“Readers unable to suppress an unfashionable yearning for a good story will be delighted with The Bad Lands. . . . The cast of whores, gunhands, buffalo hunters, and grizzled settlers is effectively put into play. . . . Hall has thrust his imagination into that time and that place, and has written quite a good book.”
— Larry McMurtry, New York Times
“The Ox-Bow Incident, Shane, The Big Sky, Hall’s own Warlock. . . . The Bad Lands belongs with this select group.”
— Los Angeles Times
“A suspenseful, passionate tale of men, land, love, and greed in the Old West.”
— Publishers Weekly
“An elegiac, incandescent 1880s Dakota badlands Western that bears comparison to the greats (Shane, Ox-Bow Incident) that it recalls. . . . A tale of tragic justice, of nightriders, of horse thieves fighting cattle thieves—the clearest call yet from the sensitive, slicing voice that rang through the west in Warlock.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Long on plot and action, The Bad Lands is a solid, satisfying story. . . . As full of motion and as picturesque as a Remington bronze.”
— Chicago Tribune
“We are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot, and drive away; and we need voices like Hall’s to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall.”
— Thomas Pynchon
“Like Henry James and Mark Twain, Hall is a master craftsman of the story.”
— Amy Tan