New York: Morrow, William and Company, 1991.
Jeff Long is a man definitely worthy of being called a risk taker. Despite the fact that he had majored in philosophy, anthropology, and history, he did not fear the fact that finding employment would be a difficult feat. He used his time in the winters to write while he worked in the summers as a stonemason. He considered this risk an adventure, and finished his first published book, Outlaw: The True Story of Claude Dallas. To write his book, The Duel of Eagles, Long plunged into research gathering all possible information. He read diaries, letters, and journals to come up with an accurate description of event. He received many awards including the Western Writers of America Spur Award for best novel in 1994 for Empire of Bones, the British Boardman-Tasker Award for Mountain Literature in 1993 for The Ascent, and the American Alpine Club's Literary Award in 1993 for The Descent. He even had a media adaptation for the true story of Claude Dallas in 1986. After the Duel of Eagles, Long began another historical book called, Empire of Bones. This novel was zoned in on Sam Houston and the Revolution. On a more fictional side, Long wrote The Decent. This novel took Long several years to come up with and is about Americans fighting beasts and Satan in caves within the Earth. He is a Texas native and currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.1 .
His purpose of the book was to show the ways that countries conquer other countries. He wanted to give a detailed description of each person mentioned so that the reader could become more emotionally involved with the character and the situation the character is in. He also gives the reader a better understanding of what famous characters such as Houston and Bowie, were really like before they were labeled heroes for their courageous actions at the Alamo. Along with this, he gives the reader the reason and intentions that such characters had upon arriving in Texas.
