Item - Longhorn Territory

With this book, the series has dropped the dumb "more than x endings" banner used on the back cover of the August, 1987 releases and gone back to actually listing the exact number of endings on the outside of the book. Definitely a good move. Also good is the fact that the cover illustrator is now credited on the back of the title page -- the past few volumes don't seem to mention cover illustrators anywhere, yet I suspect that few, if any, have covers done by the same artists that worked on the interiors. These external factors aside, the most interesting thing about this book is the fact that it's the winner of a writing contest for readers of the series -- it was written by a high school student. It's a pretty impressive accomplishment, actually, as its writing is just as good as anything previously seen in the series. The only things which suggest its non-professional origins are shorter-than-average sections and an overly familiar story and setting. Of course, since these traits are shown by many professional entries in the series, I can't put too much weight on them. Anyway, I'm no fan of Westerns, but this is a decent and fast-paced entry in the series. It's certainly good enough to make me wish that I could have seen some of the other contest entries.

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