Reviews

• Darkly stimulating

  Jeffrey Ford is a master of literary dark fiction - he takes you places you never imagined.

• 5a colección de relatos de Jeffrey Ford

  Jeffrey Ford vuelve a publicar otra colección de relatos cortos de fantasía oscura, terror. No me gustó tanto como las demás colecciones debido a que algunos de los relatos son "homenajes" a autores clásicos de la literatura ingles. Pero los relatos que son 100% Ford brillan por su originalidad e impacto. Si fuera el primer libro del autor que leyera le pondría las 5 estrellas, pero como he leído las antologías anteriores lo comparo y afortunadamente el listón esta muy elevado.

• Fantastic Stories

  In a literary world compartmentalised into genres and sub-genres, how would you categorise a book where supernatural is merely a cloak for exploration of human evil, its consequences, and the payback? Perhaps fantasy would be the most overarching term for such literature. So, is the book under discussion a fantasy? I don't know. But one thing I can say for sure. It's fantastic. Regrettably devoid of a preface which should have graced this book, we have the following stories therein: 1. The Blameless: In an amicable neighbourhood families are invited to witness an exorcism. What happens next? This story was sweet, sharp, smart, and an ideal opener. 2. Word Doll: Dolls are creepy. And when a doll is used to keep someone going on & on & on... Scary one, despite its cozy tone. 3. The Angel Seems: Bound to be burnt, in the Bible Belt and other places inclined towards inquisition-like stuff. This was the best story in the collection. 4. Mount Chary Galore: Magical, tragic, and absolutely brutal in its pithy depiction of guilt & punishment. 5. A Natural History of Autumn: Can horror stories be sublime in their beauty, pain, and remorseless nature? Yes, they can be. This one is a classic example. 6. Blood Drive: Encapsulated within a satire and dark comedy, this story is a very real, very disturbing look at the changing shape of United States of America. 7. A Terror: Did the enigmatic poet Emily Dickinson meet death once? What did she do? A riveting story, this one was unputdownable. 8. Rocket Ship to Hell: A Practical Joke? A loving 'take' on SF fandom? An enigma? Read it to find out. 9. The Fairy Enterprise: Another short, sharp tale of comeuppance. 10. The Last Triangle: A proper mystery, along with a journey towards redemption. 11. Spirits of Salt: A Tale of the Coral Heart: Another exceptional story that wears the disguise of sword & sorcery, but in reality is of a different league altogether. 12. The Thyme Fiend: The story was overlong and underwhelming. Got bored, frankly. 13. The Prelate's Commission: Another brilliant, cleverly constructed star that concluded the collection neatly. I would be going for more books by Jeffrey Ford. That's confirmed. Recommended, obviously.

• Another Fine Collection of Tales

  Jeffrey Ford is one of the most consistently creative writers working today, and his fourth collection bears this out just as well as the three collections that preceded it. Ford's collections are unique in that they often carry a unified approach to atmosphere and tone, but the stories themselves are eclectic and defy genre classification. This fine book engages with some weighty questions--about life and mortality, and faith and the afterlife. A Natural History of Hell is filled with dark and surreal tales that blend horror with fantasy. They combine mythology with realism and throw in a twist of literary history and some metafiction for variety. Always, though, these stories leave an impression for their precision in the writing and the depth of their imaginative qualities. Ford's prose is compulsively readable while maintaining a style that--while unique to him and his work--tips a nod to some of the classic literary writers of the twentieth century. This is literary fiction, to be sure, but it's also wonderfully strange and dark at the same time...in short, these stories would be just as home in Nightmare Magazine as they would be in the pages of The New Yorker. "The Blameless" had me laughing out loud, and then I shared it with my wife and saw the same reaction. Keen eye for observational detail makes this surreal little tale from suburbia a real gem... "Word Doll" is flat-out unnerving. The folkloric heart of the story and the characters in this piece will get under your skin... "Blood Drive" is wicked-sharp cultural satire that, sadly, feels all too close to reality in some areas of public life... "Rocket Ship to Hell" is endearing and strange and perfectly metafictional Ford at its best... "The Last Triangle" is another tale with an undercurrent of dark magic and creeping dread... "The Thyme Fiend" captures time and place perfectly, and poor Emmett's torment is palpable as the tale unfolds... Ford's latest collection is another fine book. Each story is memorable, and I couldn't bring myself to finish it while waiting for an oil change yesterday. I saved "The Prelate's Commission" until I could get home and enjoy it properly. Like a fine glass of red wine or a savory steak, these stories are meant to be enjoyed and experienced. I'll be re-reading this collection soon...

• And so with time’s deep breath…

  And so with time’s deep breath… A substantive work that flows delightfully through the mind with all its forking Fordisms and desiccated salt-visions. Except the threads are not hemp but smoky swirls of inhaled thyme and cups of thyme tea to help assuage the demons. The work is about a 14 year old boy who needs such hits of thyme, and a bike, to broaden his horizons and defend his own sapling defences, and eventually a girl to hold his hand, as he and then both of them are faced with visitations from the retributory toothless dead between its sporadic farming farms in Hell. Spurned by the villagefolk (some guiltier than others, we suspect) for his seeming obsessive peculiarities, the boy persists along justice’s long journey, when he eventually sees, we hope, the light at the end of his erstwhile life’s dark tunnel. But whither or whence, such light? We all have that question to answer, triangulated, as we ever shall be, by Hell, Heaven and Hiraeth. Or so, sometimes with vivid frights, this major threaded yarn portends. The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here. Above is one of its observations at the time of the review

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