Reviews for Tom Lea, his life and work

The average rating for Tom Lea, his life and work based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-10-03 00:00:00 Craig Fowler A wonderful book that not only gives you the history of western pulps, but the how to's of writing and laying the art out. A must for writers of any genre! Beau Smith The Flying Fist Ranch

Review # 2 was written on 2019-12-16 00:00:00 Michelle Gonzalez The Louis L'Amour Companion contains little in the way of serious criticism or even cursory explorations of his work. It is mostly comprised of overwhelming praise, biographical articles that are noted in the book as full of discrepancies and overstatement, and summaries of his various works (especially Hondo mostly concerning the movie) with the occasional bit of actual criticism (always the same criticisms though). These criticisms being: he uses formulaic plots, his characters are one-dimensional, and they often act implausibly. These are mentioned but are dismissed immediately on about half of the occasions that they are brought up in the book with the same excuse - he writes for his readers not critics. The book is a bit shallow for my liking and has a regular fixation on the number of books sold or his status as a bestselling author more than on anything of substance. There is a bit from it that I do like however, "Louis L'Amour has written competent and exciting Westerns but no great ones" (pgs 382-383). I have to admit this book was easy reading and maybe the checklists of L'Amour's work could be useful if I were a collector. However, if you are looking for a reliable resource on the author's life or exploration of his work in any capacity then I cannot recommend this book at all.