STALLION OF THE DESERT

Stallion of the Desert scampers across a wasteland of incredibility. The book bears a much stronger resemblance to the author's Son of the Sahara (1965, p. 113- J41) than it does to any possible events. Fourteen year old Aly ben Rabah, almost the only support of his ""exceedingly poor"" family, stops the Caid's (ruler's) horse Okba (""the finest horse in North Africa"") from rearing and stands in front of the horse when the angry Caid starts to shoot it. His reward is to be given the horse and an important position in the Caid's household riding all day on Okba and spying out the surrounding desert. Just when the Caid leaves town, a group of violent renegades from the Foreign Legion shows up, raids the Caid's treasure, and take the women and children with them as hostages -- but they reckoned not with old, indomitable, bullet-proof Aly..... This is only for that late hour when you turn on the tube and all you get is a test pattern.