Gain Your Copy The Selected Stories Of Manley Wade Wellman, Vol. 5: Owls Hoot In The Daytime, And Other Omens Written By Manly Wade Wellman Formatted As Paper Copy

get a little repetitive at times, Awesome and underrated horror / fiction / historical fiction writer from the South, This book of short stories is excellent, This collection contains all of Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John stories which are rooted in Appalachian folklore and are told by a captivating protagonist who battles evil with a song and sometimes with a silver quarter.
The narrator is simply wonderful,

As another reviewer pointed out, we are never in doubt that John will win, The charm comes in how the story is imbued with Appalachian flavor and the imaginative nature of the predicaments and evil that John faces,

These are really great and I don't understand how they are so little known, I'm just glad that I came across them myself finally, The stories in this volume are mostly from the's and comprise what may be considered Wellman's best work: his tales of Silver John, a wandering mountainman balladeer who hikes all over Appalachia mostly in the vicinity of Tennessee and North Carolina, toting his silverstringed guitar and encountering all manner of supernatural backwoods phenomena.
His aim, as stated by himself, is chiefly to "find out things", but also involves tracking down elusive folk songs rumored to be among the hills, This material would be enjoyable enough on its own, but it seems perfectly suited to an oral presentation, given that John himself narrates almost all of the stories, I'm no expert, but I enjoyed Brian Troxell's handling of the regional accents and Wellman's seemingly authentic vocabulary, Nothing here is especially terrifying, but John is definitely unique and endearing, and his adventures often spooky, Here we go. This volume collects all of sitelinkManly Wade Wellman's Silver John short stories he also wrote several Silver John novels, Silver John was probably sitelinkWellman's most enduring creation, and for very good reason, as these are some of sitelinkWellman's best stories, He captures the voice and tone of his backwoods characters beautifully, and the talltale qualities of the stories here are pitch perfect,

If you can only read one sitelinkWellman book, I'd recommend this one, PLACEHOLDER REVIEW: I don't own this, but as I'm reading a number of Wellman stories from their original magazine appearances, I needed a place to put the review,

"On the Hills and Everywhere" An atypical John story, as the only evil is that of human pride and anger, John tells a story at Christmas to his wife and kids I think about two neighbors who were strong friends until a misunderstanding between them caused a falling out.
Then, a wandering carpenter comes through asked to build a fence between the properties, he builds something else instead, A pleasant little fantasy story with a good moral,

"Nine Yards of Other Cloth" this is a solid little tale that deliberately wrongfoots you at the start you think John is being pursued by some malevolent something in the shape of a woman, but the story told in flashbacks eventually makes you realize otherwise.
In a cursed hollow currently inhabited by a young woman trying to escape a malevolent, spellcasting pursuer but previously occupied by an evil, cannibalistic spirit John is drawn into the conflict between the sweet woman and the magical fiddle player who deliberately lured John there.
Nice use, as always in these stories, of Appalachian folklore and magic traditions and the conflict between the man's black magic fiddle and John's silver stringed guitar is, while underplayed, interesting.
Even more interesting is the ending was there acknowledgment, from this point on, that John the eternal wanderer had a wife/lady love

In "The Little Black Train", John is invited to a barbecue party in a little valley, hosted by a woman notorious in the area for possibly having deliberately instigated a lover's death through jealousy although the law found her innocent.
That didn't stop a curse on her, encapsulated in the titular rural song, which lays out that a sinister black train of death will one day call for her.
So she had the train line through the valley torn up, and sleeps her way through the local populace her inheritance demands she never marry again and tonight she has her eye on John.
But John knows the song as well, and he and another fellow play it and add a new verse, and impossibly, . . the train with coffin cars can soon be heard approaching, A satisfying Silver John story, with a lot of really nice small details and, as usual, the occasional touch of unrelated folklore here, a wonderful bit about "day trees" and "night trees".
Good stuff. John the Balladeer is Wellman's most beloved creation, and I have to agree, that the nonassuming, drifter is definitely likable, though oftentimes I feel the stories could benefit from a little more tension, or perhaps some more cleverness of plot.


