War Party [Hardcover]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Bantam Books; First Printing (Numerals Begin with 1) edition (1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553062719
• ISBN-13: 978-0553062717
• ASIN: B000P42BDK
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,234,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of a campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, and miner, and was an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontiers and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

The recipient of many great honor and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist to ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Louis' best short story collection!, April 3, 2000

By 

al ellefson - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Party (Paperback)

Of course, eventually, all of L'amour's great old pulp fiction will see book form and, as a huge Louis fan, I'm glad of it. But if you want to read L'Amour's BEST short fiction, this collection, the first, supervised by the author himself back in '75, is your finest bet!

L'Amour was a better writer in his pulp days than he will ever be given credit for. In fact, as a late purveyor of the pulp western's twilight era, I prefer him to Elmore Leonard, H.A. DeRosso, et al. These men were just self-conscious crime writers (with some hipper-than-thou neo-naturalist brightness and talent) who condescended, for a time, to sell westerns. L'Amour, on the other hand, was a believer! -- and BOY, could he knock off a tale!

Also worth noting is the story "The Gift of Cochise," expanded by James Edward Grant into the screenplay for John Wayne's movie HONDO. (L'Amour is now believed to have actually novelized this photoplay-- See Weinberg's LOUIS L'AMOUR COMPANION.) I believe the original story is far better than HONDO-- book or movie! L'Amour's original is more logical and realistic, and the love story works better with the dead husband as a good guy toward whom Ches (later Hondo) Lane feels a driving responsiblity. This was one of L'Amour's greatest perfomances.

Also, check out the other 'slicks' Louis wrote for COLLIER'S and the SATURDAY EVENING POST-- pure, smart story-telling! (Especially the forgotten 1960 Sackett story "Booty For A Badman.") The ladies will love his excursions into "Ranch Romance" territory-- "One For The Pot" and the title story. There's not a single dud here and the collection would be perfect if it included "Bluff Creek Station" (later collected in THE STRONG SHALL LIVE), my personal choice as L'Amour's greatest short story.

So buy it when you can, especially if you have never read Louis L'Amour! This anthology is a perfect introduction to an American legend.

Al

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Louis' best short story collection!, April 3, 2000

By 

al ellefson - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Party (Paperback)

Of course, eventually, all of L'amour's great old pulp fiction will see book form and, as a huge Louis fan, I'm glad of it. But if you want to read L'Amour's BEST short fiction, this collection, the first, supervised by the author himself back in '75, is your finest bet!

L'Amour was a better writer in his pulp days than he will ever be given credit for. In fact, as a late purveyor of the pulp western's twilight era, I prefer him to Elmore Leonard, H.A. DeRosso, et al. These men were just self-conscious crime writers (with some hipper-than-thou neo-naturalist brightness and talent) who condescended, for a time, to sell westerns. L'Amour, on the other hand, was a believer! -- and BOY, could he knock off a tale!

Check out the 'slicks' he wrote for COLLIER'S and the SATURDAY EVENING POST-- pure, smart story-telling! (Especially the forgotten 1960 Sackett story "Booty For A Badman.") The ladies will love his excursions into "Ranch Romance" territory-- "One For The Pot" and the title story. There's not a single dud here and the collection would be perfect if it included "Bluff Creek Station" (later collected in THE STRONG SHALL LIVE), my personal choice as L'Amour's greatest short story.

So buy it when you can, especially if you have never read Louis L'Amour! This anthology is a perfect introduction to an American legend.

Al

5.0 out of 5 stars Just another note..........., April 20, 2000

By 

al ellefson - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Party (Paperback)

As a brief addendum to my review below, I would like to comment on the best story in this volume: THE GIFT OF COCHISE. This story was made into the screenplay for the John Wayne film HONDO by James E. Grant. It is now widely believed that L'Amour's book HONDO is actually an adaptation of this screenplay and not an original novel. (See discussion in Robert Weinberg's LOUIS L'AMOUR COMPANION.)

For the record, I prefer L'Amour's original to HONDO, both book and movie. Louis' original story is more accurate historically and works better on nearly every level. One significant change in Grant's treatment involves the character of Ed Lowe, the female protagonist's murdered husband. In the original, the Ches (Hondo) Lane character is motivated entirely by a sense of duty toward Ed, and the events of the story revolve entirely around this motivation. I believe Grant deliberately made this change in order to deconstuct Lane's typical L'Amour-hero integrity and create a moral ambiguity in the love story. (He seems to have been fond of moral ambiguities in all his John Wayne scripts.)

Read the story and see what you think. It is one of L'amour's best moments as a writer.