Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John

[Sargeant_Fox]

For what it's worth, there are two reasonably priced (in the U.S., at any rate) Wellman collections from Shadowridge Press (both originally published by Karl Edward Wagner's Carcosa Press): Worse Things Waiting, a collection of fantasy and horror stories, and Lonely Vigils, a collection of his fantasy/horror detective stories, with the characters he created before settling on Silver John. Besides Who Fears the Devil?, these were the definitive MWW collections until Night Shade Books put out a several volume collection of his work in the early '00s, which now would probably not be all that reasonably priced.

Yes, I'm aware of them; if I like the "John" volume I'll seek them out.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Yesterday I finished John the Balladeer. It was very entertaining and captivating. Language-wise, I liked the orality Wellman went for; it had a Mark Twain-like feel that I think he pulled off convincingly; it really adds to the mountain ambience.

I think the stories after 1962, when Wellman first quit writing John, lack the the first bunch's energy; it's interesting that all of these were written for anthologies instead of magazines; I think Wellman had achieved such a status and John had become such an iconic figure among ecstatic readers who in the interim had grown up to hold editorial positions, that he must have been flooded by requests and was too kind to say no. It's also interesting that the post-1962 stories are less subtle on the the Christ-like allegory.

Anyway, this was great fun and has convinced me to look up Wellman's other books; start with Worse Things Waiting because I found the "gardinel" concept so good and want more stories about this monster.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Twilight Zone episode Still Valley. is based on Wellman's story The Valley Was Still .