Tag: William w. Johnstone
April 1st, 2014 – Book: ‘American Jihad’ by William Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Apr.01, 2015, under Books
Black Ops: American Jihad by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What I hate most about this book: There has only been one made! Apparently whatever fall out occurred between the mysterious “Fred Austin” mentioned on the cover killed off this series.
First great element of this novel is the continuation of the “Smoke” Jensen legacy to today with “smoke”‘s great grandson. It’s just not a mention of the relation but the weaving of the family connection into the story. It is a bit pretentious, but adds much to the story.
Another great element of the book is the handling of the story in a far more realistic light than the various super soldier novels want to reveal. The conflict of the media and layers are generally entirely absent from the typical espionage story. This book takes it all head-on and lays the ground work for a series that never happened.
The writing is typical of a Johnstone Clan book with great characters and a fun, fast moving story.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 of 10 points.
March 26th, 2015 – ‘Eight Hours to Die’ by William W. Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Mar.26, 2015, under Books
Eight Hours to Die by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It is amazing how the Johnstone Clan of writers can draw a reader into a tale. They did it again here with this offering from the Johnstone Herd of books.
The tale is a fun ride of a town in trouble and Sixkiller rides in to try and save the day. After reading so many Johnstone books in the past two years, the tales do start to sound familiar when a weaker writer gets hold of it. That is the case here. As much fun as the story is and the pages turn faster and faster as excitement builds, this Johnstone tale is lacking.
As the book proceeds the story resolves itself a bit too easily. There’s little in the way of twists and turns to help the story have more meat to it’s bone. There is a significant twist in the story that comes at a very odd part of the book.
The characters make it all worthwhile. Most are well done. Though, many are given little background and some are never given names.
The two biggest clunkers of the product is a goofy cover and an unrelated book title.
Still the book is worth reading for the fun of it all.
Bottom line: i recommend the book. 5 of 10 points.
February 23rd, 2015 – Book: ‘The Family Jensen’ by William Johnstone.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.23, 2015, under Books
The Family Jensen by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first book of a series by the Johnstone Clan, that I’ve read, are usually excellent. This one missed that mark. There certainly are some great stories inside and even a good overall story. It’s just that in an effort to weave four stories together as a whole doesn’t work. The three individual stories of the three main characters read as stories meant for another purpose. So that the main underlining story also seems like a separate novel. Seems to me the Johnstone Clan could’ve just fleshed out all four stories into separate books that might not run the typical 300 pages. Maybe that was the initial idea.
The writing is OK. Though it does seem as if, at least, one of the three separate stories was written be an also separate author.
The characters are as good as always. Especially good work done for the indian characters. The bad guys were lacking in this case.
I’m going to recommend the book due almost entirely with the last fourth of the book. I do recommend reading the book as separate novels. Might be best to skip the prologue, I think it makes more sense that way.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 5 out of 10 points.
February 2nd, 2015 – Book- “The Last Mountain Man: Savage Territory’ by W.W. Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.02, 2015, under Books
Savage Territory by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m reading these in order and this is the fourth in the series. After a bumpy third book, this one gets more on track of the first two with similar quality and story telling. This is not as good as the first two, but still, involving story telling better than most all of the rest of the Johnstone Clan written books.
Seems this is the same writer as the other three books, for, again, there is an interest in trains, a Perry Mason-type trial and attention to detail missing in most Johnstone books. The writing is very good. The characters well written, as usual.
This is the first of the four where the outcome is pretty obvious from the start. The writer keeps the reader guessing as to just how the obvious ending could possibly occur with so many characters going in so many different directions. It all works well.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 of 10.
January 31st, 2015 – Book: ‘Last Mountain Man: Purgatory’ by W.W. Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jan.31, 2015, under Books
Purgatory by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
As I read the Johnstone Clan’s The Last Mountain Man series from the start to this third in the series it becomes very apparent that the crafter of the tales is a far better storyteller than those handling the other parts of the series I’ve read so far. These three are all complex with interwoven threads that bind to make a solid story.
