Who Fears the Devil

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Taste of American Folklore
Review: An authentic foray into Carolinian folklore, calling forth stories of witches, ghosts, familiars, and an assortment of other supernatural creatures, all set against the protagonist, John the Balladeer, a likable southern bard with a silver-strung guitar and a bit of occult knowledge. The book is a collection of short stories and vignettes written over a period of nearly forty years. All are good, some are excellent. The vignettes are often simply beautiful. All of the writing is first person with a genuine southern voice, without making the people or area seem ignorant or uncivilized. A wonderful collection of tales with from the much forgotten American mythology.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: I went and bought this book after I came across a copy of one of his old books on the street. However, I recommend you check out 5 volume series from Night Shade Books of all of Wellman's short stories. One volume has all of the Silver John Stories.

Rating:
Summary: Who Fears The Devil?
Review: This is the second collection I've read, recently, of what can be labeled fondly-remembered fantastical tales that appeared in some magazine or other, originally, and then finally got grouped together under one cover, in some tough-to-find book. The other one I read was The Adventures Of Jules De Grandin, by Seabury Quinn.

Curiously, though the stories in each collection are much different in style, I have had basically the same reaction to each book, for the same reasons.

Wellman, like Quinn, is content to present fairly familiar monsters. Loner and wanderer, John, encounters giants, the conjured undead, demonic winged nightmares, a phantom locomotive, and several sinister but similar sharp-tongued gentlemen who have a tendency to expose whatever their weakness is in, oh, the time it takes to sample a short-story. I just sort of wish that, among all the bones and ectoplasm, some new creature with a new angle might show up to threaten John.

John, meanwhile, mysterious and plain-spoken though he is, is a fun character and a likeable narrator, taking ultimate evil in his stride, using music to: taunt enemies, charm the ladies, and break the ice with surly strangers. He has a quiet, never-ruffled nobility to him, which shines best in the best stories, 'Old Devlins Was A-Waiting' and 'Walks Like A Mountain', where he goes out of his way to help strangers face threats from beyond the American South we know. In the former tale, the old drama between the Hatfields and the McCoys comes to involve the dead and undead, as well as the living. In the latter story, a devious giant and an impending flood threaten a small town; has John got what it takes to hold back the floodwaters, and rescue a fair Southern belle from the bitter goliath who waits for a town (minus one kidnapped Southern belle) to drown?

The other stories work at an acceptable level, but some of the monsters and sinister, sallow-faced gentlemen seem to be variations on a theme. A bit more diversity in the Rogue's Gallery presented would have been appreciated, and John uses a few of the same tricks to quell different threats. A pity. Nevertheless, John's brushes with the netherworld, as it spills over into America's heartland, provide some shivers. Worth looking into, I do declare.