markm reviewed Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry
Review of "Dead Man's Walk" on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
The first volume in the Lonesome Dove prequels with August Macrae and Woodrow Call as teenagers (I think) in the Texas Rangers. The characters, some of whom were real people, mostly walk through the Llano Estacado and the Chihuahuan Desert where they have the opportunity to witness one deus ex machina event after another. The author has the old problem of needing to eliminate most of the characters without losing too many important ones. He uses an interesting technique that I call retroactive character development. So most of the plot naturally is about the main characters, but occasionally we have to be reminded that there are another 12 or 50 or 100 characters along for the ride. We can't know too much about them, but sometimes when they are killed off (like the poor crew member in the red shirt on Star Trek [a phenomenon that I was unaware of …
The first volume in the Lonesome Dove prequels with August Macrae and Woodrow Call as teenagers (I think) in the Texas Rangers. The characters, some of whom were real people, mostly walk through the Llano Estacado and the Chihuahuan Desert where they have the opportunity to witness one deus ex machina event after another. The author has the old problem of needing to eliminate most of the characters without losing too many important ones. He uses an interesting technique that I call retroactive character development. So most of the plot naturally is about the main characters, but occasionally we have to be reminded that there are another 12 or 50 or 100 characters along for the ride. We can't know too much about them, but sometimes when they are killed off (like the poor crew member in the red shirt on Star Trek [a phenomenon that I was unaware of as a kid, because I watched TV in black and white!]), the author will throw in a curious fact about them in the same sentence as the announcement of their death. Like, and this is not a quote from the book, "Finally Lucas Smith died, he had always liked to kill toads", when we have not heard mention of Mr. Smith previously. It does have a comic effect.
