Rating: 
Summary: Must be a guy thing
Review: I can appreciate the fact that I probably didn't like this book because it was written for guys - the ones who like war and guns and righteous vengeance. I think I could have enjoyed the story and overlooked the total mess made of the second half of the book if the dialog hadn't been so jarringly archaic and stilted. An example: "You have killed me dead, sir." "I have, sir, for the evil you have done." Okay, I did get some good laughs from that, so two stars for the funny dialog. As for the rest....I guess I'll never get it.
Rating: 
Summary: The best revenge is revenge
Review: Pale Horse Coming may not be great literature but it's great to read. Sometimes a solid predictable book is just what I need for summer reading. Lots of action, heroic characters and evildoers who get what they deserve. There were some loose ends, not so believable gunfighters, and out-of-character behaviors but I didn't mind much. I would forgive deeper and more numerous flaws from Hunter in gratitude for this page-turner. Long live Sam & Earl!
Rating:
Summary: OK Corral relocated to Mississippi
Review: PALE HORSE COMING is inspired by the New Testament verse: "Behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." Author Stephen Hunter must have thought the passage way cool because he milks it for all it's worth. Earl Swagger, the novel's hero, is a sergeant in the Arkansas state police and a Marine veteran of the Pacific war against the Japanese. It's now 1961, and Earl takes time off from his day job to investigate the disappearance of a lawyer pal who's traveled on legal business to the Thebes State Penal Farm (Colored), a Mississippi prison for Negroes cut-off from the rest of the world in the swamps of the state's southeast corner. What Swagger discovers is a hell-hole of officially sanctioned viciousness that makes Stalin's gulags seem tame by comparison. As a meddling outsider, Earl is detained there himself and almost loses his life and sanity. After finally escaping, he returns to exact righteous vengeance. The first half of PALE HORSE COMING is perhaps its best. It's the survival story of Earl amidst the horrors of Thebes, not the least of which is the psychopathic overseer, the albino Bigboy, who enjoys torturing prisoners to death with a bullwhip. To enhance the dramatic effect of Swagger's fight for his life, the Thebes facility is perhaps overembellished. Wrought in iron over its main gate are the words, "Work Will Set You Free." Haven't we seen that before, as in "Arbeit Macht Frei", associated with other camps of infamy? Somehow, I don't think Mississippi deserves such a bad PR rap - even in fiction. The book's second half strains credulity. The author apparently has a love of the Old West as he has Earl returning to Thebes with a posse of retired gunslingers - one of whom is in his eighties - to expunge the place from the map. Swagger includes in his trigger-happy band a character named Audie Ryan, America's most decorated WWII soldier and now a movie star, who's obviously modeled on the real-life Audie Murphy. Oh, puhleeze! And it doesn't help that the U.S. government is involved with Thebes in the obligatory Sinister Secret Project - your tax dollars at work. Had I thought that Hunter wrote the ending tongue-in-cheek as a parody, I might have been more forgiving. However, I suspect he was serious, and the result is too clever by half. As it is, I'm awarding four stars because it remains a gripping and entertaining read. And that's why I spend good money for a cheap thriller, right? In the film PALE RIDER, which reworks the earlier SHANE with a stronger "Death rides a pale horse" theme, Clint Eastwood's Man-With-No-Name character wipes out the Bad Guys all by himself. For me, the Lone Hero has always held more appeal.
Rating: 
Summary: Bullets aplenty in this violent story of vengeance
Review: This was so-so, though I imagine in its genre it is quite top-class. I'm not a fan of the gun-slinging storyline, and as such it might have been more impactful for someone else.
Basically, the story is this: a lawyer researching the death of an individual finds a Thebes State Penal Farm (Colored) in the MIssissipi of '51. It is a horrendous place, and his marine friend has to rescue him from certain death there - and is himself captured.
This marine, Earl Swagger (can't you picture that name?), suffers, escapes, and comes back armed as part of a seven-man group of gun-slinging revenge. It's gorey, it's mean, it's full of 50's racist slang, and it's a difficult read if you abhor violence.
Still, there were characters very richly described, and I must admit, I was happy when some of the key evil folk got splattered.
'Nathan
Rating: 
Summary: Very Intense
Review: This story is admittedly a bit farfetched, but it really was fun to read. Powerful Earl Swagger gets caught in the absolutely evil Thebes State Prison in 1950s Mississippi, where Nazi-like cruelty reigns free. The violence there could be a bit much for some readers. Earl gets a shot at revenge however, and an old fashioned good vs. evil battle gets very entertaining. Many people have had thoughts about what they'd like to do to truly evil folks they hear about on the news, and this story let's that fantasy loose. If you like "shoot-em-ups," this is a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Good book!
