Spotted Online – Manly Wade Wellman’s “Who Fears the Devil?”

A few years ago, after reading The Hellboy Companion*, I found myself ordering a copy of Manly Wade Wellman’s Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens*, a collection of his John the Baladeer (Wikipedia) stories. Silver John, as he is known, is a roving modern day (mid-twentieth century modern that is) bard and monster . . . hunter isn’t the right word, but Silver John does have more than his fair share of experience with the unknown.

So what’s all that got to do with Wellman’s Who Fears the Devil* from Planet Stories? To put it simply, the book is an inexpensive collection of the Silver John stories and Genrebusters has a review for anyone at all interested in what’s in the book.

These are fun short stories set in a backwoods America and it’s great that they’re now in an inexpensive collection. I mean, I much prefer the hardcover collection I’ve got to the Planet Stories work, but I can fully admit that not everyone out there values a book’s binding and heft as much as I do.

I first read these stories about three years ago, but after rereading them earlier this year I set off to grab more of Wellman’s work. I can say that I completely agree with the reviewer’s closing line:

Discovering Wellman will surely be one of this year’s highlights, and I’m sure I’ll be reading him for many years to come.