Who Fears the Devil?
Who Fears the Devil?
Manly Wade Wellman (Paizo Publishing, 2010)
Paizo Publication’s Planet Stories has brought forth another collection of the kind of grand and weird fantasy that the chain bookstores want to keep hidden from you. Who Fears the Devil?, the complete tales of Manly Wade Wellman’s “John the Balladeer” character, is one of the Planet Stories volumes I’ve most anticipated; there’s no other fantasy character quite like John, and no one else but Wellman could have created him. He’s a contemporary fantasy hero who uses folk songs instead of swords, and faces wonders from the mountain legendry of Appalachia. He’s part Weird Tales, a touch of Unknown, plus Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash.
Also called “Silver John” in promotional material because he strings his guitar with silver, but always simply referred to as “John” within the stories, Wellman’s hero is a variant on the bard of the Middle Ages who wanders the contemporary Appalachians. Or semi-contemporary; the setting is really a fantasy land based on Wellman’s love of Appalachian folklore and the spirit of its musical tradition. In the stories readers will occasionally encounter cars, trucks, air travel, and mention of John’s Korean War service, but most of the time they will find it easy to imagine that this is an Appalachia frozen in the nineteenth century, when stories and songs at the hearthside were thinly veiled truths about wizards, witch-folk, and strange beasts.
John’s songs help combat evil, as do the silver strings on his guitar. (One of the few problems I have with the stories is that the “silver against supernatural” concept turns up a few times too many.) John not only sings the ballads, he’s a collector, and in some of the stories (“The Little Black Train,” “Vandy, Vandy”) his search for old ballads brings him into the action. “Call me a truth seeker,” he tells one curious inquirer, “somebody who wonders himself about riddles and life.” When then asked if he’s a “conjure man,” he answers: “Not me… I’ve met up with that sort in my time, helped put two-three of them out of mischief. Call that part of what I follow.”
Rogue Blades Entertainment, publisher of fine fantasy anthologies such as Return of the Sword and Rage of the Behemoth, announced a special promotion on some of their newest titles in the pages of Black Gate 14.
One of the most promising new game systems I reviewed in Black Gate 14 was used for the pulp role-playing game 
Lady Nyla was once rich and powerful. Now she lived in a hut on a lonely road. But tonight the Mother Goddess gave her back a measure of her old power — to set her against a terrible foe.
In February we 
Midwinter
For the next two weeks Mr. Goth Chick and I are out of town, for what will sound to everyone else like a really normal vacation. But you lot know better.
