* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

Justice of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unlike the last few disasters of Mountain Man tails, ‘Justice of the Mountain Man’ is on a better track. The story is a very good one and tightly written. Again, there are needless flashbacks when the story could be fleshed out a bit more, not that it was needed. This is a great story, well written and worth reading….without flashbacks.

Entirely unlike the previous entry in the series, ‘Heart of the Mountain Man’, this is not like an excerpt from a previous novel. It has one of the more involved plots of the series to this point. Unlike most of the series, which usually involved Smoke stopping someone from “treeing” a town, this book seems to be going the easy route problems changes the trajectory of the story and the characters many times. It’s one of the few in the series where you won’t know how the story unfolds and ends within 20 pages.

Complaints again, as with the last few Mountain Man books are needless flashbacks, though the fewest of the last books, the title and the cover. The characters are many and well done, though are very similar to many other characters written in the ersies. The settings are lacking again, but better than other recent books.

Bottom line: I recommend this book: 6 out of 10 points.

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Heart of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

The book that preceded this one, ‘Guns of the Mountain Man, was just terrible. A bulk of the book were pages and pages of previous books framed as a flashback. Here the formula continues to a lesser extent.

I don’t know what was happening in the Johnstone Clan stable at the time of the publication of this book. Was Johnstone fighting illness now and unfinished books were filled with other content to beef them up? Was Johnstone thinking such reflection necessary? But why at 25 books into the series such a dramatic change of course? There had been reflection in past books occasionally, but not at the rate of ‘Guns’ and then this one, ‘Heart of the Mountain Man’.

Instead of Smoke’s wife being kidnapped, this time it’s the sheriff’s with not unexpected results ensuing. One plus is references to various characters that populate the town and area usually not mentioned much after their initial appearance. The writing is fine. The characters always good. The settings lacking.

The title stinks and cover art useless. I get the tradition of the one word followed by ‘of the Mountain Man’, but I’m dumbfounded why better words are hardly ever used at this point. That and just any ol’ tin type form hundred plus years ago is tacked on the cover. I know this changes later, but, unfortunately not much for the better.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of 10 points.

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* Just to note: Due to illness and a hafty workload, I’ve fallen behind my goal of 100 books in 2018. So, I’m reading through a series of Mountain Man books to catch up.*

Guns of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I don’t know what was happening within the Johnstone Clan stables in the late ’90s, when this book was published. Perhaps they were grappling with the few series of books they were chugging out at the time or this is when William Johnstone began getting ill, ultimately leading to his death in 2003. Whatever was occurring, this book should never have seen the light of day. As with Mountain Man books just previous to this one, the book stinks.

The worse of this book is re-re-re-re-revisiting the story of Smoke stopping the “tree”ing of a town. As the Johnstone Clan has proven later in the 2000s, as the Johnstone seemingly-nearly-endless series began, there are a ton of other stories to create beyond the treeing of a town. Again, i believe something was going wrong at the time with the Johnstones and these books were pumped out to fulfill contracts.

Next worse, is the horrible & lazy act of filling about 3/7ths of the book with content of other books. As a writer myself, I know it would be easier to write in fluffy filler, than researching sections of older books and cut and paste into the newer. I believe this gets back to problems in the Johnstone stable where multiple people were assembling these books and adding earlier sections of books to fluff out a short story written by someone else, all the while fighting deadlines for their contracts. I’d hate to think the filler was intentional. Filler cheats the reader and is wrong.

Next is the story. No surprises. Nothing new. In fact, an old location is used and a shorter version of the original story with the location is presented. More cheating the reader.

Characters are very good, as, I believe, is the hallmark of the Johnstone Clan series. A huge boo-boo is made involving one main character who’s dialogue is written one way in the actually story, but written differently in section cut in from another book.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.

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The Jensen Brand by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As has mostly been consistently the case, the first of the very many Johnstone Clan book series is very good. The books have more depth and better characters. This one is no exception.

The story is introducing even more character’s to the Smoke Jensen series. The characters have been mentioned in the series over the multi-dozens of Smoke books, but never fleshed out beyond mere mentions. The two of focus here are still not as fleshed out as others have been in the past. The writer expects the reader to accept the shallow staging.

Oddly, it’s the bad guy who is extremely well written. This is one of the first Johnstone books since the early part of the Smoke series that the bad guy really comes across as threatening beyond a list all of the bad things the bad guy had done. The technique the writer used to enhance the threat I usually see by the most skilled writers. I wonder why such techniques weren’t used to the two characters introduced.

The story is standard for the Johnstone Clan, but a nice diversion of the nearly identical stories that have been repeated ad nauseum in the Smoke series. It’s a linear story with no surprises and a mostly expected ending.

For Johnstone Clan followers of the Smoke Jensen series this is a milestone of introducing the weird disappearance of the Jensen children. The explanations given to their being gone is ridiculous. Especially as other children are brought in by the Jensens over the 3 decades of the ‘Last Mountain Man’ series.

Bottom line: i recommend this book: 6 out of 10 points.

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A few hundred miles later I am back home after performing for an event for a client that has used me for almost 30 years! Had me reflecting on the past 3 decades. Golly, a lot has happened since they first hired me!!! I hope you all take time and reflect on what has happened and what can occur in the next 30 years.

Did some hunkering down Friday night to draw like crazy finish the Swampy’s Florida comic I planned for Free Comic Book Day.

I’ve been inking mice!
This is a bit of the River Rats coloring storybook I’m working on.

Here’s the finished painting I had shown in progress earlier.
It’s of a family who own a restaurant, Dee Dee’s Cafe, in Ocala, Florida.
The owner loves television programs about royalty and I then interspersed various other interests of the husband and sons.

The scan muted subtleties of the watercolor painting. The board is Crescent Board.

Being away from Facebook more than usual during April, I’ve missed much! One is cartoonist John Sanford’s newist challenge – APEril! Drawing our swinging simian pals during the entire month. Thanks to seeing cartoonist Stacy Curtis APEril post this last day, I got clued in and here’s my chimp!

I did this, per chance, last week as a warm up at Lollicup before working on the River Rats comic.