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The Best of Jeffrey Ford
These are Jeffrey Ford's personal selections spanning the decades of his career and representing his many styles genre hybrids, literary approaches to SF/F/H tropes, forays into the New Weird as one of its early practitioners, realist-auto biographical/fantastic/ horror mash-ups, and straight-on fantasy stories. Ford is at home across the map of speculative fiction but is tied to, and claims allegiance to, no country.
If you are looking for a collection in which every story is a window on a new world, this book is for you. Within these pages, you ll visit with the mythic jinmenkins of Japan (dogs with human heads), the great poet of Amherst, Emily Dickinson, the Beautiful Gelreesh, a monster of sympathy, a young man who suffers from a rare form of synaesthesia, Stoodtladdle, the enormous flea mayor of Exo-skeleton town, and Charon, the boatman of Hell. You will travel to strange locales a bottled city, under the bottom of the lake, the Hotel Lacrimose, and the Idiot Planet. In the words of Joyce Carol Oates: Jeffrey Ford is a beautifully disorienting writer, a poet in an unclassifiable genre his own.
This volume includes an entirely new tale (Mr. Sacrobatus), an eloquent note on each story, and brilliant header sketchesby Derek Ford, the noted fantastic artist and son of Jeffrey Ford.
If you are looking for a collection in which every story is a window on a new world, this book is for you. Within these pages, you ll visit with the mythic jinmenkins of Japan (dogs with human heads), the great poet of Amherst, Emily Dickinson, the Beautiful Gelreesh, a monster of sympathy, a young man who suffers from a rare form of synaesthesia, Stoodtladdle, the enormous flea mayor of Exo-skeleton town, and Charon, the boatman of Hell. You will travel to strange locales a bottled city, under the bottom of the lake, the Hotel Lacrimose, and the Idiot Planet. In the words of Joyce Carol Oates: Jeffrey Ford is a beautifully disorienting writer, a poet in an unclassifiable genre his own.
This volume includes an entirely new tale (Mr. Sacrobatus), an eloquent note on each story, and brilliant header sketchesby Derek Ford, the noted fantastic artist and son of Jeffrey Ford.
562 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2020
5 people are currently reading
186 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey Ford
242 books515 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 17, 2021
4.5 estrellitas
No se lleva las 5 estrellas porque hay algún cuento que no me convence del todo, pero, en mi opinión, es una antología casi redonda y una inmejorable manera de descubrir (o releer, como ha sido en mi caso) gran parte de lo mejorcito de la ficción breve de este autor fundamental dentro del género fantástico. Además es francamente variada: desde ciencia ficción a fantasía muy oscura, pasando por casi todos los subgéneros intermedios; con lo que seguro que todo el mundo encuentra alguna historia de su agrado. Y además hay media docena de relatos que me parecen maravillosos. Recomendabilísima. Y encima esta edición física es preciosa.
No se lleva las 5 estrellas porque hay algún cuento que no me convence del todo, pero, en mi opinión, es una antología casi redonda y una inmejorable manera de descubrir (o releer, como ha sido en mi caso) gran parte de lo mejorcito de la ficción breve de este autor fundamental dentro del género fantástico. Además es francamente variada: desde ciencia ficción a fantasía muy oscura, pasando por casi todos los subgéneros intermedios; con lo que seguro que todo el mundo encuentra alguna historia de su agrado. Y además hay media docena de relatos que me parecen maravillosos. Recomendabilísima. Y encima esta edición física es preciosa.
December 26, 2020
The Best of Jeffrey Ford - a beautifully presented book containing a handpicked assortment of stories by the author as well as associated notes.
