Fri 20 Aug 2010
Western Review: LUKE SHORT – First Claim.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction[8] Comments
LUKE SHORT – First Claim. Bantam A2057, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1960. Reprinted several times.
I was disappointed with this one. Short is one of my favorite western authors, but this slender book (only 152 pages) can be read very quickly – not so much because it’s short, but because there’s but a single straight line that can be drawn from the beginning of the story to the end.
When Giff Ballew returns to his home town of Harmony to claim his father’s land that had been confiscated during the Civil War, he finds that it had been taken over by a family of rich ranchers who also own the local lawyer and sheriff, and who aren’t about to give it up now without a fight.
Only the local newspaper editor and publisher is willing to lend him a sympathetic ear, and that doesn’t include the young, good-looking widow who works for him. Her father owes the Weybrights money, and she doesn’t want any trouble aroused by Giff to tumble back on him.
Giff, of course, is stubborn, if not bull-headed, but he’s also in the right. Many of the folks he meets along his way are against him, but he comes also across a growing number who are for him and have not been able to speak up against the Weybrights until now.
The characters are interesting, and they find themselves in very human situations. But for the most part, anyone who’s read a lot of westerns has read this all before. What’s there is tasty enough, but there’s not enough meat in this particular entree to keep you satisfied till breakfast.
August 20th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
I don’t think I’ve read this one, but I wonder it if might have been originally a novella (or even short) for the slicks under another name expanded into a novel for paperback publication?
Ironically, at first glance I thought it was FIRST CAMPAIGN, a very good western political novel by Short.
Still, even minor Short is worth a read, though that plot sounds a good deal like half the western movies and novels ever made.
August 20th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
It seems like a rare misfire. I’ve enjoyed every Luke Short novel I have ever read.
August 20th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I’m also probably holding Short to a higher standard than a lot of other western writers.
There’s no indication of a prior publication, but of course that doesn’t mean a whole lot.
For a long list of Luke Short novels, you might want to take a look at this webpage:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/luke-short/
It looks like 1960 was a busy year for Short. Four books from him in that one year alone.
— Steve
August 20th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Writers so cannibalize their own work that at times it’s hard to tell if anything is wholly new. This could have been completely original of course, but considering the year and the relative length I would be surprised if it hadn’t been adapted from some earlier work but with too many changes to be listed as a prior publication, the same way Chandler and Ross Macdonald used some of their shorter works as the basis for their novels.
I’m not saying he did, just that I wouldn’t be surprised.
August 21st, 2010 at 4:10 pm
I can’t shed any light on the origins of this one, but I have a UK printing I’ve read at least twice without disappointment. I do agree it has the shortcomings of familiarity in theme and situations, but the same can be said of 90% of genre fiction. Maybe it’s what the readers (and publishers) were/are looking for.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:08 am
I’ve not read this one but I too think Short is great – he writes traditional westerns with great flair. I’ve got a few Short’s in my TBR pile and may try one very soon.
September 3rd, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I don’t seem to have time to read westerns as often as I used to, but even though I was disappointed with this one, Luke Short’s still on my “A list.”
I’ll try to read one of his earlier ones soon, and will report back when I do.
— Steve
September 12th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
[…] review not too long ago of First Claim (1960), also by Luke Short (and which you can find here) was not exactly negative, but neither was it positive, either. What I did say was that I was […]