Quickshots: Buffalo Trail

Two and a half years ago I quickly read and quickly reviewed a great first novel called Glorious.  I liked it so much I ordered the sequel, Buffalo Trail, and dug right in.  I’ve taken a lot of stabs at it in the last 30 months and haven’t gotten to the halfway part.  I think I’m done.

It’s a shame, because the novel is a buildup to the Battle of Adobe Walls, where the southern plains tribes went to war with the buffalo hunters.  The pacing is interesting, with one chapter following one of the buffalo hunters, the next following Quannah Parker gathering tribes to his side.  It should be good, but every time I got invested in one set of characters we were off to the next, and I struggled to care with the shift.  Tom Clancy did something like this in his amazing Cardinal of the Kremlin, where you got down to the nail biting last chapter not knowing which point of reference character will survive.  Here I couldn’t care.  Go read Glorious!  It was fantastic.