West from Singapore

by Louis L'Amour

He's a two-fisted American adventurer and veteran of a hundred waterfront brawls.  He's "Ponga Jim" Mayo, and he minds his own business and leaves international intrigue to others.  But, as master of his own tramp freighter, trouble seeks him out as he navigates the treacherous East Indian seas from Borneo to Singapore.  Never one to back away from danger, Jim straps on his colt automatic and takes the helm of the Semiramis, ready to battle pirates and spies, dope peddlers and gunrunners and whoever else dares to challenge his command...and God help the man who crosses Jim Mayo.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Adventure, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, World War II, Action

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

Reviews

[Hanneke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who would ever have thought I would be reading an adventure stories book in an almost forgotten old—fashioned sense, similar to any cowboy and indians story which I loved reading when I was a youngster of 11 or 12 years old. The book reminded me of the Tarzan novels I loved at that age and which I would read time and again. I had never heard of Louis L’Amour before, but now I am astonished to read that the man wrote over a 100 novels during his lifetime and had some 300 million copies sold. He considered himself a troubadour and a village tale-teller and that’s indeed how the stories in ‘West of Singapore’ read. My GR friend Philip recommended this book to me because he knew I would like to read the adventures of the protagonist Ponga Jim Mayo exploring the waters around islands of former Dutch East Indies and New Guinea in the 1930s. These stories are pure male adventures stories with lots of fighting, capturing and in the case of New Guinea cannibals heard beating drums in the jungle. It was strange to see the East Indies portrayed this way, but I did really enjoy to follow Ponga Jim’s travels on quite a lot of Indonesian islands and later on at the Red Sea and the Suez canal. Must say, however, that I sometimes wondered, seeing all the fighting Ponga Jim got himself into, whether he had actually any teeth left, if his jaw bones were still in one piece or if he could still see alright because his eyes were so often knocked closed. But no worries, surprisingly enough, he would be alright again on the next page. So, yes, I enjoyed the book! It surely was something else to read and would like to thank Philip for recommending it to me. I would have never encounter these tales without him.

[Fatman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't mind a good pulp story, but these are uniformly cheesy, and lack any sort of narrative tension.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before he became that "Louis L'Amour," Louis Dearborn LaMoore was just a young cowboy who took off "yondering" as a professional boxer and merchant seaman for a number of years, touring the world, getting into trouble, and observing. The result were these and other stories (some of which are similarly collected in Night Over the Solomons), which present a charming - if not particularly thrilling - look at the "Indiana Jones," "Terry and the Pirates," Saturday matinee movie serial world of the late 1930s.

Most of the stories in this delightful paperback actually take place east of Singapore, ranging along the north and east of the Indonesian archipelago from Kalimantan (East Borneo) across the top of the Celebes (today's Sulawesi, and the world's most strangely-shaped island - see below), and down to northern New Guinea. The place names alone - Gorontalo, Amurang, Qasavara, Banggai, Halmahera - conjure up a world of tramp steamers, Malay pirates and tropical adventure; although to my surprise, the villains here are mainly German, as it turns out their pre-war presence in the area was greater than that of the Japanese. (This ultimately made sense when I realized that Germany wanted to divert British attention away from Europe - the British Navy apparently helped safeguard the security of the then-Dutch East Indies - while Japan was solely focused on their pre-Pearl Harbor "colonization" of Manchuria. There are also multiple bittersweet references to "the world war," because as these stories were written, "the world" hadn't actually started enough of them that they needed numbering.) L'Amour shows a genuine affection for both the region and its peoples (including his multi-cultural crew) - a welcome palate-cleanser after having also just read L. Ron Hubbard's poorly written and overtly racist Spy Killer, produced during the same period (and bought together for $2 at Manassas's excellent McKay's Used Books).


(Many of the stories take place along the 400-mile Gorontalo Peninsula that extends east along the top of the island)

In the last two stories, L'Amour finally does head "west from Singapore," producing a longer tale of early WWII adventure in Egypt and the Red Sea. Aside from offering such colorful descriptions as this:

His memory searched around Hanish Island, around many a Ghubbet and khor, down the Masira Channel and past Ras Markaz, across the dreaded Rakka shoals and up to Jiddah town, where the Tomb of Eve with its wide, white dome stands among the old windmills.

…he gives us hard-boiled '30s dialogue like "I got four of the best rodmen that ever slung a heater," which I assume means…he has four of the best assassins who ever carried a gun? I don't know and I don't care - it's just such fun to read. There then follows a scene that just has to have been stolen by Lucas and Spielberg, where our hero "Ponga Jim" Mayo finds himself in the bottom of a lost Egyptian tomb surrounded by hundreds of deadly snakes - unless maybe that was just a common occurrence back then in that part of the world?

