The Last Ride

A collection of 7 western stories by Howard, it wasn't my favorite. While I love his humorous westerns, these were serious & most were badly flawed. His description was about the only thing that saved them. Too much coincidence & lazy plotting coupled with threads that were just too big for the size of the story kept frustrating me. Several of the stories featured bandits with a hole-in-the-wall hideout & having them all piled together didn't do much for me.

I'd give each of the stories 2 stars, but as a look into Howard's westerns & for a couple of interesting pieces of information, I'll add another. This is part of a hunt for me. I've cataloged all my REH stories & books in a spreadsheet, based on a list from HowardWorks.com, which show more lists about 600 unique stories. In print or electronic format, I have 244 of them, don't want about 60, so have 332 left to locate - maybe, eventually.

"The Last Ride" - the title story was pretty typical, although the longest of all the stories. The action is pretty good.

"The Extermination of Yellow Donory" - is probably the best & most interesting story of the bunch. 'Yellow' means coward. What happens when a man faces his cowardice? Although the story ran a bit longer in some ways than I would have liked & the ending was over done, it was fun.

"Knife, Bullet and Noose" - a fun, Sonora Kid (Steve Allison) story with a bit of a twist. Overdone in some places, underdone in others, it was definitely worth the time to read it.

"The Devil's Joker" - the shortest story in the book & another with the Sonora Kid in the thick of things.

"Vulture's Sanctuary" - yet another hole-in-the-wall gang that our hero has to penetrate to save the girl. The ending was mildly surprising, if not particularly believable.

"Law-Shooters of Cowtown" features Grizzly Elkins. Unlike the Breckridge Elkins stories, the Grizzly stories are serious, but just barely. I could see the basis for Breckinridge in them. Grizzly is a huge buffalo hunter who uses a big Bowie knife or a Sharps, single shot .50 caliber rifle. This might have been the first I read & it was interesting, if very short.

"Gunman's Debt" - has John Kirby, a one-time character (I believe) as the hero, but Grizzly Elkins plays a strong part. This is quite possibly the worst one for having dying people making long speeches to set the record straight. It certainly could have been done better, but was still kind of fun. show less

http://www.fireandsword.com/Reviews/lastride.html

If you asked who Robert E. Howard loved most intensely and with the fiercest passion (aside from his mother and father) the answer might be Texas. Which is why I am at a bit of a loss with this collection.