That drifting through on goodness and goodwill, however, is probably what sets John apart from the legion of "heroes combating evil," and I'd probably have enjoyed this more if I had spread out my intake even more than the "one story per weekend shopping trip for mom" schedule I was on during Covid.

One of the collections of Manly Wade Wellman stories from Audible, I've read a few Silver John stories before, but this is a nice, long collection, John is an interesting character, a man of faith who's not afraid to confront the supernatural in the mountains,

Made me want to pull my guitar out again and pretend I can sing, : This is the second time I've read this set of stories in the span of six monthsthe other edition was an illustrated softcover in Paizo's Planet Stories line, and this one finishes up Night Shade Books' "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman" series.
They're unique, startling, and in reading them after four other volumes of his fiction, the major achievement of Wellman's influential career, The supernatural adventures of a man and his silver stringed guitar, Fighting werewolves, witches, vampires, and telling a Christmas story that caught me completely by surprise, If you haven't read or heard any Silver John stories, give it a try, You will soon enjoy it, DNF Got throughstories not for me, Complete collection of Wellman's John the Balladeer short stories, presented in chronological order and in their original publication versions simple tales, often spooky and heartfelt, and told in an authentic vernacular full of artful phrasing you should ought read 'em.
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I did like this, It was exactly what I expected it to be, There were no surprises. You think the evil person is evil and they are, You think John will use daring and maybe a silver coin to get out of it again, and he does,

What plot doesn't express is Wellman's charm, His realistic Appalachian dialect and oldtimey manners, The real songs he weaves into the stories, The mild creepy build before the supernatural shows up, While the plots themselves aren't much, how well Wellman knows his people and how he handles the old tales really works, This, the fifth and final volume in Night Shade Books series of Wellman anthologies, contains all of the John stories, Johnaka Silver John, or John the Balladeeris probably the author's most famous creation, If you've read enough anthologies, you almost certainly know the character: a traveler of mountains and smalltown communities carrying a silverstringed guitar,

Karl Edward Wagner's Introduction promises this as the definitive collection, containing all of the stories from "O Ugly Bird!" through "Where Did She Wander" in publication order.
It's a treat to see the character's growth over time, Many of these were familiar to me from previous anthologies, but it's still a treat to read them all again back to back,

I don't know that I have a favorite, They're all special in their own way, If memory serves, "The Desrick On Yandro," was the first one I ever read, But I'd hate to rate it higher than, say, "Trill Coster's Burden," or, "The Little Black Train, " They're all good.

Rounding out the volume is a brief overview of Wellman's writing career by series editor, Gerald W, Page. The description of a brief encounter between Wellman and William Faulkner ! alone

is worth the price of this book all by itself,

This is a fitting capstone to an excellent series of Wellman reprints, Highly, highly recommended! A collection of short stories involving John Silver, the Appalachia mountains and the strange going ons that take place there, Modern folklore essentially.
The thematic elements were amazing, I felt like I was actually tracking through the backwoods with John, The stories made me ravenously curious about Appalachia, it's history and culture, Many times while reading I found myself stopping and looking up Appalachia music or Appalachia food,
While it was well written and the author is highly skilled, I did find the stories a bit samey after a while, It is difficult to put my finger on exactly why, because the plots were different, but somehow mostly similar, I think if I had not been reading the stories one after another perhaps I wouldn't notice,
This is one of those rare times where I think I would have enjoyed each story more if they were stretched out, Perhaps each one a novella, I enjoyed The Old Gods Waken more so for this reason,
The last few hours of this book I in fact had to push through and was more doing it just to finish rather than out of enjoyment,
I am still willing to read more of John's adventures in following books, but maybe after a bit of a break or perhaps reading it at a slower pace.
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