As L'Amour's earliest writing, this isn't great literature, (I'm assuming he improved with age, although I've frankly never read any of his more famous Western works), but it sure was fun, especially for anyone who's spent any time in Southeast Asia. The stories get repetitious and predictable after a while, as they were not originally written to be read back-to-back, but were published irregularly in "Thrilling Adventures" magazine (I think); and only assembled into book form when L'Amour dug them up and finally re-published then in 1987, (and we're lucky he did, as he passed away the following year).

Good harmless fun from my parents' - and probably your grandparents' - generation. A solid 3.5 stars rounded up; the only thing keeping it from a straight 4 is that stupid cowboy photo some idiot slapped on the cover :(


(Sadly, "Wings Over Brazil" is not included in this collection - would have been nice to see "Ponga Jim" take to the air!)

[Jeff Tankersley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Louis L'Amour spent time as a merchant seaman in the South Pacific, Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Red Sea, Borneo, and a bunch of other exotic locations as a young man before WWII and wrote some action-heavy pulp magazine shorts that are compiled in this collection. The book cover and time of paperback edition publication, 1987, kind of hint that these are classic tales in a WWII naval setting written in L'Amour's westerns prime, but they are actually the first stories he ever had published 1940-42 in pulp magazines before he started writing westerns and written before Pearl Harbor. I believe the last two stories in this collection were written after that time period.

Enter: Ponga Jim Mayo, the protagonist in these stories, an American adventurer who gets into trouble fighting Japanese soldiers, Nazi agents, sneaky smugglers, brutish mercenaries, hate-filled orangutans (for real), native cannibals, and other sailors. He knows his way around the narrow-corridored destroyers, freighters, and submarines sailing around the islands (and in one longer story, the Red Sea) and is really good with his fists.

Verdict: An interesting change of pace and perhaps an educational glimpse into L'Amour's earliest work, but otherwise not really good; in fact, I reckon this collection simply wouldn't be in print if it didn't have L'Amour's name on it. Just kind of a series of disjointed, rambling, short, uninteresting, action-adventures.

Jeff's Rating: 1 / 5 (Bad)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louis L’Amour is, of course, well known as a writer of western fiction but he actually got his start writing pulp-style tales of adventure. In 1939, “Thrilling Adventures” magazine bought “East of Gorontalo” the first short story in this collection. The story features a down on his luck merchant captain named Jim Mayo fighting, with the help of a stylish British Intelligence officer, to make a living during the opening salvos of the war in the Pacific. L’Amour decided to write more stories featuring this character and soon Captain “Ponga” Jim Mayo, and the motley collection of men that made up his crew were plying the waters of the Netherlands East Indies and the Federated Malay States searching for any vaguely legitimate cargo (and some not so legitimate) that would allow them to continue to make the payments on the S.S. Semiramis, the rusty old tramp freighter that they now called home.

In creating the Ponga Jim Mayo series Louis L’Amour got some practical experience in how creating a running character could ease the life of a struggling author. While sales were not guaranteed they were, at least, more likely. L’Amour used his own life experience as a merchant seaman some ten years before to flesh out his stories. In that time he had visited some of the exotic ports that the Semiramis calls home and the detail in these stories makes his first-hand experience evident. However, I can tell that these are very early stories in his writing career and many times seem amateurish. One must read them almost entirely for their adventure plots, their fistfights, their seedy locales, and their daring seafaring adventure. The seeds of his future writing career are here but they are merely seeds at this point.

An fairly enjoyable collection of six short stories and one that is almost long enough to be considered a novella called “South of Suez” which I enjoyed considerably more than the others.

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've found that I just don't care much for L'Amour's non-western stories. This is a collection of some of his early adventure tales set mostly in areas like Singapore and all featuring the character Pongo Jim Mayo. For one, I just don't really care for the character much at all. And the stories I've read of him really haven't engaged me much at all. I love a lot of L'Amour's westerns, but these pieces are not my cup of tea.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of several adventure stories set in various locations in the world. Some deal with World War II. The majotity deal Southeast Asia and the sea and where written before L"Amour became a writer of westerns.

[Bradhernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great subject material. Adventure pulp. Merchant captain fights his way across the Dutch indies, dodging battleships and spys to unravel a nazi plot at the outbreak of WW2 involving a Muslim princess. The story is not cohesive enough for a stand alone book though. Perfect camping reading though.

[Rogue-van (the Bookman) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skipper "Ponga Jim" Mayo is fighting for a dollar from Borneo to Singapore. He's got a tough crew and the weapons he needs to face his enemies. These sequential short stories have the appeal of a novel. Rugged Ponga Jim should appeal to any action-adventure fan.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early L'Amour stories based on his own experience as a merchant seaman. And also, I think, his experience as a boxer, since the protagonist gets into a brutal fist fight in nearly every story.

The protagonist is Ponga Jim Mayo, the owner and captain of a frieghter that frequents South Pacific ports. These stories were written during World War 2, so Ponga Jim is always encountering Japanese and/or German plots--including secret submarine bases, spies, assassins and so on. Ponga Jim, though, is as smart as he is tough, combining Holmsian deductive skills with his own fighting abilities, his heavily-armed merchant ship and his tough & loyal crew to kick the Nazis in the Axis time and again.

