Is Son of The Morning Star available online...

[walsh]

for free? I read the first chapter on Amazon for free and I need the rest. Anyone know?

[Dark Cloud]

It's never been out of print since 1984, so I'd doubt it.

[markland]

Jan 25, 2012 17:28:30 GMT -6 walsh said:

for free? I read the first chapter on Amazon for free and I need the rest. Anyone know?

You're not going to get it for free unless you go to a library or have a friend lend you their copy. However, on Amazon, there is s new one for 9.70 and if an Amazon Prime member has free shipping. There is a used one at Amazon for 4.25 plus 3.95 shipping.

Billy

[stevewilk]

This book is standard on most any public library shelf. IMO it is worthless for any serious student of the Indian Wars as are most attempts by novelists who decide to delve into the "Custer Cluster". For example, Connell has Kit Carson guiding Col. Mackenzie at Palo Duro Canyon in 1874 (Carson died in 1868), he implies Fetterman attended West Point (he didn't, his father did) there are other errors as well but some consider this the bible of LBH books. For the life of me I don't know why. If you absolutely can't find it anywhere I'd be more than happy to GIVE you my copy.

[Dark Cloud]

I don't know of anyone who considers it a researched, historian's work, much less a bible. The Kit Carson error was corrected by second edition, and I caught it as well. It's a collection of stories about Custer and the battle - stories have errors by nature - and the people involved as known in 1984. He continuously offers different variations and says who knows? and leaves it to the reader.

He writes well. The comedy lines - Mrs. Nash for example - cannot be improved upon. He is kind and not given to blame and seems to hanker to have known all these folks. He likes them by and large, Army and Indian.

It's a book that people talk about but haven't actually read, often enough. It's written as a series of observations or stories and not in linear sequence, which alienates those who inhabit Custerland, too many of whom require handholding and a detailed index because they only intend to look up Reno being drunk or that arrow in Custer's penis or, of course, betrayal and false revisionism. It was to have no index whatever until the publisher made him put one in, and his love and devotion to that task is revealed in the four indexed items. Maybe a few more. Utterly useless, in any case, and testimony to the fact that it is NOT a history text.

Nor is it a novel, just a collection of stories as known.

You find on these boards what is being talked about in SOTMS is the god awful movie, which was a real horrendoplasty.

I have found Connell to be more honest in not claiming fact than alleged historians who do. Many times, nothing of the sort is agreed upon and, in any case, cannot be known whatever. Custer's wounds, for example. Also? The discordance of the original burial story and what they unearthed for WP. Utterly unimportant trivia.

He laid out the attitude of the Army and Indians as well as anyone, and you do sort of get the sense of what the West may have been like back then. Lonely, boring, then briefly scary as hell, then lonely, boring...... A recipe for exaggeration and blather among those there when an opportunity arose, for sure.

It's a great read, and it's perpetuity of success is evidence of that. It's a wonderful story, and as such needs no excuse to be told by a gifted teller of such tales. But it is not like Gray or Stewart, nor - thank the lord - like Michno and Nightengale and Donovan, who made more errors with less possibility of excuse and yet do not rouse your anger as SOTMS does. Connell had no agenda, of course.

[walsh]

The movie is actually on YouTube and I didn't think it was that bad. At least in the end, it shows the troops panicking rather than the heroic last stand in movies like they died with their boots on. I don't understand why books can't be pirated like movies and music and be available on the internet. Oh well, I will have to cough up the 10 dollars.

[El Crab]

Walsh: I got a paperback copy I'll sell you cheap.

DC: I totally agree. It's a stream of consciousness telling that branches off on tangents and Connell was more than willing to follow leads until they dead-end, which works for me. It's a Custer book written by someone who doesn't purport to know the truth, and it reads in a way I now find myself reading subjects these days. I read something, then want to follow a tangent. Much like reading Blood Meridian, learning it is compared to Moby Dick led me to read Philbrick's rather good account of the whales ip Essex, In the Heart of the Sea. Of course I read Blood Meridian because it was about scalphunters...

SotMS is just a great read and it's my favorite nonfiction book. For awhile there back in the day, it was the only thing DC and I agreed on. ;-)

But Walsh, I've got that copy if you want it. Cheap.

[jag]

Jan 25, 2012 23:02:16 GMT -6 walsh said:

The movie is actually on YouTube and I didn't think it was that bad. At least in the end, it shows the troops panicking rather than the heroic last stand in movies like they died with their boots on. I don't understand why books can't be pirated like movies and music and be available on the internet. Oh well, I will have to cough up the 10 dollars.

Try utorrent. Can't say whether or not its there, but damn near everything else is.

[Yan Taylor]

The film version was shown on TCM Movies last year, in two parts. I have been trying to buy a copy on DVD for years but to no avail, I copied it on to my hard drive and cut out the adverts and burnt it to disc.

[Dark Cloud]

The film version shares little with the book except the title. Somehow, it's about Mrs. Custer and their Great Love.

[clw]

Great review, Richard!

[oglallah]

Am a new member but a long time student of American history and would like to say hi to everybody. I am fortunate to have a copy of this wonderful book (as well as the TV movie)and I do urge you to try to read it in whatever form you can.

[fred]

Hi...! And welcome to Never-Never-Land.

I have both... the book and the movie. I have read the book three times and have seen the movie uncountable times, though I generally start from where they left Fort Lincoln. The characters (actors) make anything else lamentable.

Anyway, welcome. Hope to see a lot of you.

Best wishes,
Fred.