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Title: The Old Gods Waken
Series: Silver John #1
Author: Manly Wade Wellman
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Pages: 161
Words: 57K
First off, I have no idea what genre to call this. I was going to go with “Folk Fantasy” because it really felt like the hillbilly cousin of Urban Fantasy, but this stuff by Wellman hit the scene long before UF was ever a thing. I was looking through my tags and saw “Paranormal”. That definitely fits, as we’re dealing with druids, blood demons, ancient indian spirits and mountains demons of the Appalachia. I tagged on “Fantasy” just to make it official. None of this magical realism garbage that authors today use as a crutch because they can’t tell a good story.
Very, very, very low key. John, who plays a guitar with silver strings (hence the series name of Silver John), hooks up with an indian chief/shaman and they attempt to take down the bad guys who are bringing the bad juju to the region. But there’s no wild spell battles or fights, just John and the shaman pushing on through the various barriers erected by the two druid brothers. It’s almost more of a catalog of what is useful against Magic X, Y or Z. Considering there is pagan druidism, indian mysticism and straight up devil black magic, there’s a lot of choices to use and to counter. The ending is pretty anti-climactic too. John furrows the ground with an iron plow and that brings lightning because of some old curse and voila, all the bad guys get crispy fried to nothingness. It is like watching two fighters who are locked down and can only fight each other with their fingers. Every move is small but significant.
I remember seeing some of these Silver John books in our library back in the early 90’s and they were iconic enough to stick in my head ever since. Never read them, but I saw them. Pictures have power. So I’m including the full size cover here for your viewing pleasure.
★★★☆☆
From the Publisher
Synopsis – click to open
In the wilds of Southern Appalachia, lies Wolter Mountain—a sacred place for the Indians and for their predecessors. But the land atop the mountaintop, taken over by two Englishmen, Brummitt and Hooper Voth, is undergoing frightening changes.
Strange and evil rumblings begin to happen around the mountain—man-like creatures prowling around, mysterious voices reciting evil incantations that terrorize Luke and Creed Forshay who live at the foot of the mountain. Then a wandering minstrel, known only as John, learns that the Yoths are Old World druids who are hell-bent on reawakening the pre-Indian spirits that sleep at the summit of Wolter Mountain. Armed with his own arsenal of personal powers, John and an Indian medicine man must fight their way through the druids’ sorcerous defenses to rescue their friends from certain death at the hands of the blood sacrificing priests.
