Rating: 
Summary: Last of the Breed-Best Louis Lamour
Review: I am a great fan of Louis Lamour, and this is one of the best. I would love to see it made into a movie. It ended like there might be a follow on, of course, that can't be since Louie is gone. GREAT BOOK!!
Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favourite books
Review: Louis L'Amour has never been one of my favourite authors because most of his books are Westerns but "Last of the Breed" is an exception to my rule simply because it isn't a Western. This is a brilliant novel that is both suspenseful and creative and it is a real shame that a sequel was never done.Set during the hostilities between the Soviet Union and the USA Joseph "Joe Mack" Makatozi is a man trapped in enemy territory. He is a downed test Pilot who has been captured by the Russians and is seemingly at their mercy in the inhospitable landscape called Siberia; the only inhabited cold Hell in existence. However Joe Mack isn't your ordinary test pilot. He is part Sioux and in his blood is the will to survive a savage land that was once home to his ancestors. He escapes his prison with the goal of crossing Siberia and making his way across the Bering Straits and into America, something that has not been done by modern man. Joe Mack finds himself slowly merging with the wilderness, forced to rely on his ancestral abilities to survive the killing cold and elude the constant danger of his determined Soviet pursuers, including a man who is to become his nemesis, a Siberian Native Yakut tracker called Alekhin who knows that in order to trap his quarry he must think and act like a Sioux. As we follow Joe Mack across the deadly landscape we become aware that he is changing, he is becoming what his ancestors once were thousands of years ago, trackers, hunters, killers, but ultimately survivors. It is a slow transformation, and along the way we watch him struggle to hold onto his humanity, finding love in the guise of a woman who helps him and a fragile but brief friendship with a crippled furrier but all the time he is in the cruel wilderness Joe Mack is changing into something that can never revert back to what it once was. He hungers for revenge against Alekhin and the jovial but brutal Soviet Commander who imprisoned him and the book ends on an eerie haunting note when the Soviet Commander receives the scalp of Alekhin and a gentle warning from the wilderness that he will be next... This is a truly magnificent book about a man's ability to transcend his environment and upbringing and descend into savagery in order to survive. Once you start reading this book you won't be able to put it down, this is no run of the mill pot boiler about the noble savage. There nothing remotely noble about Joe Mack, but you find yourself admiring him for his ability to survive against all the odds.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring....but funny (in a boring kind of way)
Review: I read most of this wet towel while in a tent, snowbound, while climbing Denali. Even under those circumstances, where your shirt labels make interesting reading, this book sucked. My partner and I took to making fun of it, it was so bad. I'd not read anything by L'amour before, and if this is indicative of his writing talent, I'm glad of it. I think you'd have to have about a 8th grade education to actually think this book is good. Not to insult 8th graders, but most adults have moved beyond crap like this (romance novel readers notwithstanding).
| 
