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Wisp of a Thing, by Alex Bledsoe, Tor Books, 2013, $25.99
LOVE WHAT Alex Beldsoe is doing with his Tufa books, of which Wisp of a Thing is the second and latest. I see a thematic lineage between it and Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John (also known as John the Balladeer) stories.
There are plenty of differences. Wellman's character wandered North Carolina mountain country, while Bledsoe's books are set in the Smoky Mountains. Silver John was born in the early days of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, when short stories were still a mainstay of our field; these days it's the novel. Silver John's background was the last century; the Tufa books are very much set in the here and now. Because of all of this, there are differences in tone, as one might well expect.
But the themes of music and the mountains - and the magic in both -...