Customer Reviews

Dead Warrior

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`Dead Warrior' is John Myers Myers best, most fully realized work of historical fiction. In it his knowledge as an historian of the American west, his skill as a story teller, and his gift for clever word play come together to form an excellent novel, second only to his fantasy masterpiece, `Silverlock.

Almost all of Myers' fiction follows a set script. The protagonist-narrator is near the end of his youth, directionless, cut off from his past, with much latent talent of which he is only vaguely aware. He is launched by circumstances beyond his control on a journey quest which forces him to mature, realize his talents, and discover his true self. Along the way he goes through a series of adventures and meets many fascinating and unusual people, both friends and foes, who help to drive this process along. He takes every opportunity that he can to get whiskey drunk in good company with good smokes and tall tales. And he generally discovers his heart's true desire, although he usually doesn't get to possess it. `The Harp and the Blade', `Out On Any Limb', `The Wild Yazoo', and even `Silverlock' all follow this basic pattern, and `Dead Warrior' is no exception to the rule.

With `Dead Warrior', Myers fairly well perfected the above mentioned formula. His protagonist, Baltimore Caruthers was enjoying a lazy life in a Colorado gold mining town when the whole town dissolved and moved out, literally overnight, in search of the next big gold strike. Baltimore is left to wander, looking for a place where he can belong. He drifts south and west, meets several folk along the way who become both friends and foes, and eventually settles in to live in Dead Warrior, a raw, new gold mining camp in Arizona. It is here that Myers improved upon his formula. The protagonist and the town have a symbiotic relationship that adds a level of sophistication to Myers' formula that is lacking in all of his other fiction save `Silverlock'. As the Dead Warrior grows from a new strike, to a wild gold camp, to a wide open frontier town, Baltimore Caruthers grows and matures along with it, and in the man and the town Myers shows us a microcosm of the West.

The wild adventures come fast and thick as they always do in Myers' novels, and the story is packed with colorful characters who grab your attention without having much depth - also typical of his style. But here, Myers so perfectly blended the romantic adventure of fiction with his detailed knowledge of the historical realities of the West that he created something that was more powerful and moving than his other historical fiction. If you are a fan of Myers' work, or if you enjoy Western fiction, this book should be on your must read list. I highly recommend it.

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