The western lives

JUST hold your horses! While, indeed, Louis L’Amour deserves praise for entertaining millions of readers with his western sagas [“Keeping the Old West Forever Young,” Aug. 17], Scott Martelle is plumb loco in claiming that “with L’Amour’s death 17 years ago, the western genre has gone stagnant.”

Maybe that is true with the formulaic romance portion of the genre, but great westerns are being written, including ones about the 19th as well as the 20th centuries. While still telling of cowboys, Indians and cattle drives, these novels have re-created the genre in wondrous ways. Let’s not bury the western with L’Amour.

DAVID EGGENSCHWILER

Los Angeles