Customer Reviews

Gunsmoke 1: The Novel

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Long time fans of "Gunsmoke" or "Marshall Dillon" television shows will want to pass this book up. The characters brought from the small screen are rarely reminiscent of the long-playing show. The story itself has its ups and downs. The characters seem flat and unresponsive--all of them, that is, except for Festus. The one character that seems true to the program of the fifties and sixties is the grungy side-kick of Marshall Dillon. The fascination that causes the reader to stick with the book is the hidden intelligence and machismo of Festus Haggen. Western readers will enjoy this first installment if only to see Festus win the day more than once. McCarthy is also to be applauded for his working without overt sex scenes or extra foul language that publishers have convinced western writers is necessary. The book could possibly be a script that would make it past the censors of yesterday's TV.

I thought this book was pretty good. The story was creative and interesting and the book was an easy and relaxing read. There were some inconsistencies with the TV show such as Matt being a "town marshal" instead of the US Marshal- but I can overlook that. I am a fan of many Star Trek books that tie in to the TV show and some mistakes are made in them too, but it doesn't diminish a good story.
I really liked that the author hinted to more going on between Matt and Kitty without being overtly sexual in content. I really liked the fact that Miss Kitty was not portrayed as a working girl. Whatever the truth of the past may be, young women of today (I'm in my 20's) do not like to think of women in such a demeaning way- Miss Kitty is one of my favorite characters in the show and I'm glad Gary Mccarthy portrayed her as a least a little decent!
I'm looking forward to reading the other two books by McCarthy and hope that he writes a few more!