Rating: 
Summary: A worthy prequel to the classic Lonesome Dove
Review: "Comanche Moon" is described as the final volume of the "Lonesome Dove" saga although chronologically it is the second of the four novels, taking place between "Dead Man's Walk" and "Lonesome Dove". Readers of the other volumes in series will encounter familiar names here: Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae, of course, but also Jake Spoon and Pea Eye Parker and Deets of "Dove", Long Bill Coleman and Buffalo Hump of "Walk", Famous Shoes and Charlie Goodnight of "Streets of Laredo" and others. As has become increasingly evident in his novels, McMurtry is not concerned with presenting a story of the West correct in all the minor historical details. For example, in "Comanche Moon" we find one character armed with a Winchester rifle 10 years before that weapon's introduction. Instead, his aim appears to be to create a story of about four parts gritty realism and one part romantic myth - and in "Comanche Moon" he achieves success. The novel abounds with characters more extravagant, larger-than-life personalities, yet these people are true to the story McMurtry is telling. Captain Inish Scull of the Texas Rangers and his wife, Inez, and the "Black Vaquero" Ahumado are unlikely to have had close real-life models, but in "Comanche Moon" they are forceful, fascinating figures. As is usual, McMurtry's characters are driven by their own obsessions. If I might sum up the theme of this novel, and much else of McMurtry's fiction, I would say that it would be "times change, people don't" - and not just "people" in the larger sense, but people as individuals, holding true to their own particular, narrow view of how they should live their lives. Characters like Woodrow Call and Inish Scull and Buffalo Hump are admirable because of their great integrity, no matter what destruction they seed while pursuing their individual visions of what is right. In "Comanche Moon", McMurtry's Indian characters - the Comanche Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf and the Kickapoo Famous Shoes - are perhaps more finely drawn than in any of the other Lonesome Dove books. They are not merely white men wearing paint and feathers. They live and die by their own logic, as alien as that system of belief may seem to a late Twentieth Century reader. Although any judgment must be subjective, I would rate "Comanche Moon" as at least the equal of "Streets of Laredo" and better than "Dead Man's Walk", although not so high as the magnificent "Lonesome Dove". I know that part of my enjoyment of the novel is my familiarity with several of the major characters, and my advice to any reader new to the "Lonesome Dove" saga would be to read the books in their order of publication rather than their chronological order of internal dates.
Rating: 
Summary: Fades in comparison...
Review: I LOVE Lonesome Dove. I own the movie and watch it every couple of years and bawl like a baby every time. That always spawns a big reading spree of the whole series. I started with Dead Man's Walk figuring I'd read my way from start to finish in chronological order. I finished it and immediately devoured Comanche Moon, then dashed to Half Price Books for Lonesome Dove. Not even ten pages into Lonesome Dove it was glaringly obvious that either Mr. McMurtry didn't write the others, as I had always heard, or if he did it was under a quick deadline or extreme duress. The writing style is completely different, the wit is missing, the details first revealed in Lonesome Dove don't match (1.Maggie lived and died in Lonesome Dove, not Austin; 2.Gus was significantly older than Clara. He was married to his second wife when he met her; 3. He was married to wife #1 for 2 years, wife #2 for seven. They didn't both die within months of marriage as told in Comanche Moon. I could go ON and ON) and the historical FACTS are askew. Buffalo Hump was leading his people to a reservation in 1856 - not on a raid to the ocean. The raid was in 1840. And the hump on his back? I haven't found a reference to it yet in Texas History books. Oh, Comanche Moon is a decent read if you can ignore the facts and don't miss the lack of trademark McMurtry humor, but I'll stick with Lonesome Dove and skip the first two next time.
