Josh C
To begin my review, I must first mention that I despise fiction writing. I enjoy learning and hearing about factual events, and I don’t want to spend hours of my time reading a novel where I have to imagine my own ending. Several years ago an old friend suggested that I read this book. “If you don’t read nothing else, you just gotta at least read this one book before you die”, he said. I gave him my word that if i were ever so bored that i was willing to read some work of fiction, his suggestion would be the one i chose. He passed away a few weeks ago, and I figured before I join him I should, at the very least, make good on my word. I assumed I would make it through a couple chapters before begging to join him, rather than submitting my eyes and brain to the torture of reading such nonsense. To my astonishment, I made it through the 1st two chapters without trying to gouge my eyeballs out with the nearest blunt object. As a matter of fact, from the moment the narrator spoke his first word, to the last line of the book, I could not get enough! I found myself trying steal time from everything in my life, to be able to listen to just a few more words. Louis L’Amour’s masterful use of words, to describe every single thing that mattered, not only made me feel as though I were in the tundra of Siberia, I found myself actually smelling the earth, and fresh air, and forrests of the distant land. His words wrapped my mind, so tightly, around a carachter and story that I felt as though I were part of the drama unfolding with each sentence. This book alone, forever changed my opinion of fictional writing, and if you don’t ever read nothing else, you gotta at least read this one book before you die.