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Bugles on the Prairie
After his brother is murdered by Apaches, Ross Fletcher sets out across prairie and desert to stop a deadly ambush, reclaim his family fortune, and rescue a beautiful woman held captive by the great war chief Cochise
176 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
4 people want to read
About the author
Gordon D. Shirreffs
179 books9 followersGordon Donald Shirreffs was an American author of Western and young adult novels.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 9, 2017
Another great one from Shirreffs.
March 31, 2021
The guy who writes these reviews usually got really frustrated with this one. All he could see was cliche, racism, and a main character he had seen a dozen times before in cheapie paperbacks. So he’s yelling at the walls: “I got nothin’ this time. Literally nothin”. The folks here at Goodreads give me a call. You can call me Stanley. I got lots of different names in lots of different books.
Let me let you in on a paperback secret. The reason my character is so familiar is that Gold Medal and all the other paperback and pulp rags use a gallery of stock characters. Me, I’m the tough guy bent on revenge. Two fisted. Bitter. With a past and a bad girl I don’t trust. They plug me into a story along with a stock villain, stock Native Americans, stock soldiers, a stock good girl and boom, they got something they can call Bugles on the Prairie.
I was excited about doing the lead in this one. I figured, a title like this, there’d be Custer and Little Big Horn and I could feel bad about what we’re doing the Native American. There’d be a scene where I could be the scout that Tells Off Custer. I like those. (The stock Custer character is a good buddy of mine)
But no. The Bugles may be on the Prairie but the action is in the Arizona desert. We have the Civil War, Cochise, and a deed to a gold mine. Oh yeah. And the obvious villains killed my brother and kidnap my old bad girl girlfriend and my new good girlfriend (who had been kidnapped by the Native Americans before) I run around a lot and stay kind of mad before joining the army and getting in fights. All this made me plenty tired, let me tell you, even while it bored the heck out of me. After that, I made Gold Medal put me into one of the detective ones with the multiple long legged girls you can’t trust.
This one — it’s as blah as the cover. The Gold Medal folks did have their share of clinkers in the 50s. I remember. I was in them. A lot.
Let me let you in on a paperback secret. The reason my character is so familiar is that Gold Medal and all the other paperback and pulp rags use a gallery of stock characters. Me, I’m the tough guy bent on revenge. Two fisted. Bitter. With a past and a bad girl I don’t trust. They plug me into a story along with a stock villain, stock Native Americans, stock soldiers, a stock good girl and boom, they got something they can call Bugles on the Prairie.
I was excited about doing the lead in this one. I figured, a title like this, there’d be Custer and Little Big Horn and I could feel bad about what we’re doing the Native American. There’d be a scene where I could be the scout that Tells Off Custer. I like those. (The stock Custer character is a good buddy of mine)
But no. The Bugles may be on the Prairie but the action is in the Arizona desert. We have the Civil War, Cochise, and a deed to a gold mine. Oh yeah. And the obvious villains killed my brother and kidnap my old bad girl girlfriend and my new good girlfriend (who had been kidnapped by the Native Americans before) I run around a lot and stay kind of mad before joining the army and getting in fights. All this made me plenty tired, let me tell you, even while it bored the heck out of me. After that, I made Gold Medal put me into one of the detective ones with the multiple long legged girls you can’t trust.
This one — it’s as blah as the cover. The Gold Medal folks did have their share of clinkers in the 50s. I remember. I was in them. A lot.
September 20, 2017
Civil War conflicts in Arizona between rebels and yankee-hero, Ross Fletcher, complicated by Indian attacks. Hero survives wounds, beatings, torture, but recovers faster than Conan the Barbarian, and wants more. Graphic descriptions.
June 6, 2017
Tough, gritty, and fast-paced.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews