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Pandemonium Waltz
In Pandemonium Waltz, award-winning author Jeffrey Ford leads readers through a dizzying sequence of tales that blend fantasy, horror, and dark wonder with his trademark wit and literary grace.
From a traveling waltz exhibition whose performers might not be entirely human, to a sun-scorched hunt for a cannibal that unearths something far worse, to a splatter-slick monster hunt that exposes the fault lines of a divided America—Ford’s stories cross boundaries of genre and expectation. Each is a mirror turned slightly askew, revealing the marvelous and the monstrous just beyond the familiar frame.
Ford has long refused to choose between fantasy, science fiction, or horror, insisting instead that “somewhere down there, it all turns to bullshit.” The result is fiction that is fearless, unpredictable, and alive with imagination—a testament to storytelling itself and the spell it casts over those who listen. Pandemonium Waltz gathers some of Ford’s most haunting and exhilarating recent work: tales of metamorphosis, obsession, and the uneasy price of wonder.
From a traveling waltz exhibition whose performers might not be entirely human, to a sun-scorched hunt for a cannibal that unearths something far worse, to a splatter-slick monster hunt that exposes the fault lines of a divided America—Ford’s stories cross boundaries of genre and expectation. Each is a mirror turned slightly askew, revealing the marvelous and the monstrous just beyond the familiar frame.
Ford has long refused to choose between fantasy, science fiction, or horror, insisting instead that “somewhere down there, it all turns to bullshit.” The result is fiction that is fearless, unpredictable, and alive with imagination—a testament to storytelling itself and the spell it casts over those who listen. Pandemonium Waltz gathers some of Ford’s most haunting and exhilarating recent work: tales of metamorphosis, obsession, and the uneasy price of wonder.
278 pages, Paperback
First published February 11, 2026
About the author
Jeffrey Ford
250 books528 followersJeffrey Ford is an American writer in the Fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.
He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.
He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 19, 2026
A kaleidoscopic collection of imaginative, thought-provoking fiction, Pandemonium Waltz includes a variety of different genres and mashups that intermittently resemble the writing of Ray Bradbury or Haruki Murakami.
Ford's references are edgy and current, his metaphors are powerful and his imagery is indelible. Stories range from philosophical examinations of religious ritual to straightforward creature features, old west showdowns to cozy fantasies worthy of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Many of the stories deal with the relationship between an author and his work, and the question of whether he himself might be a character in some literary existence. All of them distinguished by Ford's signature sense of humor, pristine prose and mastery of historical detail. Readers that enjoyed A Natural History of Hell will be thrilled and satisfied in their return to this underworld of imagination.
When Jeffrey Ford asks if he can have this dance, there's only one answer.
Ford's references are edgy and current, his metaphors are powerful and his imagery is indelible. Stories range from philosophical examinations of religious ritual to straightforward creature features, old west showdowns to cozy fantasies worthy of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Many of the stories deal with the relationship between an author and his work, and the question of whether he himself might be a character in some literary existence. All of them distinguished by Ford's signature sense of humor, pristine prose and mastery of historical detail. Readers that enjoyed A Natural History of Hell will be thrilled and satisfied in their return to this underworld of imagination.
When Jeffrey Ford asks if he can have this dance, there's only one answer.
March 8, 2026
As I said in my review of Ford's previous collection, 'Big Dark Hole', he writes weird fiction that he seems to make up on the fly. I know he probably doesn't, but it reads like 'holy cow, what now?'
I've said he can be classified as a horror author, and that's especially true in this collection. There's a whole lot of eating and rending humans, including by other humans. Icky, creepy. Repellant enough to me that I don't like this collection as much as his others.
He's an imaginative writer though. There are some truly strange creatures (including cryptids you've never heard of). If you can stand some pretty grim body horror, you might want to check it out.
I've said he can be classified as a horror author, and that's especially true in this collection. There's a whole lot of eating and rending humans, including by other humans. Icky, creepy. Repellant enough to me that I don't like this collection as much as his others.