Rating: 
Summary: Meandering plot
Review: Larry McMurtry is one of the best known American novelists alive, mostly on the strength of Lonsome Dove and Terms of Endearment. Lonesome Dove especially was well-recieved and made into a very good miniseries, back when they made good ones. Since, McMurtry has written a sequel to Lonesome Dove, and two prequels, of which this is the second. It attempts to follow the characters through the period ca. about 1850 up through the late 1860's. There isn't a coherent plot, instead the characters roam around for 750 pages, with much dialog and amusement, the occasional gunfight, and some gruesome torture.There are some characters who haven't been seen before, or who weren't in Lonesome Dove, anyway, and they provide some amusement. One, Inish Scull, is Gus and Call's captain in the rangers at the start of the book. He's a weird, strange character, and frankly should have been dropped two thirds of the way through the book when he returns to New England, or alternatively reintroduced to the plot somehow. His wife is even more outrageous than he is, and somehow is so annoying you're almost hoping the Indians get her and inflict some of McMurtry's patented unpleasantness upon her. That being said, there's not much of a plot here, and there are conflicts with other books (notably Lonesome Dove itself). There's also the issue of history, and historical detail. It's as if McMurtry doesn't care, or doesn't know, and his publisher is uninterested too. So one character sings a song before it was written, another has a gun that hasn't been invented yet. The Civil War is almost an afterthought to the story. Frankly, Gus and Call would have been a lot more interesting if they'd gone east to fight in the war (many Texas Rangers did) and wound up at Pea Ridge or something. *That* would have been interesting. Instead, they act like the war didn't happen, almost, and no one else pays it much attention either. The one Northern-born ranger stays with his troop and rangers on, without much mention of his dilemma. I've enjoyed many of McMurtry's books, and I enjoyed the characters here, but the plot was very thin. I can only recommend this book to those who already know they enjoy McMurtry, and are aware of what they're getting into.
Rating:
Summary: A Book of Good Character, But Little Action
Review: Many reviewers in this section have already echoed my dominant feelings about this book...disappointment. I picked up this book with more anticipation than I did with either Streets of Laredo or Dead Man's Walk. I thought that, since it was the direct prequel to Lonesome Dove, we'd find the same perfect combination of characters, action, drama and unpredictability that we did in the sequel. I was only partially right. McMurtry is a master at drawing and developing characters. Although he was tired of Gus and Woodrow by this point, he still held true to their characters. He also gave us some very dramatic moments in character interaction. The scenes between Call and Maggie are powerful and heart breaking in their subtlety, more so than the scenes between Gus and Clara. A particularly beautiful scene takes place between Deets and Pea Eye, when Pea tries to tell Deets that he can call him by his first name. This is McMurtry drama at its best. We can also see more deeply into the character of Jake Spoon and find more sympathy for him when we read again of his fate years later. Still, if McMurtry does justice to his main characters, he does even more justice to the Indians of the story. Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Famous Shoes are all vivid characters than earn our respect, even if we fear them. We even learn more of Blue Duck, although I always felt he was most effective as the terrifying, shadowy figure that plagued Gus and Call in Lonesome Dove. Not all of the characters are worthy. Inish and Inez Scull are shallow and add little to the book. Unfortunately, the unpredictable nature of McMurtry's writing takes a negative turn in this book. There is no action where there should be and much of the drama in this book is anticlimactic. We aren't given one good blood-and-guts battle between the Rangers and the Indians. Some might mark this as realism, but I don't look for stark realism when I read fiction. Lonesome Dove was brilliant because it gave us all of the things that make an epic story, including good action scenes. Gus and Call are at the height of their Indian-fighting powers in Comanche Moon and the reader would expect at least one good clash between opposing forces. Sadly, we find none of this in the story. Ultimately, Comanche Moon is worth reading for those who are big fans of the characters, but it's a drag in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Comanche Moon
Review: This is a middle book in the Lonesome Dove series; it's the one that comes before Lonesome Dove proper. Pleasantly, McMurtry doesn't subject any of his main characters to horrible deaths this time around. On the other hand, if you've read the other books you know what's coming, so the comforting effect of that is relative. Native Americans get a slightly better portrayal here than in some of the other volumes. There are still psycho killers, including one really frightening bandit, but there are also brave and genuinely human characters. Overall it's a gritty version of the period just before the Civil War, with gripping scenes of torture and survival. As usual, there are strong female characters, but they generally come to bad ends, just as the men do. I'd recommend this for readers of the series. I'm not sure how well it stands alone.
Rating:
Summary: COMPLETES THE LONESOME DOVE SAGA
Review: Comanche Moon is the seemingly lost fourth volume of the Lonesome Dove series. I actually encountered it on a used book sale rack at my local library. I picked it up and was stunned to discover that it was an additional installment to the series by Larry McMurtry. I had bought and read the other three and enthusiastically read this one. Comanche Moon is actually the second book in the series and takes up where Dead Man's Walk leaves off. Comanche Moon is essential in that it provides much-needed connective tissue between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove. It brings Gus and Call back home after their failure in taking Santa Fe. It also paints much clearer portraits of important characters like Maggie, Newt's mother, and Clara Harris, the love of Augustus McCrae's life. Especially important are the answers to questions that Comanche Moon provides about Blue Duck. But I'll leave you to the book to discover those for yourself. No less than Lonesome Dove, Dead Man's Walk and Streets of Laredo, Comanche Moon is an incredible story in true Larry McMurtry style and, as already noted, is essential to the complete Lonesome Dove saga.
