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8. That magical silver-strung guitar!
2. It's like Johnny Freakin' Cash meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
Dammit.
The image of Johnny Cash beating eldritch horrors into submission with a guitar is burned into my mind now.
Now I have to read this. >:(
:)
I still can't get over how awesome it is that the Pulitzer Prize winners list has a name like Manly Wade Wellman in it.
8. That magical silver-strung guitar!
2. It's like Johnny Freakin' Cash meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
Dammit.
The image of Johnny Cash beating eldritch horrors into submission with a guitar is burned into my mind now.
Now I have to read this. >:(
I've been waiting for this one for some time, though the Johnny Cash image just tops it off.
"I am fear! I am evil incarnate? What are you against that?"
"Ah'm the Man in Black," WHAM!
It is difficult for me to explain how incredible this book is. As much as I love THE SHIP OF ISHTAR (and oh boy, do I ever), WHO FEARS THE DEVIL is probably the most literate and "important" book we have published to date. I think it's also probably the most accessible, as in it's the first book of 25 that my girlfriend has decided to read on her own.
And it is beautifully written.
"He was what country folks called a low man, more than calling him short or small; a low man is low otherwise than by inches. Mister Onselm's shoulders didn't wide out as far as his big ears, and they sank and sagged. His thin legs bowed out at the knee and in at the shank, like two sickles point to point. On his carrot-thin neck, his head looked like a swollen pale gourd. Thin, moss-gray hair. Loose mouth, a bit open to show long, even teeth. Not much chin. The right eye squinted, mean and dark, while the hike of his brow twitched the left one wide. His good clothes fitted his mean body like they were cut to it. Those good clothes were almost as much of a match to the rest of him as his long, soft, pink hands, the hands of a man who never had to work a tap.
"You see what I mean, I can't say how he looked, only he was hateful."
Manly Wade Wellman is a uniquely American voice. His writing has a style that is rural but never ever condescending that maybe finds its closest comparison in Clifford Simak. Wellman always wrote of the mountain folk with the greatest love and respect. They might be unschooled, but never ignorant fools. He used and added to North American folklore with hardly any European influence. In many ways I’ve always seen his Appalachia in the same way as I saw Burroughs Africa, a place that never was, but should have been. He also wrote quite a few stories with Native American characters that he also treated with great respect and portrayed with a dignity that was never maudlin.
The Silver John stories have the power to take you someplace that you will hate to leave. As a kid, when we would visit my grandparents down in NC, we would have to cross over the mountains from West Virginia, over Virginia and then down into NC. Interstate 77 wasn’t finished back then and we take 2 lane roads crossing over. This took 4 or 5 hours. You’d look out over forest that went as far as the eye could see, up, over, on and between the mountains and you’d think that ANYTHING could be out there. That’s exactly how the Silver John stories make me feel!
Take care.
Doug.
P.s.
Houses aint always houses and hounds aint always hounds
Just got my copy today. Opened up the box when I arrived home from work, flipped through the Pathfinder goodies that came with it, then promptly read the forwards of this title. I'm really excited to give this a read. In fact, though it's currently 3:30 a.m. at the moment, I'll probably still read the first story or two before I go to sleep.
Glad you guys are digging this. Please keep checking in with your thoughts!
I'm also really enjoying this one... I've just begun and it's a real treat. I'm taking the advice in the introduction and I'm reading it slowly, one short story at the time.
The settings and the characters are fascinating and, as it has already been remarked, the writing is just beautiful.
Without the Planet Stories line, it's very likely that I would never have even heard about this book...
Yay! People who want to talk WFTD.
I'm with you on all points, Nikos.
Jmidd: Appalachia in Space versus Appalachia in the Mythos?
I really hope PS gives us more MWW in the future. I've been trying to talk this book up and recommend it to folks. It deserves to be out there, and to give PS a real boost.
No clue what happened to Evadare; I wondered about that, too.
I thought this was a fantastic book, although the couple of stories that veered a little towards science fiction (talking about E.S.P. or the expanding universe) seemed a little out of place, like Indiana Jones messing around with aliens instead of ancient artifacts.
I have a question about Evadare. In the last stories of the colletion she is no longer mentioned; does she appear in some of the novels or does she just quietly "disappear"?
Judging by the novels, after she and John got hitched they got a hoke place for themselves. John still wandered (not quite as much as before) and Evadare seemed happy enough to take care of the home & make some quilts and other things that she occasionally sold. I remember it being stated flat out in the novel The Hanging Stones that her quilts made more money than John's playing.
She also showed up in that novel and helped John save some people from a gang of angry (and rather pathetic) werewolves atop Teatray Mountain/
BTw, Mister Mona, no offense, but I was kinda of amused to see MWW's John stories described as 'literary'. Though that has more to do with the definition of 'literary' driven into me in high school than with the stories themselves, which are beautiful.
Ah... Finally got my copy, and quite enjoyed it.
I've already got copies of the stories, mind - I've been picking up whatever Silver John books come my way for years now, and I've got a really nice set of the stories of MWW that Nightshade put out in a lovely set of five leather-bound volumes.
But I can't lend that to others like I can lend this.
Thanks again for bringing more of MWW's wonderful work back to light, and I hope you continue to publish more of it.
Never fear, we are deep into production on Wellman's Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty. I really enjoyed this one as well!