He's an imaginative writer though. There are some truly strange creatures (including cryptids you've never heard of). If you can stand some pretty grim body horror, you might want to check it out.
October 29, 2026
a strange collection of strange tales. a few of these i really liked -- in bludd, le madre del oro, the golden hour, the adjudant's dinner guest -- but for the most part i think they simply ended too abruptly; a deliberate choice by the author, but one that ultimately just didn't work for me. there's something very dreamlike in that, though, which i can appreciate even if i don't particularly care for it myself; so many of these start in media res, and just as frequently end, as dreams do, with little to no real resolution. the review that made me curious about this book described this as a collection of "porch stories," by which they meant "a kind of strange story unique to smaller towns that begins with the narrator and their friends sitting on a porch talking about the weird things that happen to them, lending a more personal feel to the proceedings;" which is an apt descriptor. we run the gamut here from ghost stories to horror to more typical weird fiction (if in a more modern setting than most i'm familiar with), some of them downright grotesque, others feeling more like fairy tales. overall an interesting collection, and i might have enjoyed it more if i hadn't also just finished "throne of bones." as it stands i found this compelling, just not quite compelling enough.
April 18, 2026
Reading "Pandemonium Waltz" by Jeffrey Ford felt less like reading through a typical short story collection and more like wandering through a labyrinth of vivid, half-remembered dreams. The collection boasts a wildly eclectic mix of genres beautiful, unsettling, and occasionally disorienting, each story pulling me deeper into its unique atmosphere. Some didn't quite land, but that unpredictability kept me reading and wondering what kind of story would come next.
A few stories stand out. The title piece, “Pandemonium Waltz," delivered that mesmerising blend of fascination and unease while “In Bludd” offered a surreal journey with floating heads. Others felt more understated but still packed a punch emotionally, as Ford seamlessly shifts across genres from thrillers to horror to the downright bizarre.
Admittedly, I didn’t connect with every story. Some left me feeling slightly lost, as if I was missing something. However, rather than frustration, I found this uncertainty strangely inviting, a deliberate choice by Ford to encourage reflection.
In the end, I enjoyed this collection more with time, discovering its depth and mood-long after I finished reading. It’s not for everyone, especially those craving straightforward storytelling, but for me, "Pandemonium Waltz" was a rich, memorable journey, an experience that creates moods and images long after the last page.
A few stories stand out. The title piece, “Pandemonium Waltz," delivered that mesmerising blend of fascination and unease while “In Bludd” offered a surreal journey with floating heads. Others felt more understated but still packed a punch emotionally, as Ford seamlessly shifts across genres from thrillers to horror to the downright bizarre.
Admittedly, I didn’t connect with every story. Some left me feeling slightly lost, as if I was missing something. However, rather than frustration, I found this uncertainty strangely inviting, a deliberate choice by Ford to encourage reflection.
In the end, I enjoyed this collection more with time, discovering its depth and mood-long after I finished reading. It’s not for everyone, especially those craving straightforward storytelling, but for me, "Pandemonium Waltz" was a rich, memorable journey, an experience that creates moods and images long after the last page.
Read
May 18, 2026I’m going to do that thing again. I’m going to tell you that I own a shitload of Jeffrey Ford’s novels and collections and have only read a small fraction. I’m then going to add that I feel guilty about not having read more and that picking up Pandemonium Waltz is partly an attempt to address this imbalance. I’ll also make some hand-wavy remark that, having loved Pandemonium Waltz, I intend to read more Ford. But you know, and I know, that if I do, it won’t be anytime soon—and this is despite you (who have obviously read more Ford than I have) recommending his best work in the comments.
So, now that we’ve got past all that, yes, Pandemonium Waltz is a terrific sample (more than a sample) of the sort of dark, disturbing, frequently violent, often surrealist horror fiction that Ford has been writing for decades. A story I’d read previously, “Gate 9”*, is the perfect example of Ford merging horror with the absurd. A father rushing between airport terminals loses his five-year-old daughter in the women’s toilet. She goes in and never comes out. Ford recognises that a parent losing a child isn’t just frightening, it’s a moment of instability, where reality fractures. He runs with that, taking “Gate 9” and the unnamed father to unexpected, disturbing places.
I loved the stories featuring Ford and his highly competent and brave wife, Lyn. The opening story, “Pretty Good Neighbor”, starts with Jeff asking his neighbour, Phil,** if he’s heard any good ghostly tales. In return, Phil offers up a “true story” about how he and his cousin Donny were dragged into a robbery that took them deep into the New Jersey wetlands and an encounter with the creatures that live there. It’s a perfect shaggy dog tale with dollops of gore. We get to see Lyn in action in the rollicking “Beautiful Dreamer”,*** where she and Jeff face off against a genetically engineered creature that produces a gas that triggers vivid dreams. It’s an enormous amount of fun.
It’s not all about Ford and his wife (although a collection of just their stories would be awesome). Ford isn’t afraid to get metafictional with pieces like “A Hundred Nights of Nothing”, where a writer’s fictional characters hang out in an old bar (The Cauldron), plotting the writer’s demise. He can also be very funny, as with “In Bludd”, which centres on the fraught relationship between Hartly and his servant Abelard—a flying head with bat wings—whom Hartly uses to spy on the women he loves. Then there’s the collection’s final story, “God of Ghosts”, which starts as a quirky tale about spectral bureaucracy, where the titular protagonist spends eternity shepherding spirits to the afterlife, but transforms into something far more delicate, tender and tragic.
If all that hasn’t convinced you, here are some opening sentences:
“I had a lot of questions and a few observations about the king of the squirrels. Right off the bat, it struck me as peculiar that the king of the squirrels wasn’t even a squirrel. It was a guy—Nad Werkly.” (“Born Blind”)
“When he finally got arrested, Victor Giden was found in a room with a smoldering hibachi and three bodies in various stages of consumption—one a young woman, Margery Sample, who was a neighbor on his street.” (“Seasons Out of Time”)
“I sat with the time traveler in the apple orchard behind his lodgings at the Coach and Four.” (“The Golden Hour”)
And to top it all off, there’s a neat interview between Ford and Kelly Link.
Come on. Don’t be like me. Don’t regret not having read more Jeffrey Ford!****
*It originally appeared in Conjunctions 78.
**Phil is really Ford’s neighbour!
***I also love how both “Pretty Good Neighbor” and “Beautiful Dreamer” start on the front porch. The quintessential American location for all tall stories.
****I heartily recommend a recent episode of the Coode Street podcast where Jonathan and Gary have Ford on as a guest. He is a blast.
So, now that we’ve got past all that, yes, Pandemonium Waltz is a terrific sample (more than a sample) of the sort of dark, disturbing, frequently violent, often surrealist horror fiction that Ford has been writing for decades. A story I’d read previously, “Gate 9”*, is the perfect example of Ford merging horror with the absurd. A father rushing between airport terminals loses his five-year-old daughter in the women’s toilet. She goes in and never comes out. Ford recognises that a parent losing a child isn’t just frightening, it’s a moment of instability, where reality fractures. He runs with that, taking “Gate 9” and the unnamed father to unexpected, disturbing places.
I loved the stories featuring Ford and his highly competent and brave wife, Lyn. The opening story, “Pretty Good Neighbor”, starts with Jeff asking his neighbour, Phil,** if he’s heard any good ghostly tales. In return, Phil offers up a “true story” about how he and his cousin Donny were dragged into a robbery that took them deep into the New Jersey wetlands and an encounter with the creatures that live there. It’s a perfect shaggy dog tale with dollops of gore. We get to see Lyn in action in the rollicking “Beautiful Dreamer”,*** where she and Jeff face off against a genetically engineered creature that produces a gas that triggers vivid dreams. It’s an enormous amount of fun.
