Rating: 
Summary: Intensely wonderful. Only a true Texan can appreciate fully!
Review: I love the book. I love the movie. I love it. Larry sucked me right in to the beautiful twisted brain of Woodrow Call. He's a real man. One of whom , it is obvious to me, is now extinct. In a time full of whinny little bastards, it is certainly very refreshing to at least dream of what it must be like to be in the company of such a confident driven man. Jonny Lee Miller did an exceptional job. I found myself wondering if he wasn't actually a closet Texan and not truly from ENGLAND?! What a talent. Larry you are a genious. The Lonesome Dove series is some of the best most accurately written stories I've ever read. I read some of the reviews above. How sad. What an ignorant fool who doesn't understand why this book is perfect! Larry, keep them coming!!! I will never tire of your wonderful tales. Brilliant!
Rating: 
Summary: Better than Streets of Laredo, nowhere near Lonesome Dove.
Review: Depressing at times, but in the end very uplifting. One of McMurtry's best, but I will always compare his books to the greatest book I've ever read, Lonesome Dove, and this prequel doesn't quite get there. You will find it hard to put this book down,though, and the ending is one of the most memorable endings imaginable.
Rating: 
Summary: Why does he use real-life characters ?
Review: Why doesn't the author use fictional characters only? In 1841, our heroes meet Charles Goodnight who was born in 1836 - making him 5 years old when the story takes place. The black man with him would be Bose Ikard who was not born until 1847 ! Lady Carey apparently had her portrait painted by Gainsborough - who died in 1788. She must be at least 60 years old - with a 10 year old son ? 'Bigfoot' Wallace actually survived the 'Black Beans' lottery and lived until 1899 ! If Mr McMurtry insists on using real people as characters he should at least do some research.
Rating: 
Summary: He should have quit while he was ahead
Review: After enjoying the eventful and emotional journey from Texas to Montana and back, who could imagine that the very same author would pen such a banal work. McMurtry deliberately selected a proper starting point for Lonsome Dove. Pushing the line back even further was a mistake. He created a torturous journey for Woodrow and Gus, and for this reader as well.
Rating:
Summary: Larry McMurtry meets Herman Hesse
Review: Larry McMurtry, true to form, mows down some of his most interesting characters with the most gruesome fates while keeping his central characters alive--often by sheer luck rather than by any skill or virtue of their own. He is far less attached to his characters than his readers (that would be you and I) do. His ill-fated Ranger expeditions teach Woodrow Call the value of planning and training, but Call and McRae both owe their survival ultimately to the drawing of a white bean in a high stakes lottery and the (rather miraculous) vocal skill of a leprous British widow. That lottery may be a summation of the author's view of life. Skill aids; circumstrance rules. Everyone loves Gus, but Call is the one who truly understands. Very entertaining--but a bit disapointing in its rather mystical final chapters. I don't mind the premise, but I would have liked the two rangers to have been less miraculously saved. I was also put off a little by Danny Deck's disappearance at the end of "All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers"--same type of thing here.
Rating:
Summary: Great Western Novel
Review: If you liked Lonesome Dove, you will like this book. Follow the adventures of Woodrow McCall and Augustus McCrae during their early years. The setting is Texas in the 1840's and the adventure encompasses an expedition to locate a route from Austin, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Full of colorful characters and villans such as the ruthless Comanche Buffalo Hump, the book will keep you enthralled.
Rating:
Summary: Hack work - plot manipulation
Review: Call and McRae are two of the toughest characters the West has known when they git all growed up in Lonesome Dove. I expected their early adventures to chronicle how the skills of these young Neo-Rangers were honed at the hand of some sage Indian fighter or famous scout. WRON, WRONG, WRONG! The only reason those two lived through this book is that it is a prequel to Lonesome Dove and they have to be alive for that. In Dead Man's Walk they start out green - they go from one life threatening screw-up to the next, only surviving by luck, plot manipulation and literary necessity. And, the end up green.
All that kept me turning the pages was the library due date and the hope that it might get better. I have not given up hope on Ole Larry Mac. This book leaves the lads several years and considerable experience short of the beginning of Lonesome Dove. I'm sure a couple of million dollars advance will produce part two of their early adventures
Rating: 
Summary: A rushed, contrived money-spinner.
Review: After the amazing Lonesome Dove and the rather good sequel, Streets of Laredo, McMurtry hits us with a book that simply doesn't make the grade. It reeks of his editor saying, "You have got to write another book this year, why don't you use those two rangers again?". The book starts quite well, with some gritty scenes but quickly goes downhill from there, ending with one of the most ridiculously contrived endings I have ever had the misfortune to read. Not even, McMurtry's often brilliant style can save this book. Symptoms of the book being rushed are everywhere (e.g. Saying that McCrae is Scottish when in Lonesome Dove they comment on Call's Scottish roots).
All in all, a total disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: Yes, neither this book nor "Streets of Laredo" were equal to "Lonesome Dove", but this book was a realistic portrayal of life in a hard and harsh era. The finale in the leper colony is a gem
Rating:
Summary: dud
Review: i bought this book as i was turning the last few pages of lonesome dove hungry for more stories of gus and mcrae. i was sorely disappointed, this was just plain awful. mcmurtry's writing style changed, so much that i'm convinced he didn't write it. maybe he came up with the story but this wasn't the pulitzer prize winning prose we enjoyed in _ld_. gus and mcrae were wimpy characters, rarely shaping their own world, trudging through a storyline of doom only to end in a scene that made me literally throw the book across the room. i wouldn't read this unless you are totally desperate for another ld novel, or want to say that you `read every ld book' published.
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