Rating:
Summary: Once again, McMurtry diverts, distorts and delights.
Review: How can one man write four books about the same characters with no concern for continuity? I don't know, but I am equally clueless as to how he can dispense with continuity, alter events, change characters' histories and personalities and still make me love the work. As he did in Streets of Laraedo and Dead Man's Walk, McMurty changes certain elements of his well established characters' pasts. The changes are most glaring in this book, the immeadiate precursor to his magnificent Lonesome Dove. However, as poorly as his four Gus and Call books fit together, they stand alone very well. In Comanche Moon, McMurtry leads us from Gus and Call in their late twenties to their mid fourties. It appears to end roughly 5 or so years prior to Lonesome Dove. Many will be surprised and delighted to find that the relationship between Call and Maggie, mother of Call's son Newt, is well defined and much more significant than was alluded to in Dove. Another detail that completely reverses itself from Dove is that of the life of Jake Spoon. Far from a romantic rival with Gus for the heart of Clara Allen, Jake is a dippy young moron, afraid of any action, desperate to end his days as a Ranger alive. But much of the action here centers on a new character, Capt. Skull, the rangering Ranger captain who gives Gus and Call their first command by abandoning them and the Ranger troop in order to learn how to track by walking off with Famous Shoes. Skull is a classic McMurtry eccentric, and the only person whom really provides any suspense, as only the future of his life is unknown to us. Skull is witty and full of vim and vinegar. His battles, both mental and physical, are among the most engaging portions of the story. And the most revolting. Certainly, the way McMurty takes liberties with characters that many love is often maddening, but when seperated from the other books, Comanche Moon stands on its own well. It is another gripping and unflinching look at an unromanticized American West, and it continues the! excellent development of the Indian characters McMurtry began in Dead Man's Walk. Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Blue Duck are fleshed out in a manner that is not often seen with Indians in most Western novels. Far from ciphers, they are realistic characters that cause you to see that Ranger-Indian fights are not as simple as Good vs. Evil. They are, rather, Man vs. Man, and Culture vs. Culture, and they are all the more heartbreaking because of it. I don't know if McMurtry is getting lazy. I don't know if he simply doesn't give a damn about whether or not readers care. In the end, it really doesn't matter as he still can deliver page turners with the best of them. And by the the time you finish Comanche Moon, you realize that the changes in Gus and Call's history, changes that can make rereading Lonesome Dove jarring, are for the best. This is how he should have set up their pasts in Dove. It a richer, more poignant past for Gus and Call than what was alluded to in that Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Finally, the audio presentation is top notch. Of course, how could it not be with the peerless Frank Muller as narrator?
Rating:
Summary: This book is a must read!
Review: This book needs to be made into a T.V. mini-series like the rest of the books. If you like Capt. Call and Gus this book is a must read. This book fills in the blanks. Get it. You will like it.
Rating:
Summary: Another fine prequel to Lonesome Dove
Review: If you are thinking of reading the much-praised book Lonesome Dove, you would do well to read the two prequels first (see my review of Dead Man's Walk), followed by the sequel Streets of Laredo. Comanche Moon is the most violent book in the series, but only because McMurtry isn't holding back. He tells it like it is, the glory and the horror, with realism and humor. As some reviewers have pointed out, McMurtry has not been totally consistent with his characters in the four books in the series, and he has not remained absolutely historically accurate. So what? This is historical fiction. Just think about all the books about the American West, even history books, that claim to be historically accurate, but don't really get anywhere near the truth! The inconsistencies in McMurtry's Lonesome Dove series are not glaring or important. Most readers would probably not even notice them. These are adventure stories in the best sense, dishing out plenty of realism. Comanche Moon features a nail-biting psychological adventure story. If you want to get some feeling for what it was like in this time and place, check all of your dry pseudo-facts at the door and dive into this series.
Rating:
Summary: Could not read it fast enough
Review: I saved this one until I went to the Grand Canyon, figuring to read about hard country in a hard country portion of the USA. It was a perfect setting for a magnificent read. Call & McCrea, their adversaries and allies come to life in technicolor. Spent one day hiking the Canyon's South Rim, stopping to rest and read and what a way to enjoy this great portrayer of the American West. Don't think it would have mattered where I read it as it was quite a treat. Being in the Grand Canyon was just a bonus. I have yet to be disappointed in a McMurtry novel and these characters are full of life, color and verve.
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