These stories are great fun, well-plotted and with lots of great action. I love L'Amour's Westerns, but its fun to find him outside that wheelhouse from time to time. He is an excellent adventure writer regardless of genre.

[Jason Crow · Rating 3 out of 5]

These adventure stories are slightly marred by what seems to be an attempt to make fast-paced action stories that consequently suffer in the plot and character development categories. Also, I believe L'Amour was hindered by limitations of the market and a word count from the magazines for which he was writing these stories.
All that being said, this is a great collection of stories about his character "Ponga Jim" Mayo, a tramp freighter captain in the Indian and Pacific Oceans before and during the second world war. These are the kind of pulp adventures on which Lucas and Spielberg based Indiana Jones. There is even a scene where our hero is abandoned in a tomb full of poisonous snakes.
Where the stories shine are the immense detail and authenticity. Unlike many of the pulp writers of that day, L'Amour had actually been to the places named. The author's notes are of as much value as the stories themselves.

[Ward G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is from L'Amours early writings.

Ponga Jim Mayo the main character.
This is a series of short stories. That stand alone.
Yet do have some plot or element themes. Running through the series.

Mayo is captain of his own vessel. A soldier of fortune, and freeboooter.
Set during the times of the second world war.
In the tropical islands.
Jim finds himself facing plots of German and Japanese forces.

Out for himself and his crew.
Yet t times finding himself recruited by British intelligence.

Espionage, bar room brawls, and naval action.
A nice change of pace.
Not a bad read.

[wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

finished 16th march 2025 good read three stars i liked it no more no less kindle library loaner have read more than l'amour enjoyed these early short stories like all the others i've read. these are set in a time around world war two...southern pacific...the indies where columbus set sail for yay years ago and other areas, the red sea the last. they all have one main character protagonist hero jim mayo and they follow a kind of chronological line. entertaining, lots of fist fights, knives, guns, violence. various powers that be and their actors chumming the waters for positions.

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This not a Western. L'Amour worked in the South Pacifac as World War II started and this is taken from his days working on the merchant ships. Ponga Jim, the main character, reminds me a little of Indiana Jones. I have always enjoyed L'Amour's descriptions of places. He is good in this book. It is a series of connected short stories.

[Oleta Blaylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains short stories about Ponga Jim Mayo. The titles are as follows:

East of Gorontalo
On the Road to Amurang
From Here to Banggi
The House of Qasavara
Well of the Unholy Light
West from Singapore
South of Suez

The stories are all set just before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to sometime shortly after the fateful day in December.

[Peter Charleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up the Louis L'Amour collection book which provided a nice collection of short stories about the fictitious Ponga Jim Mayo before the United States became involved in WWII. Action throughout the stories, enjoyable adventure.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy, fun reading about the various adventures of Ponga Jim Mayo, a boat captain for hire, in the waters and harbors around Singapore. Not much to think about. Just predictable action and adventure in the South Pacific.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me longer than it should have to read, I just had trouble getting into the writing style. Once I was about 2/3rds of the way through it seemed to click and I just started enjoying the campiness a little more.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite L'Amour stories.

[Allen Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally I like the author’s non western adventure stories but I have to admit these seem rushed and without a lot of the style and character development usually seen. Not the best of his stuff.

[Michael Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The seafaring adventures of a soldier of fortune wandering man set in the period around WWII is the south seas and various other locals. in pulp style tales.

[Meg Coulson · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s pretty obvious he wrote this before any of his published works - I’m glad he progressed after this one ha

[Joel McCree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ponga Jim!

[Juan Maestas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another fun collection of stories about the East Indies (now Indonesia) written in the pulp cliffhanger style. The characters are certainly more diverse and rounded than Nightime over the Solomons... but still with the (now) dated sensibilities of gender, culture, and race. Still, research is plainly evident- though many of the situations were inspired, there tended to be a stock plot across many of the stories. You could always count on Ponga Jim Mayo getting whacked unconscious only to wake up bound in some perilous situation in a dark cell. The villains were dumb- why not just shoot him while he's out? Artificial plot motivators like that can be forgiven once, but not six or seven times throughout the book.

The atmosphere of the port cities was alive, however. And there were some plot twists I didn't see coming. Again, I admire Mr. L'Amour's storytelling ability and enjoyed this book despite it's flaws.

[Chaundra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very different genre of stories than j usually associate with this author and over all it's a very mediocre collection - except for the last story when we finally get some decent plot and more action than just a fist fight.

[Partridge Public]

L'Amour, Louis PB

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Louis L'Amour as an author but I just couldn't get into this book very well. Every story seemed to be nothing more than a protracted fight scene...

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in WWII.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good adventure stories.

[Kenneth Flusche · Rating 4 out of 5]

older short stories fromMr. L'Amour