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Background
Cowboys and gunfighters are iconic American heroes and
using them as heroes in other milieus was only natural.
The Western uses themes that are compatible with the
themes found in other genres.

Like science fiction
stories set on distant planets, Westerns use the themes
of unknown wilderness and the survival of pioneers.
Westerns also offer stories of struggles to maintain
social order in a lawless environment.
This leads naturally into the science fiction Western
where anachronistic science is injected into a Western
setting usually in a steampunk manner.
Given that space
is the final frontier it is also unsurprising that the
themes that originated in Westerns re-appear in
science
fiction too, resulting in the space Western.
Weird West - The Supernatural Menaces of
Horror Fiction
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