However, this one is not as well written as the first two. Specifically the first few chapters that are a mish-mosh of trying to retell the two previous books and start telling this one. One reason for this may be that this book came out the same year as the last and the one previous to it came out only months earlier. Chug-a-lugging these books seems to have strained production values.
The bulk of the book is still good, lacking the depth of the first two. The characters are especially well explained. Excellent work is done with a secondary character that is law enforcement that, over the course of the book, realizes what is really going on.
Despite the poorly written first chapters –
Bottom line: I recommend this book 7 of 10
January 27th, 2015 – Book: ‘Matt Jensen: the Last Mountain Man’ by William Johnstone & pals.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jan.27, 2015, under Books
Matt Jensen: The Last Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
As I have found the first books in a Johnstone Clan series are dynamite and this is one, too. A thoroughly satisfying western with a great underlying story with typical protagonists, lots of action and a very good ending.
Before this I read a book by L’Amour. The difference between the two writers, to me, that L’Amour was a literary writer and the Johnstone Clan tell simpler stories with a knack to craft characters the readers can care about. I’ve found myself not caring much about L’Amour characters. The Johnstone characters I usually want to know more about which pulls me into more novels in the in numerous series.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 of 10.
(side note: I happened to find this book during my travels and started it the same day. that has almost never happened. Hundreds of books writing to be read and I prop open a novel the same day I buy it. This happens to be a first of a series I’ve wanted to start, I hadn’t ready a Johnstone this month and I just finished a book and needed to start one all got me to read this immediately.)
November 23rd, 2014 – Book: ‘Sixkiller, U.S. Marshall- Day of Rage’ by William W. Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Nov.24, 2014, under Books
Day of Rage by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a good western tale of John Henry Sixkiller by the Johnstone Clan. It’s a bit more complicated than most Johnstone Clan books with far more developed side characters. This is second in this series and both have far more plot development and far more attention to setting. Overall this story of gold, bad guys and banks is one of the better entries in the entire Johnstone Clan library.
Seems to me the dialogue, though other wise written well for reading was a bit dogged with a lack of authenticity to the times.
Bottom line: I recommend this book.
July 31st, 2014 – Book: ‘Invasion U.S.A.: Border War’ by William Johnstone.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.31, 2014, under Books
Border War by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
‘Invasion U.S.A.: Border War” is the second book of, so far, a two book series. This second book is far superior to the first, that is also very good. This one is far better written with a much more involved plot.
Whereas teh first was chock full of gun play and explosions, this one is handled very differently. There’s more setup to explain the gun play and explosions. With the more involved plot there are more involved characters. Something the Johnstone Clan excels at is characterization. That occurs here even better than the first book.
This one does have less tension with the first. i was literally on teh edge of my seat with the first. This one I had to read much more carefully as the plot unfolded in more intricate and well written detail.
Wondered about giving it five stars, but the writing isn’t up to the par of a Faulkner or Slaughter.
Bottom line: i recommend this book.
July 1st, 2014 – Book: ‘Courage of the Mountain Man’ by William W. Johnstone.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.01, 2014, under Books
Courage of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
As usual the writing is good and the characterizations are very good. It’s just that it’s much same plot as so many of the Smoke Jensen series. Town taken over, Smoke comes to save the day. The bad guy is getting really repeated as another who kills puppies and eats children, or something along those lines.
What’s really disappointing is not even a twist in the story. There are a few alteration of characters, but that is all to lead to a conclusion we ‘Mountain Man’ readers know too well. Seems to me one alteration was Smoke in general. Smoke, seems to me, acting very different in this book from how he handles the bad guys and the interaction with other characters. This could be a sign of a different ghost writer.
Another trouble is the length of this one. I think about a third could’ve been cut out and focus more on the sheriff and Smoke and make this a tighter volume. There’s way too much nearly identical narrative and dialog from other books.
