BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 1915 | 8/10/2020; 978-9354044311; Alpha editions; 298 pages )
(Digital: Yes.)
Audio: 1/21/2010; 9781449877262; Recorded Books; Duration 10:25:55 (10 parts); Unabridged.
(Film: multiple times).

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Buck (Buckley or Dodge) Duane – (more commonly referred to by his name, Duane, in the narration) A fellow, fast with a gun, excommunicated from his home when he shot someone in self-defense, forcing him to go “on the dodge” which is a Nomad status that generally put one in company with Outlaws.
Luke Stevens – The first fellow Buck befriends after going “on the dodge”.
Bland – an outlaw
Kate Bland – Bland’s wife
Jenny – A captive of the Blands held in servitude under the constant threat/fear of sexual abuse.
Euchre - An outlaw Buck befriends
MacNelly – A Texas Ranger who wants to recruit Buck
Bullet – Buck’s large black horse

DEDICATION:
This book was dedicated to Texas Ranger Captain John R. Hughes who it is believed inspired the protagonist. Hughes is also believed to be the inspiration for the radio and tv series, “The Lone Ranger”. There are many similarities, but the reason in the series for the name “Lone” was apparently because the character lost all of his fellow Rangers including his Ranger brother, leaving him the only Ranger left. Whereas, with this book it is because Texas is “The Lone Star State”.

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I never got attached to any Western themed movies or books, but several years ago I woke with the name Zane Grey in my consciousness. I didn’t realize, until several days later when I saw a biography about him in a used book sale, that this was actually a person. Seeing that he’d been the author of Western books, I didn’t purchase the biography at the time, but was still curious why I had the name on my mind when I woke up. I didn’t think of it again until one of the recent Connelly books I listened to mentioned a hotel on Catalina Island named Zane Grey. That re-ignited my curiosity enough to decide to listen to at least one of his books, so this was one of the few that was available on LAPL’s Overload.
It made me realize that what I don’t like about Westerns is that they romanticize and promote violence. Gunplay is always involved and the stereotypes of the characters were never appealing. The horses were the only attraction.
This was originally written in 1915 and things were much different then, but I still can’t help but find the many racial slurs distasteful.
BUT, if you LIKE Westerns, no doubt you’ll like this one.
I did enjoy it for its historical value.
Something I found mildly annoying was that a more current decade was mentioned. I believe it was 1970’s—there seemed to be no need to update the time period and it was incongruous. It also made me wonder what other edits had occurred.

AUTHOR:
Zane Grey (1/31/1872 – 10/23/1929). From Amazon-dot-com: “Zane Grey, the greatest and most prolific storyteller of the American West, was born in Zanesville, Ohio, on January 31, 1872. In his youth, Zane was a semi-professional Zane Greybaseball player and a half-hearted dentist, having studied dentistry to appease his father while on a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. He wanted above all to write and taught himself to do so with stern discipline to free his innate and immense storytelling capacity. Many a lean year came and went as he searched for a publisher, but Zane soon became the best-selling Western author of all time as well as the best selling author of non-fiction fishing novels. For most of the teens, 20s, and 30s, Zane had at least one novel in the top ten every year. His marriage in 1905 to Lina Roth, whom he called Dolly, was a triumph of the old-fashioned, “complimentary” model of matrimony, wherein the husband ranges freely to sustain the inspiration for his calling and the wife tends to the family, edits the manuscripts and makes deals with the publishers. It is fair to say that Dolly’s belief in Zane’s literaZane Greyry works was the single factor most responsible for the success of his lengthy career. Zane and Dolly had three children, Romer, Betty and Loren. Zane’s breakthrough success of Heritage of the Desert in 1910 enabled him to establish a home in Altadena, California and a hunting lodge on the Mogollon Rim near Payson, Arizona. A lifelong passion for angling and the rich rewards of his writing also allowed him to roam the world’s premier game-fishing grounds in his own schooners where he set thirteen deep-sea angling records, most of which stood for decades. Zane would develop and invent tackle still being used today and his exploits in fishing would gain him recognition as the “Father of Modern Big Game Fishing”.

NARRATOR(S):
Ed Sala. From Tantor-dot-com, “Ed Sala, an actor and a writer, has appeared at Carnegie Hall and both on and off Broadway. His plays have been performed in regional theaters across the country. He has won numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for his audiobook narrations, including one for Finn by Jon Clinch, and Best Books for Young Adults Awards from the American Library Association. His performance of White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke was selected by AudioFile as one of the fifteen best audiobooks of the year.”