Review: This was a very good read, not as good as a Time to Hunt, but good. I enjoyed the book and the story that Bob Swagger goes through.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not the Best Hunter Novel
Review: I have read all or nearly all of Stephen Hunter's novels. This one cannot compare to A Time to Hunt, the gold standard by which I measure all others, but it is worth the effort. The first part of the book focuses on Sam Vincent and then Earl Swagger takes over with fists and guns at the request of his good friend and former prosecutor Sam. Tension filled prison scenes and seemingly unpunished injustice make for a page turner here. Children of the 50s and 60s who read the gun magazines of that era will get a real kick out of the cast of characters Swagger assembles to storm the all black prison with all white guards and have you chuckling with their interaction.
Rating:
Summary: Earl Swagger as celebrity therapist.
Review: Stephen Hunter is the king of a niche that no one knew existed until he came along. Hunter, the film critic for the Washington Post, knows more about rifles and ammunition than any man on earth, and will go on for page after page of muzzle velocities, sighting ribs, minute-of-angles, gun barrel alloys, and neck turned rounds until you admit it. His heroes, the Swagger clan of Arkansas, routinely take apart entire squads of bad guys. Earl is deadly with fists or guns but doesn't need the guns unless he's taking on a dozen or more, while son--and master sniper--Bob Lee Swagger relies on his trusty and ever-present sniper rifle. There is always the sense in Hunter's work that the narrative is barely tethered to reality, but, as in his last novel, Hot Springs, his writing skills and his inclusion of historic figures and factual accuracy manage to hold the line and keep the reader turning the pages. PALE HORSE COMING, however, slips its moorings, lifts off like a weather balloon over Roswell, and drifts right off into space. Set in the 50s, this is Big Earl's show. Somewhere deep in the swamps of the Mississippi bayou (what would the world do without Mississippi when we need some really bad white guys) is Thebes State Prison, filled with the worst bunch of killers, spree killers, and serial killers known to man. The problem is that the guys running the prison are even worse. The way Earl knows they are worse, see, is that they are mean to the killers, plus, when Earl breaks into the prison, they are mean to him. I know, I know, it is a little odd to break into prison, but take it up with Earl. Anyway, Earl's job-you know he will accept it or there wouldn't be a book-is to see that justice is done by killing all the prison officers and freeing the criminals. Of course, that means the killers will be set free on the citizens of Mississippi, but that doesn't bother Earl, because his family lives in Arkansas. So what Earl does is recruit some guys who no one ever heard of, but who are famous in the world of gun magazines (the fact that some of them are almost a hundred years old doesn't make any difference to Earl), plus Audie Murphy (don't ask me, the only reason I can figure is that Audie is dead so you can say anything you want about him and not get sued). Since Audie is a rich, famous, movie star living in a big mansion with beautiful women surrounding him, you might think he would not be interested in risking his life in a swamp to help some guy from Arkansas he has never heard of kill a bunch of state employees. You are not Earl, though. By now, Earl is no longer just a guy who can beat up anyone in a fight or kill whole platoons of armed men, he has become wiser than Dr Laura and Dr Phil put together. He just looks at Audie and says, "you're not happy are you?" Audie is so shocked that someone has finally been smart enough to see just how bad he has it, being a movie star and all, that he immediately throws it all over to go kill people with Earl. Well, a bunch of stuff happens and events finally become so confused that Earl tells everyone how Billy the Kid took part in the Johnson County War, an event that occurred 30 years after Billy was shot dead by Pat Garrett, and in Wyoming, which has to be at least 1,000 miles from New Mexico. "This is all just one big misunderstanding," Earl says at one point. My thoughts exactly.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Sequel to Hot Springs
Review: I really liked this book. Continuing the successful Stephen Hunter series about a father and son, both Marines, that have no choice in life but to be heroes.
This will likely be the last book for this character, Earl Swagger, a man who narrowly survived Iwo Jima; receiving the Medal of Honor for his efforts.
The story begins as a close friend of Earl's investigates the disappearance of a black man in the extreme rural Mississippi. Former Prosecutor Sam Vincent takes on the cause of a wealthy Chicago lawyer to find the former servant of his recently deceased client. Sam travels to the town of Thebes Mississippi, whose only source of revenue is the Thebes State Penitentiary for the Colored; home to only the most violent black criminals.
Incarcerated by the locals who are extremely unfriendly to outsiders, Sam waits helpless for his Ex-Marine protégé to break him out.
The story is filled with quite a bit of action and has the many twists and turns expected in Stephen Hunter epic. As always, the book may be of extreme interest to gun owners, specifically revolvers in this particular novel.
Earl Swagger appears to be much more human in this book than in Hot Springs, but I believe that to a great extent this character is the embodiment of the many men who came home from WWII having seen so much destruction that it lived with them to the end of their days.
Rating:
Summary: Good story, but a bit contrived
Review: I like Stephen Hunter's work and have read most of his novels. "Pale Horse Coming" continues the saga of Earl Swagger as he takes on yet another evil conspiracy. I liked this novel until the last section which seemed to be contrived and out of character. I won't reveal much since it could give away the ending, but I think this plot line spoiled an otherwise great story. The book does grab the reader, typical of Hunter's writing and you have to keep reading to find out what happens next. Early Swagger is a bigger than life hero, but an honorable and noble character. This is a good story, well worth reading, but be warned that it does have considerable graphic violence.
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