The Family Bishop, the men and women at the center of Great Sky River, is essentially a fighting unit, and its members share many of the personality traits of the soldier-characters of the typical World War II film. Benford gives us a competent, but aging commanding officer; a self-doubting protagonist named Killeen who has what it takes to command, but must prove it to himself and others; an eager and somewhat bumbling teenager who sees it all as a game; a variety of more or less competent followers; and an ambitious competitor who thinks that he, rather than Killeen, should be the new commander. Each member of the family Bishop does come alive as a real person, though, and Killeen is particularly well drawn. Benford succeeds admirably in developing a character who is profoundly ignorant of the world around him, but whom we can nonetheless respect for his...