Jim DeFelice. (2018). West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express. Unabridged HarperAudio.

Jim DeFelice. 2018. West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express. HarperAudio.

Jim DeFelice, West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express. HarperAudio, 2018.

Jim DeFelice. West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express. Unabridged HarperAudio, 2018.

OverDrive Product Record

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     Jim DeFelice is the co-author, with former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, of the multi-million-copy bestseller American Sniper, the source for Clint Eastwood's film starring Bradley Cooper. His other books include Omar Bradley: General at War; Rangers at Dieppe; and West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express. He lives in upstate New York.

   • name: Jim DeFelice
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West Like Lightning

fullDescription

The thrilling narrative history of one of the most enduring icons of the American West, the Pony Express, from the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of American Sniper—an exciting tale of daring young men pushing limits to the extremes across the vast, rugged, and unsettled American West.

In the spring of 1860 on the eve of a civil war that threatened to tear the country apart, two Americans conceived of an audacious plan for linking the nation's two coasts, thereby joining its present with its future. All that stood in the way was a 1,900 miles of uninhabited desert, ice-capped mountains, oceanic plains roamed by hostile Indian tribes, whitewater-choked rivers, and rugged, unsettled frontier wilderness where civilized"" men where outnumbered a million to one by grizzlies, mountain lions, wolves, bison, rattlesnakes, and more. Many deemed their revolutionary scheme impossible. Run by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, the Pony Express as it came to be known, would use a relay system of daring horseback riders to ferry mail and small packages halfway across a continent in just ten days.

The challenges they faced were enormous, yet the Pony Express succeeded, delivering tens of thousands of letters at record speed. The service would quickly become the most direct means of communication between the Eastern United States and its Western territories, helping to firmly connect them to the Union. West Like Lightning traces the development of the Pony Express and follows it from its start in St. Joseph, Missouri—the edge of the civilized world in the mid-nineteenth century—1,500 miles west to Sacramento. Jim DeFelice—who traveled the Express's route in his research—plumbs the legends, myths, and true facts of the service, viewing it within the context of the American story and exploring its lasting relevance today. Though the Pony Express was eclipsed by the telegraph in less than two years, it remains today an enduring symbol of American values: rugged individualism, perseverance, and speed.

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: Around 1860, three men decided to create a faster way to deliver mail throughout the United States. This audiobook tells the story of the famed Pony Express from its beginning to its end only 18 months later. Narrator John Pruden turns this slice of American history into an entertaining performance filled with men of legend such as Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and even Mark Twain. Listeners hear the Western twang of these characters, including the cowboys who raced across the territories through Indian lands, harsh wilderness, and searing heat to transport the mail. The story of these amazing men, especially told by Pruden, will engage history buffs and general listeners alike. E.E.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 19, 2018
     With breezy efficiency, DeFelice (American Sniper) traces the life and death of the Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express Company, commonly known as the Pony Express, or the Pony. The legendary cross-country mail service, the creation of businessmen William Russell, William Waddell, and Alexander Majors, was established in April 1860 and lasted for a mere 18 months. DeFelice argues that the Pony “existed on the cusp of great change, partook of that change, and both affected and was consumed by it.” The sheer force of the narrative, however, overshadows the argument, and it’s a pretty wild ride. DeFelice frames his story with the six-day November 1860 trip that brought news of Abraham Lincoln’s presidential victory from St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento, Calif., the Pony’s main route. The ride, including employees’ encounters with feuding settlers in Kansas, bison stampedes, and hostile Native Americans, is rendered in fine, thrilling detail. DeFelice debunks oft-told stories about the Pony, especially the involvement of “Wild Bill” Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. He peppers the narrative with details about the cost of the service (initially $5 for a letter weighing up to half an ounce), the procedure for changing horses, specifications of the riders’ mail pouches (called mochilas) and guns, even the kinds of food the riders ate. Fans of the Old West will find many delightful nuggets in this fast-moving story. Illus.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 1, 2018
     

     Getting mail cross country in ten days despite the 1,500 miles of searing deserts, snow-glazed mountains, and resistant Natives in the American West, the Pony Express became a part of America's mythology. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

     Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 15, 2018
     Of thundering hooves and priority mail: a lively history of the short-lived but much-evoked Pony Express.As novelist and pop historian DeFelice (The Helios Conspiracy, 2012, etc.) acknowledges throughout, there's not much that we know with absolute certainty about some of the players and events in the Pony Express effort, a private enterprise for which records are not always available. The service was fast--a letter could cross half the continent in 10 days thanks to the relay system of riders and fast horses--but "the idea of speed was really the important thing" in a time when telegraph lines were going up and plans for a transcontinental railroad were being conjured. The key players were an unlikely mix of slaveholders, frontiersmen, freighters, and entrepreneurs who saw opportunity in providing a communications infrastructure to a military stretched out across a vast, sparsely settled region. But there's much more to the Pony Express than just business history, for it threads into a landscape populated by young legends-to-be like Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok, whose stories DeFelice happily weaves into the narrative: Courage and stamina were desiderata, of course, but as he notes, "if gunplay figured into it, so much the better, but you didn't have to be literally wild to be celebrated. Being tenacious and undaunted in the face of myriad hardships would do." There's plenty in the memories of supposed riders like Cody to suggest truth but not much hard evidence to say that they were actually onboard, which lends a nice hazy touch to the whole legend. Soon enough--in just a couple of years--the likes of Western Union, founded by an associate of Samuel Morse, "whose greatest genius was his ability to acquire and merge the various small companies operating local lines," would put an end to the Pony Express, but for all that, it lives on in memory.Good stuff for Western history buffs, to say nothing of fans of the Post Office.

     COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 1, 2018
     American schoolchildren learn a highly romanticized version of the Pony Express, its riders and horses passing into the realm of myth. In fact, the enterprise lasted less than two years before it was quickly overtaken by a newer technology, the transcontinental telegraph. At the Pony Express' inception, people marveled in stupefaction that a letter could pass from the banks of the Missouri River to Sacramento, California, in 10 days. The Pony Express' organizers put not only physical resources in place (horses, stables, equipment) but tried to control riders' behaviors as well, demanding abstention from swearing, fighting, and drinking?commonplaces in lawless western regions. Meanwhile, riders faced threats from nature and political instability in areas such as the Utah Territory. DeFelice, the veteran author or coauthor of both suspenseful crime novels (Drone Strike, 2014) and thrilling nonfiction (Fighting Blind, 2016), brings to galloping life characters from the Pony Express, meticulously debunking exaggerations and outright lies that have grown over the years. Fans of frontier history and lore will relish the incomparable stories he relates.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

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The thrilling narrative history of one of the most enduring icons of the American West, the Pony Express, from the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of American Sniper—an exciting tale of daring young men pushing limits to the extremes across the vast, rugged, and unsettled American West.

In the spring of 1860 on the eve of a civil war that threatened to tear the country apart, two Americans conceived of an audacious plan for linking the nation's two coasts, thereby joining its present with its future. All that stood in the way was a 1,900 miles of uninhabited desert, ice-capped mountains, oceanic plains roamed by hostile Indian tribes, whitewater-choked rivers, and rugged, unsettled frontier wilderness where civilized"" men where outnumbered a million to one by grizzlies, mountain lions, wolves, bison, rattlesnakes, and more. Many deemed their revolutionary scheme impossible. Run by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, the Pony...

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