Welcome to the first meeting of our new Manly Wade Wellman appreciation society. After the golden age of the pulps, there are two authors who, for my money, tower head and shoulders above everyone else spilling ink — Fritz Leiber and Wellman. I don’t think either get enough credit and Wellman perhaps doubly so, especially the Silver John stories, which have, infuriatingly, been out of print most of my lifetime. Nonsense. Madness. The short stories at least have been recently reprinted by Valancourt Books (though with a terrible cover — sorry, John’s not a beardo), so this week I want to raise the profile of the novels. There were five, written for Doubleday and published expressly for the Science Fiction Book Club (I believe). There were paperbacks of some (Most? All?I’m not sure) in the mid-‘80s, but they’ve not been reprinted until the 2023 Complete John the Balladeer from Haffner, a pricey two-volume set.
This is the first, The Old Gods Waken (1979), which sees John get involved in a squabble between neighbors that winds up masking a sinister agenda involving druids, messing with ancient powers and, if John’s too late to the rescue, human sacrifice. The Raven Mockers, evil spirits from Cherokee folklore, play a memorable part.
The details, fun though they may be, are secondary to the feel of the thing. John is just so damn likable and pleasant, even with folks who don’t deserve the consideration, like the pair of druid brothers. There isn’t ever a real sense that John can fail, its his very nature to pick out a song on his silver-stringed guitar and find a solution, or a friend who can help out (in this case, a Cherokee medicine man/social scientist). John’s inner goodness just sees him through and that makes these stories both delightful and odd. You get a real sense of Appalachia, of the rhythm of the speech. These aren’t really horror stories, or fantasy (though John is 100% the template for the D&D Bard) but more warm-hearted adventure stories. I can’t even complain about the druids being such comical, one-note villains.
Michael Flanagan did the cover. Spooky!
