As the Swagger novels have gone on the quality has declined. Which is a fairly common thing with all long running series. Be it novels, television, movies etc. "Pale Horse Coming" isn't one of Hunter's better novels, but there are aspects that I liked. As others have pointed out this is "Cool Hand Luke" meets the "Magnificent Seven" with a little bit of William Faulkner thrown in for good measure.The book is written in the style of the tough crime fiction of the 1950's. If you doubt it find yourself some old back issues of "True" and "Argosy" magazines and read the short stories. Hunter is very faithful in that respect and I suspect this is what turns off some folks. The old pulp fiction of the time was heavy on the testosterone and the refined tastes of many readers in 2013 don't like it. So you have been warned. The dialogue is a bit overblown as are some of the characters. There are times when the writing approaches the level of parody, but the subject matter is serious and treated as such - which keeps it from stepping off the edge. Hunter is a gun enthusiast. A lifelong gun enthusiast. The gunmen that Earl gathers for his return to Thebes are thinly disguised versions of Elmer Keith, Bill Jordan, Ed McGivern, Charles Askins, Jack O'Connor and Audie Murphy. For many readers the only name that will probably be recognizable is that of Audie Murphy. However for those who are firmly embedded in the American Gun Culture and particularly those who have an interest in the bygone days of American shooters (such as me) those other men are famous. Legendary would probably not be too strong of a word actually. I have no doubt that Stephen Hunter grew up reading the many books and articles that were written by those men and I have no doubt they influenced him. In "Pale Horse Coming" Hunter takes his boyhood heroes and has them join his creation in a grand, righteous adventure. Being a collector of classic firearms as well as a collector of the old gun periodicals I enjoyed this aspect of the novel. Actually I greatly enjoyed this part of the story. So there you go. A violent,fun,Gothic, macho noir, adventure/action novel with a little history thrown in. William Faulkner meets Mickey Spillane and Louis L'Amour at a luncheon sponsored by the National Rifle Association with an after dinner speech by the NAACP. It's isn't great literature, but it will keep you interested.
I'm on the fence a bit when it comes to Stephen Hunter. On the one hand, I enjoy his writing style and his characters. On the other, his books are never quite what I expect they'll be. From the description of this particular book (main character investigates notorious prison, gets capture, escapes and comes back with a private army to exact his vengeance), I thought the story would read much more like the end of First Blood with John Rambo destroying the town single-handedly. But that's not what you get.Yes, Earl Swagger is captured and put through hell by those who run that corrupt prison. And yes, he does escape...so far so good. He even assembles his army. But that's where I was a bit surprised. I expected young guys (maybe his ex-Marine buddies in a military invasion like they must have experienced during their time in WW2) and military tactics. Instead, what I got was really old guys who just wanted to go in and kill the bad guys because...well, they always wanted to kill people and here was finally their chance. One of the members of Earl's army is so infirm that he has to sit in a chair the whole time.What I wanted was a group of soldiers going in to wipe out the bad guys. What I got was a bunch of really old guys (who knew they were going in to commit murder and were okay with that) who happened to be excellent shots and just wanted one more chance to prove it by killing people.Instead of a book with a visceral and cathartic ending where the cavalry came over the hill to save those unjustly imprisoned in Thebes, I was left with a somewhat uncomfortable feeling as a bunch of old guys (who had always secretly wanted to kill someone, but had had the chance recently) went in to commit murder. For me, it didn't feel like a revenge story. And that made it less enjoyable.Is Hunter a good author? Absolutely. Will I read more of his books? Almost certainly. Was this one a good book? Yes. But was it something different than what you expected, given the description on the book's jacket? Unfortunately it was.
What do You think about Pale Horse Coming (2003)?
Am I allowed to rate a book if I didn't finish it? I'm a hundred or so pages in and I feel like I'm being talked to like a child. Everything is so extreme. The characters are not believable to me. At the beginning of the book, the author tries to hint that this super mega loyal most unbiased man in the world has some (view spoiler)[ mysterious relationship with another woman while his relationship with his wife is less-than-stellar (hide spoiler)]
—S C
This runs close to 600 pages of paperback.All the elements are there, tough men, guns, a righteous mission.It may not be the book to cut your Stephen Hunter teeth on.It did not feel as tight as point of impact or black light.The memory of those fast paced books kept me reading it and also I was interested in the back story of Sam and Earl, having read the books out of sequence.It is by no means a bad book but somewhere I think perhaps 100 pages could have been removed without too much difficulty.
—Walk
For background to Stephen Hunter's books, see my review of "Point of Impact."Hunter’s hero Bob Lee Swagger had a heroic father, Earl Swagger--Marine First Sergeant, Medal of Honor Winner, survivor of five Pacific island invasions in WWII, and Arkansas State trooper murdered in 1955. Several of Bob Lee Swagger series involve Dad, and Hunter has written a three-volume Earl Swagger series: Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana. In this, the second in the series, Earl's mentor, lawyer Sam Vincent, has been sent by a client to Thebes Prison Farm (Colored) in 1951 Mississippi. He finds it to be a remote old plantation-turned-prison reachable only by an equally remote river. Think "Heart of Darkness." Sam is confined in the prison because he is nosing around. Early goes to rescue him and releases Sam but is now himself imprisoned. The (now) African-American prisoners--subject to immense abuse--are happy to have a white prisoner to play with. On top of that, there is the question of what is really going on at Thebes--is it another Tuskegee Experiment? Will earl escape? If he does, will he just return to his old life or will he return to Thebes carrying fire and brimstone? And if he carries fire and brimstone back to the tormenters, will it be loads of blood, gore, and fun?This is equal to the best of the Bob Lee Swagger novels. The melange of Jim Crow racism, Heart of Darkness isolation and horror, Hud-style southern justice, and down-south revenge is a toxic mix. Hunter hits all the hot buttons on this one.
—Peter