GENRE:
Western

LOCATIONS:
Texas

TIME FRAME:
Early 1900’s

SUBJECTS:
Texas, Outlaws, Rangers, Cattle Rustling, outlaw gangs, posse

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1:
“So it was in him, then—an inherited fighting instinct, a driving intensity to kill. He was the last of the Duanes, that old fighting stock of Texas. But not the memory of his dead father, nor the pleading of his soft-voiced mother, nor the warning of this uncle who stood before him now, had brought Buck Duane so much realization of the dark passionate strain in his blood. It was the recurrence, a hundred-fold increased in power, of a strange emotion that for the last three years had arisen in him.
‘Yes, Cal Bain’s in town, full of bad whiskey an’ huntin’ for you,’ repeated the elder man, gravely.
‘It’s the second time,’ muttered Duane, as if to himself.
‘Son, you can’t avoid a meetin’. Leave town till Cal sobers up. He ain’t got it in for you when he’s not drinkin’’
‘But what’s he want me for?’ demanded Duane. ‘To insult me again? I won’t stand that twice.’
‘He’s got a fever that’s rampant in Texas these days, my boy. He wants gun-play. If he meets you he’ll try to kill you.’
Here it stirred in Duane again, that bursting gush of blood, like a wind of flame shaking all his inner being and subsiding to leave him strangely chilled.
‘Kill me! What for?’ he asked.
‘Lord knows there ain’t any reason. But what’s that to do with most of the shootin’ these days? Didn’t five cowboys over to Everall’s kill one another dead all because they got to jerkin’ at a quirt among themselves? An’ Cal has no reason to love you. His girl was sweet on you.’
‘I quit when I found out she was his girl.’
‘I reckon she ain’t quit. But never mind her or reasons. Cal’s here, just drunk enough to be ugly. He’s achin’ to kill somebody. He’s one of them four-flush gun-fighters. He’d like to be thought bad. There’s a lot of wild cowboys who’re ambitious for a reputation. They talk about how quick they are on the draw. They ape Bland an’ King Fisher an’ Hardin an’ all the big outlaws. They make threats about joinin’ gangs along the Rio Grande. They laugh at the sheriffs an’ brag about how they’d fix the rangers. Cal’s sure not much for you to bother with, if you only keep out of his way.’”

RATING: 2.5 stars. (It finally occurred to me that while I am limited to a non-fractional number of stars by Goodreads, I don’t have to be in my reviews. )
I think this was a great story for its genre and its day, just not for me.

STARTED-FINISHED 5/10/21-5/21/21
( )

I really enjoyed the beginning, when Duane deals with his feelings about killing for the first time and the life he will be forced to live. It dragged a bit in the middle. His becoming a Ranger seemed a bit contrived. But it got interesting again at the conclusion. ( )

Buck Duane is forced to kill a man to save his own life. This puts him on the outlaw trail where he is forced to kill other outlaws who resent his fame and skill with weapons. Eventually Captain McKelly of the Texas Rangers approaches him to become a Ranger in order to track down the Chelsedine gang and bring them to justice. In ending the gang's reign of terror, he proves the Texas Rangers are an important force in bringing law and order to Texas.

While the novel is full of action, the reader must be aware of the lengthy descriptions of the natural beauty of Texas he will have to wade through to get to the action. Typical Zane Grey. ( )

this is the one i should have started reading, not the mysterious rider. this one starts out with trouble brewing, someone looking to kill someone else.

i'll keep reading this, and probably won't finish the mysterious rider.

This isn't cassettes, but a downloadable audio book from Recorded Books via my library & listened to on my MP3 player. Ed Sala is the narrator & at first I didn't think I was going to like his voice. It's kind of scratchy, old & often drops too low, but it really fits the story, except for when he tries to do the female voices. Luckily, there are very few. Seriously, he's awful at them.

I pretty much quit reading most formulaic westerns years ago. They were cliches run rampant with plots laid out in the first few paragraphs. Grey is the reason. He was one of the first authors to become a millionaire & molded many of the violent, romantic myths of the old west. His success launched a host of imitators, many of whom used his version of the west as their own. So, I wasn't expecting a fresh western from Grey. After all, he first published this novel in 1914. He's old school & the last time I tried reading one of his novels, I wasn't too thrilled.

What really surprises & delights me about this story is just how well the cliched young, quick-draw, gone-down-the-wrong-road-but-good-at-heart-anyway kid is drawn. After looking at the back end of those cliches all these years, seeing it from the front end is surprisingly refreshing. How can that be? I don't really know, just that it is. I think part of that comes from the laconic, gravelly drawl of Sala, but no reader can make a poorly written story into a delight. There's an economy & down-home fun to Grey's prose that just makes it fun to listen to.

The story started out well for the first 9 chapters when I wrote the above. Chapter 10 suddenly bogs down with a loooong description of our hero's mental state. It was incredibly verbose & boring, pounding the same ideas into me until I was ready to surrender. Then the pace picked up & was good again for next 4 chapters until we reach the end of book 1. Unfortunately, there was some time travel going on. We skipped ahead a few years & then looked back, completely out of keeping with the story to this point, which had all been in the present tense. I'll give it 3 stars.

Chapter 15 is a new book & chapter in Buck's life & it breaks much of the previous mood. It starts out quite refreshingly, totally expected, but not terrible. I was glad to see the book get back on track & listened through chapter 16 with delight. Chapter 17 started out with a lot of promise & then suddenly the book becomes a complete train wreck. Stupid, gaping plot holes, horrible dialog, & so much less that it is not worth listening to, although I did. At the end, there is one slight, redeeming moment, Buck doesn't beat a bad guy to the draw but it was too little, too late, & really didn't help at all. One star rating.

All in all, it wasn't a complete waste of time. I may listen to [b:Riders of the Purple Sage|90160|Riders of the Purple Sage|Zane Grey|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320415192s/90160.jpg|2663060], one of his most famous books at some point, but I'll need some recovery time. ( )