W. Michael Gear: Flight of the Hawk; The River
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Released in 2018, Flight of the Hawk: The River by W. Michael Gear truly revealed to me how much I do not know about the War of 1812, or much of the goings on around that time period. I’m on a western kick at the moment, but finding ones that aren’t modern cowboy romance or modern western murder mysteries is a bit of a stretch for me to find. One of those things where it’s still a genre I’m working my way into.
The writer and editing department did their job with this. The setting was beautifully rendered, the characters have depth, the pacing feels a bit slow, but not in a bad way. The syntactic structure, though. That one is golden. The variability of vocabulary and sentence pattern just sings. Sorry, I’m a pattern snob and most mass produced novels are fairly predictable, this one surprised me at it’s eloquence without coming across stuffy.
I’m not sure that I would add it to my shelf. I rather like my Tony Hillerman collection, and W. Michael Gear’s collection would need to be accounted for. I think it would work well in my Kindle shelves instead. I borrowed my copy from the library, and it looked practically brand new because not a lot of people read Westerns.
I enjoy writing accents. Some authors can pull off written accent, and some can’t. Gear’s work has some accents in it that read well, and other’s that were a touch odd. I found the Scotsman came across more like Jamaican in my head than Scottish. I think it was the use of ‘mon’ for ‘man’ that gave me Jamaican. The French and Spanish accents I had an easier time following. I think that was really my only issue with the workings of the book.
Oh, and Native American names. I find it stupid that people will translate Native American names, rather than just use their names. Like ‘red bird’ rather than the name. It’s like saying “From the Oak Tree Settlement (Acton) and Blessed Ruler (Aidric) have gone to town to visit with Elf Ruler (Alfred).” You don’t do it with English names, don’t do it with Native American names. It’s reductive.
Would I suggest it? If you’re into Westerns, I think you might get something out of this. It will definitely test you on your knowledge of a particular time and place.
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