My two cents: not a bad story; just not a great one. The first line about learning alot about how a town treats its dead bodies was great, though. It's too bad that Mr. Klaver couldn't follow up on it.
I have no problem with S/F Westerns (Outland, Firefly, et al), they can be very enjoyable if they are Science Fiction. "The Right Kind of Town" was not. If we define a genre story as one having an intregal part of the plot which could not be replaced by another genre's convention, then it is a genre story. To be more clear: "The Cold Equations" is a Science Fiction story because the plot turns on the fact that spaceships have limited fuel for their mass. Mr. Klaver's protagonist could have been a vampire (and with a race name like Nightwalker, probably should have been) or a werewolf or a kung fu trained female shaolin monk. Her being an alien had nothing to do with the story. Only his info dump identified that this was supposed to be an S/F story, and that felt strained by having to pack so much information about his future world. It was as if the author was running around with a sign reading "It's a Science Fiction Story". There was nothing to distinguish it.
That, I think, is the reason why I am not all that impressed with "The Right Kind of Town". No distinguishing features. The protagonist is a prostitute (sigh), the antagonist is a rich asshole (sigh). These are tired cliches. I understand that certain cliches need to be in a story like this (obviously), but what matters is what is done with those cliches. Other than making his hero half plant (interesting idea) there is nothing to distinguish her from any other prostitute hero? One of the functions of speculative fiction (including S/F) is to subvert the genre's and reader's expectations. Why not make her male instead of female? Why not make the antagonist the good guy and the prostitute the bad guy?
But like I said, it wasn't bad. The plot was serviceable (if not dinstinguished), the characterization okay, and the prose was at times very good (like his opening line). I think, however, that "The Right Kind of Town" would have worked better as a Weird (or Horror) Western better than as S/F. Maybe if Mr. Klaver had another two or three thousand words with which to work, it might have been better. There is potential in this universe however. I will head over to Mr. Klaver's website and see what else he has to offer.
