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Rating: 
Summary: John the Balladeer
Review: An extraordinary collection of stories that is well worth reading. If you can find the long out of print paperback collection titled John the Balladeer, you'll find the same tales.Each one is a tale where right and justice prevail or perhaps, more accurately, where evil rebounds upon the practioner thereof. "O Ugly Bird!" is perhaps the most famous and is certainly a wonderful introduction to Silver John. "Vandy,Vandy" is among my favorites (yes, children, US quarters were made of silver at one time). "On the Hills and Everywhere" is a grand and too long ignored Christmas story. While somewhat dated, the hero of one story is a young college student just back from the Korean war, they're are all entertaining "backwoods yarns".
Rating:
Summary: John the Balladeer
Review: An extraordinary collection of stories that is well worth reading. If you can find the long out of print paperback collection titled John the Balladeer, you'll find the same tales. Each one is a tale where right and justice prevail or perhaps, more accurately, where evil rebounds upon the practioner thereof. "O Ugly Bird!" is perhaps the most famous and is certainly a wonderful introduction to Silver John. "Vandy,Vandy" is among my favorites (yes, children, US quarters were made of silver at one time). "On the Hills and Everywhere" is a grand and too long ignored Christmas story. While somewhat dated, the hero of one story is a young college student just back from the Korean war, they're are all entertaining "backwoods yarns".
Rating:
Summary: John's back, and he's still singing
Review: This 5th volume of the series has the same contents as the paperback version of John the Balladeer, even including the introduction, so unlike the first four volumes it won't be new material to most of Wellman's fans. It is nice to see John's stories in a binding befitting their quality, though. (One tiny niggle: I sort of wish they'd used silver instead of gilt on the cover of this one.) The series in general is well done, nicely bound, and brings together a lot of material that is both worth reading and otherwise difficult to find.
Rating:
Summary: Appalachian Gothic Gold
Review: Volume Five of John Pelen's THE SELECTED STORIES OF MANLY WADE WELLMAN rounds off the permanent edition of Wellman's short supernatural fiction with a complete collection of the popular Silver John the Balladeer tales originally published (mostly) in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. These deliciously spooky and atmospheric mood pieces combine the rich flavor of authentic regional folklore with Wellman's sterling imagination and storytelling gifts. Wellman was John Pelen is owed a debt of gratitude for this five-volume collection which establishes Wellman, who was one of the best of the original WEIRD TALES writers, in the ranks of such luminaries as Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft. Now if only someone would collect Wellman's several Silver John novels in such attractive form ...
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