Collection
Description
Fiction. Western. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:With more than 120 titles still in print, Louis L'Amour is recognized the world over as one of the most prolific and popular American authors in history. Though he met with phenomenal success in every genre he tried, the form that put him on the map was the short story. Now this great writerâ??The Wall Street Journal recently compared with Jack London and Robert Louis Stevensonâ??will receive his due as a great storyteller. This volume kicks off a series that will, when complete, anthologize all of L'Amourâ??s short fiction, volume by handsome volume. Here, in Volume One, is a treasure-trove of 35 frontier tales for his millions of fans and for those who have yet to discover L'Amourâ??s thrilling proseâ??and his vital role in capturing the spirit of the Old West for gener… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member theeclecticreview
I was pleasantly surprised by this book.
Mr. L'Amour's characters are engaging: the frontier women are strong and the outlaws are sensitive. His historical settings of deserts, frontier towns and mining shacks are memorable. And his plots are fun, suspenseful and unforgettable.
I couldn't put it
Mr. L'Amour's characters are engaging: the frontier women are strong and the outlaws are sensitive. His historical settings of deserts, frontier towns and mining shacks are memorable. And his plots are fun, suspenseful and unforgettable.
I couldn't put it
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down. I'm officialy a L'Amour convert. Show Less
LibraryThing member lamour
It was fun to read these again after having done so over the years in the many Bantam paperback versions. There are a few stories that I do not remember so either I had totally forgotten them, or they were new to me. At any rate, most are page turners that I could not put down. The opening story,
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"The Gift of Cochise", is a delightful story of a lone woman's stand against the threat of an Apache attack and how she gains the respect of the Apache chief, Cochise and then tricks him when he tries to marry her off to one of his warriors. The others tell stories of men & women traveling in wagon trains, fighting to keep their ranches & gold mines safe from nature & criminals and making a living in frontier towns. Show Less
LibraryThing member fuzzi
Excellent collection of stories about the west by one of the best sources of the genre, Louis L'Amour. It includes my favorites "One For the Pot" and "War Party" as well as others. One of the best in this volume is "The Gift of Cochise", which was later extended into the novel Hondo.
LibraryThing member MrsLee
It is a rare thing when one finds a collection of short stories in which every one is perfect. This is it.
LibraryThing member Ranjr
Well, this is a single volume of the complete set that currently takes up shelf space in my library. I don't mind Louis L'Amour too much but he is not a favorite either. Although I do like some of his stories. The last similar book of his that I read, volume 3, was okay, I liked a handful of
The stories I did like were That Man from Bitter Sands, From the Listening Hills, Trap of Gold (my favorite in this book), The Lonesome Gods, The Skull and the Arrow, Caprock Rancher, Dead-End Drift, The Defense of Sentinel (a tie for my favorite), War Party, Duffy's Man, The Strong Shall Live, To Make a Stand, One for the Pot, and Home is the Hunter. I found these easy to read, entertaining, liked the central characters, and felt these stories were the least overwritten.
The author does seem to have a problem with cutting the fat away from his stories especially the longer form tales such as Rustler Roundup. I really do not like getting bogged down in unnecessary prose or details that serve no real purpose in a story. This is a common problem amongst the pulp writers as they were paid by the word. Probably the main reason the Big Three of pulp and weird fiction were not so successful in their lifetimes as other less skilled but more prolific scribes. But that is neither here nor there.
I am glad I read this book if not all of the stories in it. I would recommend this book if you like Old West pulp stories especially if you can pick the book up for a song.
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stories in it. This book is no exception, I liked about a third of the stories therein but definitely not all or even most of them.The stories I did like were That Man from Bitter Sands, From the Listening Hills, Trap of Gold (my favorite in this book), The Lonesome Gods, The Skull and the Arrow, Caprock Rancher, Dead-End Drift, The Defense of Sentinel (a tie for my favorite), War Party, Duffy's Man, The Strong Shall Live, To Make a Stand, One for the Pot, and Home is the Hunter. I found these easy to read, entertaining, liked the central characters, and felt these stories were the least overwritten.
The author does seem to have a problem with cutting the fat away from his stories especially the longer form tales such as Rustler Roundup. I really do not like getting bogged down in unnecessary prose or details that serve no real purpose in a story. This is a common problem amongst the pulp writers as they were paid by the word. Probably the main reason the Big Three of pulp and weird fiction were not so successful in their lifetimes as other less skilled but more prolific scribes. But that is neither here nor there.
I am glad I read this book if not all of the stories in it. I would recommend this book if you like Old West pulp stories especially if you can pick the book up for a song.
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Subjects
Genres
Publication
New York : Bantam Books, 2003
Original publication date
2003-11
Pages
422
ISBN
0553803570