Grizzly Killer: The Making of a Mountain Man

By: Lane R Warenski

Narrated by: Chase Bradley

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's Summary

When Zach Connors and his pa left their Kentucky homestead in the summer of 1824 to see the Rocky Mountains, he didn't realize he would never see his childhood home again or that he would find love, friendship, fame, and a new home in this wild and harsh wilderness.

After a grizzly kills his pa, Zach struggles to survive a cold and brutal winter alone. After killing a rouge grizzly and fighting hostile Indians on his own, he becomes known as Grizzly Killer and is respected throughout the West.

Along with his dog, Jimbo, whom the Indians call the Great Medicine Dog, he finds Running Wolf, an injured Ute warrior, and together they fight off a hostile war party. They rescue two Shoshone sisters from the brutality of a French trapper and take them as wives. After Zach saves Running Wolf's beautiful sister, Shining Star, he is expected to take her as a second wife, but his Christian beliefs conflict with the Indian traditions, and he struggles within himself to accept the Indian ways.

Set in the rugged Uinta Mountains of Northern Utah, this is a story of survival against nature and hostile Indians and the clash of cultures between the Indians and mountain men that were the first to brave this uncharted wilderness, seeking their fortune from the pelts of the beaver.

©feb 11th, 2017 Wolfpack Publishing (P)2017 Wolfpack Publishing

A mighty righteous Grizz killer. Not worth the money

I was lured in the with the Jeremiah Johnson-esk storyline presented in the summary and decent narration, plus the entire series has been an Amazon bestseller... Unfortunately beyond the first couple chapters things quickly fall to pieces. First and foremost there are waaaay too many uses of the words “mighty” and “right” and about a quarter of the way into the novel the obligatory squaw ‘story arch’ begins and our masculine “Grizzly Killer” quickly becomes a “mighty right” “white knight” post-modern egalitarian (who like a good ‘beta’ needs a small native woman to show him how sex works and how being naked in every chapter is ‘natural’) the whole arch takes you right out of the 1820’s and drops you into the modern apologist wet dream. Worse it then attempts to project European attitudes and values onto the natives (through the protagonist teaching them better of course). Difficult situations which would have otherwise made this story more interesting are simply written out to keep the protagonists morality squeaky clean... this kills the story for a good many chapters, and just when you think your clear of it, there is a rape and turns out, the dog is a “white knight” too!... What began as an interesting mountain man adventure novel quickly devolves into Don Quixote and his loyal servant Sancho Panza ridding around the Utah territory defending all m’ladies honor from the “white men” of ill repute. Needless to say I won’t be reading the remaining books in the series and am not sure why this is a “bestseller”. In the meantime I’ll be sticking with Louis l’Amour.

Entertaining cool story

Very entertaining story. Well written , and well read. Has a very distinct diary style and perfectly reflects the feel of the Rocky Mointain fur trade era. Liked it a lot, and downloading book II now.

The Daily Life of a Mountain Man

I read one of the books in the series and liked it enough to try out this first book in the series.

The book is well written and researched. Warenski does a good job writing a historical fiction. The author presents details about the daily life of a mountain man. Warenski reveals what life was like for the first men moving into the west and the rugged life they lived. The story takes place sometime around the 1820s. The characters are interesting as is the plot. The book makes an interesting read.

The book is eight hours and twenty-six minutes. Chase Bradley does a good job narrating the book. Bradley is a voice actor and audiobook narrator. He has an excellent voice for narration.

Average l! Probably a story for YA

I would say it’s a juvenile writing and would be foe YA at best except for the naked and sex talk. Nothing graphic at all but not really sure why it’s thrown in when the writing seems a bit juvenile.
I love a good mountain man yarn tho and so would love to hear that the writing gets better and maybe a change of narrator also. This fella adds to the overall juvenile vibe of the entire book.
And the other reviews that mention how exhausting it was to hear that the word “mighty” was used A MIGHTY amount of times were spot on!!! It got to a ridiculous point very early in to be honest! I’m gonna see what the next book sounds like and if the narrator is the same and make my decision whether to carry on with the series but I’m doubtful and honestly feeling like I’ll probably be wasting another credit. A great idea would be to offer the entire series or maybe in blocks of three for one credit since I heard it’s a very long series. That might make it a really enticing deal! Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna be able to stick with it if it doesn’t get majorly better!

Best Mountain Man Series

I was raised in north west Wyoming out side of Yellowstone were the Rocky mountains meet the plains. These stories take me back to the tales and legends passed down from my elders. To hear these stories told in this way, makes it easy to slip back in time when thing were new and unspoiled.

enjoyed the descriptive country.

this was a great read. very detailed and it helped to understand the country back then. Johnson does a great job catching the west.

Great listen

I really enjoyed this book. I thought gave a really good account of the life of a mountain man. I gave it only a four star because I felt it could have given us a little more detail of the mountains or the time to get somewhere. I got confused when the hero was suddenly somewhere and I'd have to go back to make sure I hadn't miss heard something.

Not very realistic similar to Hollywood

This is like a Louie Lamore book there are hints of realism speckled throughout the story there isn’t really any dramatic climax to the story .in a period of one year the main character has more adventures than Lewis and Clark would have had in two lifetimes. Still it was a fun book to listen to. Made a long weekend at work go by fast

meh...

The narrator did a fairly well with this mighty fine story about a feller and his squaws..just so-so. Pretty sure I won't waste a credit on the next one.

Not much of a story.

Not a MIGHTY GOOD BOOK . MIGHTY used mighty Times.

The use of this word made me lose interest in the book.