT, SEEING A GUNSLINGER RIDING A UNICORN. Your eyes are not deceiving you.

If you've been on this list for a few weeks, you may remember me sharing some pics of it in BookPeople -- the "Keep Austin Weird" mainstay bookstore. Like this:

And that right there is why I chose Unicorn Western: Because it's so incredibly odd. It's a total standout, and I like the idea of being known as a "standout author." If you saw that book in a bookstore, you'd have to pick it up. You'd have no other choice. My other books are good, but at least people know what to make of them. That's not true for Unicorn Western. People walk by Unicorn Western in a bookstore, and they say WHAT THE HELL? and then fall under my spell. Especially in a "keep it weird" city like Austin.

(SIDE NOTE: If you live in Austin and want to get the 700-page paperback, email me first. I'll meet you at BookPeople and sign it for you.)

I can't discount the paperback because it takes like six trees to make it, but I can discount the complete ebook omnibus (that's what "Full Saga" means, in Western-ese). Six bucks is nuts for 9 books' worth of unicorns.

​Get Unicorn Western Full Saga for only $5.99 (until Wednesday)​

Still reading even after the buy link? Cool. I like a reader who wants to hear the backstory of something instead of just grabbing it when it's cheap. (Although both are fine by me.)

Amazing thing about Unicorn Western #1: It started as a joke, then became an epic story of good, evil, and the grey areas in between.

My regular co-author Sean and I used to be on a dumb but amazing podcast called Better Off Undead with our friend Dave, who co-wrote with Sean before I ever did. (BOU was eventually and aptly re-named Worst Show Ever. Here's some accolades: One reviewer said, and I quote, "It is a podcast.")

Sean had been trying to get Dave to write a western with him, but Dave thought it would take too much research. I said that if you put a unicorn in that western, nobody would wonder about factual errors, thus making research irrelevant.

That was the first time I wrote with Sean. Together, we wrote the unicorn-laden western that Dave refused to write.

And yes, it began as a joke ... but by the third book, it'd become something more. It started to be about good and evil and worlds in the balance: 1/3 western, 1/3 epic fantasy, and 1/3 fever dream. One reviewer even described Unicorn Western as being like if Stephen King dropped acid while writing The Dark Tower. I'm taking that as a good thing, and a suitable legacy.

Amazing thing about Unicorn Western #2: It's an homage to classic westerns, right down to the titles and plots.

We liked the idea of really leaning into westerns and playing with the tropes, so each book is an homage to a classic western movie ... and contains a chapter with the title of that movie.

Example: Book One is based on the plot of High Noon (a retiring lawman re-dons his guns when a bad guy comes to town) and contains a chapter called "High Noon."

Book 2, The Wanderers, is based on the western movie The Searchers (cowboy heroes scour the desert for people who've been abducted) and contains a chapter called "The Searchers."

It goes on from there: A Fistful of Dollars, 5:10 to Yuma, The Magnificent Seven, Unforgiven ... you get the idea. (Side note: Finding an excuse to name a chapter "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" was quite the literary feat.)

And of course, all nine books are part of the Full Saga.

Amazing thing about Unicorn Western #3: It's exciting, it's hilarious, it's sad and moving and triumphant, it's deep, it's weird ... and it's STUFFED with Easter eggs.

Unicorn Western is the bottom of our literary ocean. In the same way oysters accumulate all the heavy metals that pollute the sea and become toxic, Unicorn Western accumulates all of our references and odd profundities and becomes awesome.

So: Sean and I start thinking about the origins of all things but don't know how to write about it? Put it in the Unicorn Western universe. Noticed that hatch chilies are in all foods in Austin or that some of the old streets are named after cowboys? Put those tidbits in Unicorn Western. Sean's daughter is amused by the cone at the base of cotton candy and runs around with it on her head? No problem: Make "unicorn puffs" part of the culture inside Unicorn Western. Suddenly obsessed with chili? Just met an amusing person? Recently noticed that a friend looks like some old actor? Have a private joke? Just saw the movie Birdemic and/or Wreck-It Ralph? WHAT THE HELL; PUT IT ALL IN UNICORN WESTERN.

In many ways, Unicorn Western is the "hub of the wheel" for my world of books. All roads eventually lead to or from Unicorn Western, even though it's seldom a literal connection. The series is a cornucopia of moods: from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply sad and moving.

It's like a Bollywood movie in that way. It truly has everything.

Amazing thing about Unicorn Western #4: It's meant mostly for adults, but is completely kid-safe.

Sean and I wanted our kids to be able to read the series, so we kept it clean: no swearing, no sex, and only western-style violence. But because I've never been able to "write down" for long, it immediately rose to my usual level of "smart fiction," and for the most part became a story for adults.

But if you have precocious kids, this is a safe book to let them read ... or to read to or with them. (Just don't expect small children to follow all of the big themes and adult-sized plot twists!) Speaking for me and Sean, our kids read and loved it.

Amazing thing about Unicorn Western #5: It is the ONLY Truant & Platt story world that's still "open" for future books.

Sean and I have "closed the box completely" on every series we've written together ... except this one.

Unicorn Western is special to both of us. Because it was our first and most "signature" book, we always wanted things in that world to be among the most epic things we did. So unlike The Beam, Invasion, The Dream Engine, and all the other series we've written together so far, we never completely closed Unicorn Western so that we could never write in it again.

To be clear, the core series is indeed complete. The Full Saga contains every book in the core Unicorn Western series, and it was important to us that it had a satisfying ending within the Saga alone. But after the Saga, we wrote a prequel called Unicorn Genesis that plays with story, myth, folklore, and the nature of stories themselves. Furthermore, we always intended to close the UW world for good later in our careers with the most apropos of titles: Unicorn Apocalypse.

Unicorn Apocalypse isn't even on the drawing board yet even though it's been a dozen years, but that's because we're waiting until the time is ideal to write it. UA was always intended as a meta-commentary on everything, including Sean and I as storytellers. For that reason, there was never any rush. We wanted to do it right. The timing has to be perfect, because in the same way as Unicorn Western began our writing partnership, Unicorn Apocalypse will herald the birth of its next level.

We do, however, have a few side in-world books planned already, one of which is called Unicorn Heathens. I hope we can write that one in 2025!

...

Whew! Even I'd forgotten just how amazing Unicorn Western is. No wonder it's the project I most want to be known for.

If you've been waiting for the quintessential Truant & Platt reading experience, this is it. The Unicorn Western Full Saga (a quarter million words total, which translates to 700 pages in print) is normally $16.99 simply because it's so many books in one. But if you grab it before the end of Wednesday, it'll be 67% less than that: Only $5.99!

​Get the Unicorn Western Full Saga for only $5.99 here by Wednesday​

Get it now if you're going to. On Thursday, it'll jump up to $16.99 again.

Yours in unicorns,
Johnny

P.S: If you've already read Unicorn Western (especially if you're OG enough to have read the books when they first came out as individual volumes, before the Full Saga) reply and let me know!