Steven E. Wedel

Hard Winter: A Western Story by Johnny D. Boggs My rating: 4 of 5 stars Johnny D. Boggs has become my second favorite living Western author. His books are always interesting and unique, and Hard Winter was no exception. It grabbed me from the beginning and held my interest all the way through, despite not…

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour My rating: 3 of 5 stars I had the same problem with this The Lonesome Gods that I’ve had with all of Louis L’Amour’s fiction. All of his lead characters are supermen and they know it. He rhapsodizes about their abilities without ever showing how they got those abilities…

The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr. My rating: 3 of 5 stars There were parts of this book I really enjoyed. I liked the beginning with Boone dealing with his Pap and running away from home and his trouble with the law. After that, though, it was hit or miss for me. Until the…

The Age of Odin by James Lovegrove My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is outside my usual genres, but I do love Norse mythology, and it was recommended to me by a good student, so I gave it a try. I liked a lot of it, but there were some plot issues that…

Glory Trail by David R Lewis My rating: 4 of 5 stars The eighth installment of David R. Lewis’s Trail series gets Rubin, Marion, and Homer saddling up to protect a wagon train of black folk as they wade through racism to get to Glory, Kansas, an all-black community. I have to admit I wasn’t…

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt My rating: 4 of 5 stars In many ways this book reminded me of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The narrator, the tone … It just put me in mind of the other book. That’s a pretty good thing. Our narrator here is Jack, a sixth grader whose…

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach My rating: 4 of 5 stars Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, read when I was in 8th grade, was a real eye-opener to me at the time, and I re-read it every few years now as a reminder that we can be better than we…

My Ántonia by Willa Cather My rating: 2 of 5 stars There are some fantastic lines in this novel. Some great scenes. I liked the characters a lot. But ultimately … nothing happens. There’s no crisis. No villain. No problem that has to be overcome. It’s just kinda there. What’s the story about? Well ……

The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton My rating: 3 of 5 stars I haven’t read a whole lot of Elmer Kelton’s Western fiction — in fact, this is only the second novel of his I can recall reading — but that needs to change. I really enjoy his style of writing, his level…