Blog Archives
sA few years back, I wrote about Seabury Quinn’s “Roads” being my favorite Christmas story. My second favorite Christmas story is Manly Wade Wellman’s “On the Hills and Everywhere.” This is one of the John the Balladeer stories. Originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1956 issue and reprinted in Who […]
Manly Wade Wellman’s last novel, Cahena¸ was published posthumously in late 1986. I got my copy, again from Weinberg Book in early 1987. This was another Doubleday hardback. The spine on the dustjacket has “Doubleday Science Fiction.” I remember getting sucked in and blowing through the novel. Cahena is an historical novel set in North […]
It is almost Halloween which puts me in the mood for reading some macabre/weird/horror fiction. I bogged down this week reading Richard Laymon’s The Traveling Vampire Show. Time for some short fiction. My favorite macabre/weird/horror collections include Carl Jacobi’s Revelations in Black, Joseph Payne Brennan’s Nine Horrors and a Dream, and E. F. Benson’s Night […]
Sensor Sweep: Sudden Rescue, Solo, Stasis, H. Warner Munn
Monday , 28, May 2018 Sensor Sweep 9 CommentsBooks (Shadowridge Press): Available again for the first time in 45 years, Shadowridge Press is proud to present Manly Wade Wellman’s WORSE THINGS WAITING, one of the cornerstone short story collections in the fantasy and horror genres. Originally published by the legendary imprint Carcosa, Worse Things Waiting gathers 28 stories and two poems, selected from […]
Sensor Sweep: Ivy Frost, Rebel Songsters, Dying Earths, Tarzan, and Clark Ashton Smith
Monday , 30, April 2018 Sensor Sweep 3 CommentsPulp Fiction (Haffner Press): THE COMPLETE IVY FROST Donald Wandrei Introduction by D. H. Olson Cover by Raymond Swanland Decorated Endsheets 18 Double-page Chris Kalb-designed Chapter Spreads 700+ pageSmythe-sewn HardcoverPre-Order price: $45 Cinema (Pulp Catholic): I’m reviewing the old MCU films in preparations for Infinity War. The Star Wars fiasco of this past Christmas has me very concerned for […]
“The Little Black Train” by Manly Wade Wellman
Thursday , 15, March 2018 Book Review, Fiction, Short Fiction 4 Comments“Only thing is,” the mouth-harp man went on, “folks say the train runs on that track. Or it did. A black train runs some nights at midnight, they say, and when it runs a sinner dies.” While out on a walk, John the Balladeer is pulled into an outdoor party and asked to play. It’s […]
The glare and the clatter died at the same time throughout the Club Samedi. Even the buzzing crowd-noise suspended in expectation. Behind the orchestra sounded a gong. Once. Twice. Thrice… The master of ceremonies intoned: ‘Midnight. The witching hour. And Illyria!’ The gong chimed on to twelve and stopped. * * * […]
The Dai Sword, by Manly Wade Wellman
Thursday , 10, August 2017 Appendix N, Fiction, Short Fiction 8 Comments“…Let the scholar take steel, smelted according to the previous formula, and by his understanding skill beat, grind and sharpen it into a sword. Let it be engraved with the words and symbols ordained, and employed in the performance of mysteries. Let none touch, save those deserving…” * * * […]