Super-duper Yuletide squee!
Dec. 26th, 2009 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vulgarweedMy Yuletide present is 200% 24-carat awesomesauce.
I was afraid that, even by Yuletide small/obscure fandom standards, I was pushing my luck asking for some of the stuff on my list.
I got a Manly Wade Wellman Silver John story!
Manly Wade Wellman is my favorite totally underrated weird-tales/fantasy/horror writer; his works draw on a deep, deep knowledge of Southern Appalachian history, culture, and folklore (he also wrote a ton of non-fiction about the region). He did for that area something like what Lovecraft did for New England (but without the nihilism and racism). And the music! I'm very, very picky about music in semi-contemporary fantasy...there are a couple of highly-recommended books I just couldn't get through because they had bands I didn't believe in. I believe in Silver John, though. Oh yes I do. He was too clever and wily to let that Alan Lomax catch him.
And this Yuletide story is a long, incredibly well-written tale that is so totally in the voice of the original, and brings the John mythos up into the modern day with a dying coal town and a college-educated returnee's attempt to save it...and what they're up against.
Way Down in the Mines
Go read it! Please! Give this writer some love!
I was afraid that, even by Yuletide small/obscure fandom standards, I was pushing my luck asking for some of the stuff on my list.
I got a Manly Wade Wellman Silver John story!
Manly Wade Wellman is my favorite totally underrated weird-tales/fantasy/horror writer; his works draw on a deep, deep knowledge of Southern Appalachian history, culture, and folklore (he also wrote a ton of non-fiction about the region). He did for that area something like what Lovecraft did for New England (but without the nihilism and racism). And the music! I'm very, very picky about music in semi-contemporary fantasy...there are a couple of highly-recommended books I just couldn't get through because they had bands I didn't believe in. I believe in Silver John, though. Oh yes I do. He was too clever and wily to let that Alan Lomax catch him.
And this Yuletide story is a long, incredibly well-written tale that is so totally in the voice of the original, and brings the John mythos up into the modern day with a dying coal town and a college-educated returnee's attempt to save it...and what they're up against.
Way Down in the Mines
Go read it! Please! Give this writer some love!
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Date: 2009-12-27 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-27 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-28 04:45 am (UTC)Given that John is now trotting around in the 21st century without discernibly ageing, I can only assume that he's like Leslie Charteris' Saint and is secretly some sort of supernatural being. The Saint was (obviously) the son of a trickster deity (Hermes would be my guess), but John's ancestry is a bit murkier. I'd guess him to be the offspring of some major genius loci, given his very strong connection to that particular region.