It’s not all about Ford and his wife (although a collection of just their stories would be awesome). Ford isn’t afraid to get metafictional with pieces like “A Hundred Nights of Nothing”, where a writer’s fictional characters hang out in an old bar (The Cauldron), plotting the writer’s demise. He can also be very funny, as with “In Bludd”, which centres on the fraught relationship between Hartly and his servant Abelard—a flying head with bat wings—whom Hartly uses to spy on the women he loves. Then there’s the collection’s final story, “God of Ghosts”, which starts as a quirky tale about spectral bureaucracy, where the titular protagonist spends eternity shepherding spirits to the afterlife, but transforms into something far more delicate, tender and tragic.
If all that hasn’t convinced you, here are some opening sentences:
“I had a lot of questions and a few observations about the king of the squirrels. Right off the bat, it struck me as peculiar that the king of the squirrels wasn’t even a squirrel. It was a guy—Nad Werkly.” (“Born Blind”)
“When he finally got arrested, Victor Giden was found in a room with a smoldering hibachi and three bodies in various stages of consumption—one a young woman, Margery Sample, who was a neighbor on his street.” (“Seasons Out of Time”)
“I sat with the time traveler in the apple orchard behind his lodgings at the Coach and Four.” (“The Golden Hour”)
And to top it all off, there’s a neat interview between Ford and Kelly Link.
Come on. Don’t be like me. Don’t regret not having read more Jeffrey Ford!****
*It originally appeared in Conjunctions 78.
**Phil is really Ford’s neighbour!
***I also love how both “Pretty Good Neighbor” and “Beautiful Dreamer” start on the front porch. The quintessential American location for all tall stories.
****I heartily recommend a recent episode of the Coode Street podcast where Jonathan and Gary have Ford on as a guest. He is a blast.
June 2, 2026
Jeffrey Ford is one of those writers who, no matter what coat you hand him—science fiction, fantasy, dark fable, or horror, he slips it over his shoulders and it fits him like a couture design. This collection leans darker than some of his other work, and as the opening tale promises, Pandemonium Waltz is a collection of “a ghost story and then some.”
My favorites of the line-up include:
- “Gate 9,” which sucked me in immediately as a regular flyer. When the protagonist’s daughter [literally] disappears in an airport ladies room, the travel anxiety is turned up to terror
- “Beautiful Dreamer,” a narrative portmanteau of creature feature and political satire
- “Seasons Out of Time,” an American Cannibal tale set in the 1970s, in the heart of gas price crises and serial killer chic
- “The Visitation,” a holiday superstition that turns horrifically surreal with a side note that it is “pretty amazing how easily you can vacuum up death.”
But the absolute crowning glory of this collection is “A Hundred Nights of Nothing,” which is, in a word, genius. This allegory stars a writer whose characters reside at “an old bar, The Cauldron, in the moonlit pocket of [his] brain,” standing by until the author calls them forth. What happens, however, when they grow sick of waiting? This is one of the best short stories I have read in years, and it is worth buying the collection for this tale alone (especially as a writer).
My favorites of the line-up include:
- “Gate 9,” which sucked me in immediately as a regular flyer. When the protagonist’s daughter [literally] disappears in an airport ladies room, the travel anxiety is turned up to terror
- “Beautiful Dreamer,” a narrative portmanteau of creature feature and political satire
- “Seasons Out of Time,” an American Cannibal tale set in the 1970s, in the heart of gas price crises and serial killer chic
- “The Visitation,” a holiday superstition that turns horrifically surreal with a side note that it is “pretty amazing how easily you can vacuum up death.”