The volume before this, ‘Pursuit of the Mountain Man’, was a terrific diversion from this town takeover template and I hope the other volumes I’ve hunted down take more the ‘Pursuit’ trail.
Bottom line: Well, I see I need to have two.
1) If you’ve been reading the ‘Mountain Man’ series – No, don’t read it. This is more of the same.
2) If you haven’t read any or little of the series, Yes, read it.
February 11th, 2014 – Book – ‘The Brothers O’Brien’ by William W. Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.11, 2014, under Books
The Brothers O’Brien by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is one Hell of a good book. Not much for using “Page turner”, but page turning I was. Don’t know who in the Johnstone Clan wrote this, but this is the best I’ve read of the twelve or so read so far. The ghost writer really got the idea of early Johnstone books of defining characters and fleshing out story. Seems this might be a writer that had not written any of the other books I’ve read so far. Very good work.
One of the best things of this book is that the plot that develops in the second half of the book is very different from the other Johnstone books. There are some characters that are very different and even a bit of a sorcery angle spilled in. There is a cat in this book that is really well placed. Was never sure just how this book would end, except that this is still another series and that the brothers would survive. That’s something else in this book, as was the case with earlier Johnstone novels, mot everyone survives. There are some who meet their fate in ways very unexpected. Really like the levels as they get built throughout the book.
After a series of mediocre to bad Johnstone books, this charges me on to the dozens of others I’ve collected over the past year.
Bottom line: I recommend this book!
December 10th, 2013 – Book: ‘A Lone Star Christmas’ by the Johnstone Clan.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Dec.10, 2013, under Books
A Lone Star Christmas by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Am I ever surprised that i found a book worse than the last Johnstone book I read a couple weeks ago. This is the 4th out of the last six Johnstone books I’ve disliked, this one being the worse. This is one of the worse I’ve read in a decade. I better check reviews and be sure to dip into a good one of the Johnstone clan or it’s going to be real difficult to continue with so many books I still have ahead of me in the various series.
This book is atrociously written. One thing that writers are taught is to cover the who, what, why and how in a story. However, don’t actually use the words. This book is full of the ‘w’s and ‘how’s. Throughout the book the rhythm changes constantly. The ending is completely ridiculous as suddenly out of the 15 or so Johnstone books I’ve read, a supernatural silliness occurs. Then their are all sorts of historical issues involved.
This book raises questions for me such as how many writers were involved with the project? The book’s writing style swings from heavy romantic to violent gunfights. Neither of those two written the same way. There are many scenes that have other styles. The supernatural scene suddenly finds no one asking “who”, “what, “why”, etc, when then it just might fit. The dialogue of Smoke Jensen also changes throughout the book depending on scenes. Apparently this was a collaborative effort gone real wrong.
Was there a continuity check? The usual setting descriptions are nearly gone. The only character who seemed to stay the same as in other books is Sally Jensen.
The book appears to have been planned with an ending in mind that, based on the 15 books I’ve read, is a real easy , simplistic plot device, that has to have the reader wonder if there are other astral entities floating about in the series not yet revealed. Is Smoke so fast because he’s really an alien from another planet? Will that be a plot in a future Johnstone entry? When a series suddenly breaks out into fantasy, readers have to wonder what the heck is going on.
The underlying Christmas theme is spotty and otherwise dreck.
Something that may not be helping is that just before this book i was reading one of Nancy Atherton’s Dimitry series books that is beautifully written. Coming to this is a major let down.
I almost took a further step down. This morning I thought i would start Rite Mae Brown’s ‘Santa Clawed’. Got three pages in and realized that I was about to read something worse than ‘A Lone Star Christmas’ and, for the first time I can remember, put the book down. I’m pretty sure cats and dogs are not thinking such trite, shallow human thoughts as applied by Brown. Yuck!
I feel pretty cheated by ‘A Lone Star Christmas’. However, I’ve had fun in this past year tracking down the Johnstone series and don’t want to give up on it. The next book I read will be selected carefully and I sure hope for far better results.
Bottom line: Don’t read this book.
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