But the absolute crowning glory of this collection is “A Hundred Nights of Nothing,” which is, in a word, genius. This allegory stars a writer whose characters reside at “an old bar, The Cauldron, in the moonlit pocket of [his] brain,” standing by until the author calls them forth. What happens, however, when they grow sick of waiting? This is one of the best short stories I have read in years, and it is worth buying the collection for this tale alone (especially as a writer).
April 7, 2026
There were numerous stories I enjoyed in this collection, my favorites being Gate 9 (truly horrific) and A Hundred Nights of Nothing. There were also numerous stories I didn’t particularly enjoy, like Beautiful Dreamer which left me feeling like I’d just been swept through a really bad accident of a story.
Overall this is a good collection and I felt that it was sort of a humorous and modern take on Harlan Ellison.
Overall this is a good collection and I felt that it was sort of a humorous and modern take on Harlan Ellison.
May 20, 2026
As always, Jeffrey Ford delivers with a bizarre, enticing collection of short stories in his signature conversational style that draws you in with a casual slight of hand to distract you from the nightmare creeping in the back door. I greatly enjoyed the entire offering—though I think “Beautiful Dreamer” is my favorite—and I’m looking forward to reading more of his backlist that I haven’t gotten to yet.
April 15, 2026
Ordered from publisher.
Ford has developed this one particular aesthetic that I just love, which somehow reminds me of Charles Baxter writing weird fiction: alter-ego versions of the writer and his wife, narrated in this funny, offhand tone, encountering monsters and beasts in...let's call it semi-unflappable manner. We've got a story narrated by a neighbor about his sketchy cousin that features low-level criminals ripping off the wrong house and getting taken to the swamp, where generations of rubbed-out victims are sort of coming back in monster form (funny, gross, also funny); there's the king-of-the-squirrels one, which goes for one of those mad-animal grossout vibes a la James Herbert, except wryly (opening sentence: "I had a lot of questions and a few observations about the king of the squirrels"); there's a weird blond-haired monster running amok, a weird western, a really funny and disturbing dystopian take where everything and everyone is Temu; a hilarious writer's-anxiety dream where his characters languish in a shoddy, noirish town, waiting for years to be called into service; another of these involves a local Ohio cryptid, which follows his usual fantasy/horror/noir/tall tale blend--some of these remind me, of all people, of Ring Lardner. I loved a bunch of these, which are off-kilter imaginative and unexpected, human and slangy, fake autofiction with monsters and a wink.
I do have to say that, especially given the really vivid full-color endpapers with which this is packaged, it's a shame that the proofing is so shoddy and slapdash; REALLY basic grammatical errors. Someone out there should just contact me, and I'll do it for free books.
Ford has developed this one particular aesthetic that I just love, which somehow reminds me of Charles Baxter writing weird fiction: alter-ego versions of the writer and his wife, narrated in this funny, offhand tone, encountering monsters and beasts in...let's call it semi-unflappable manner. We've got a story narrated by a neighbor about his sketchy cousin that features low-level criminals ripping off the wrong house and getting taken to the swamp, where generations of rubbed-out victims are sort of coming back in monster form (funny, gross, also funny); there's the king-of-the-squirrels one, which goes for one of those mad-animal grossout vibes a la James Herbert, except wryly (opening sentence: "I had a lot of questions and a few observations about the king of the squirrels"); there's a weird blond-haired monster running amok, a weird western, a really funny and disturbing dystopian take where everything and everyone is Temu; a hilarious writer's-anxiety dream where his characters languish in a shoddy, noirish town, waiting for years to be called into service; another of these involves a local Ohio cryptid, which follows his usual fantasy/horror/noir/tall tale blend--some of these remind me, of all people, of Ring Lardner. I loved a bunch of these, which are off-kilter imaginative and unexpected, human and slangy, fake autofiction with monsters and a wink.
I do have to say that, especially given the really vivid full-color endpapers with which this is packaged, it's a shame that the proofing is so shoddy and slapdash; REALLY basic grammatical errors. Someone out there should just contact me, and I'll do it for free books.
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