Ratings below:
1999 - At Reparita - 5
2000 - Exo Skeleton Town - 6
2001 - The Honeyed Knot - 6
2002 - Creation - 7
2002 - Bright Morning - 8
2003 - The Beauth Gelreesh - 7
2003 - The Empire of Ice Cream - 7
2004 - The Annals of Eelin Kor - 7
2005 - A Boatmans Holiday - 7
2005 - A Man of Light - 6
2006 - The Night Whisky - 9
2007 - Under the Bottom of the Lake - 8
2007 - The Dreaming Wind - 7
2008 - Daltharee - 6
2008 - The Seventh Expression of the Robot General - 7
2008 - The Dismantled Invention of Fate - 5
2010 - 86 Deathdick Road - 6
2011 - Relic - 7
2011 - Daddy Long Legs of the Evening - 8
2012 - Blood Drive - 8
2012 - The Angel Seems - 7
2012 - A Natural History of Autumn - 7
2013 - A Terror - 8
2014 - Mount Chary Galore - 8
2015 - Word Doll - 8
2016 - The Blameless - 6
2019 - Mr Sacrobatus - 2
Ratings below:
1999 - At Reparita - 5
2000 - Exo Skeleton Town - 6
2001 - The Honeyed Knot - 6
2002 - Creation - 7
2002 - Bright Morning - 8
2003 - The Beauth Gelreesh - 7
2003 - The Empire of Ice Cream - 7
2004 - The Annals of Eelin Kor - 7
2005 - A Boatmans Holiday - 7
2005 - A Man of Light - 6
2006 - The Night Whisky - 9
2007 - Under the Bottom of the Lake - 8
2007 - The Dreaming Wind - 7
2008 - Daltharee - 6
2008 - The Seventh Expression of the Robot General - 7
2008 - The Dismantled Invention of Fate - 5
2010 - 86 Deathdick Road - 6
2011 - Relic - 7
2011 - Daddy Long Legs of the Evening - 8
2012 - Blood Drive - 8
2012 - The Angel Seems - 7
2012 - A Natural History of Autumn - 7
2013 - A Terror - 8
2014 - Mount Chary Galore - 8
2015 - Word Doll - 8
2016 - The Blameless - 6
2019 - Mr Sacrobatus - 2
March 2, 2026
An amazing writer with equally amazing ideas. There are some absolute stunners in this collection, which is not surprising, and there were some I just skimmed or skipped entirely. The latter usually had a creative seed but lacked a capable plot to bring a bloom to it, while the former were often simple or oft-used foundations that supported spectacular edifices of fictional construction. A few were passable, but doesn't every short story collection read similarly? A rather large-ish book, and the energy required to support its heft is well-used. Readers new to Ford should probably start with a novel or two, just to acclimate to his mindscapes.
July 16, 2020
Even if you have all Ford's previous collections, as I do, this is indispensable.
"Mr. Sacrobatus was not my favourite by a long measure. A hunched and hairy form, treacherous incisors, and a lack of light in the eyes. The fellow never trimmed his nails and he stunk like a mildewed love seat."
That's just the beginning of "Mr. Sacrobatus"-- first appearance, quite appropriately, in this Best Of.
The story notes are both generous and enlightening--a joy.
And Derek Ford's art is to drool for. I love his art, but more important than love is fit. He hasn't imposed but supported and enhanced.
"Mr. Sacrobatus was not my favourite by a long measure. A hunched and hairy form, treacherous incisors, and a lack of light in the eyes. The fellow never trimmed his nails and he stunk like a mildewed love seat."
That's just the beginning of "Mr. Sacrobatus"-- first appearance, quite appropriately, in this Best Of.
The story notes are both generous and enlightening--a joy.
And Derek Ford's art is to drool for. I love his art, but more important than love is fit. He hasn't imposed but supported and enhanced.
Read
February 3, 2024Exo-sekelton town
i cant stay and cant live
bug harsh old tired skin
death movie give hand to stoole what ramin
dicated of pain
thats not how we love
its strange story hit with a wind
chang skin in meet over stone
cold around and naked tree
we cut our skine
dielet the moon
forgot expet that movie
we lost in echo bridg
calm to gather what ramin
love strang to till
forget tired skin
i cant stay and cant live
bug harsh old tired skin
death movie give hand to stoole what ramin
dicated of pain
thats not how we love
its strange story hit with a wind
chang skin in meet over stone
cold around and naked tree
we cut our skine
dielet the moon
forgot expet that movie
we lost in echo bridg
calm to gather what ramin
love strang to till
forget tired skin
February 6, 2025
I randomly grabbed this book in a bookstore in DC and I’m so glad I did. Jeffrey Ford is truly a weird fiction writer. It is so rare to read stories that are simultaneously unsettling, laugh out loud funny, and surreal. His balance of all these elements is masterful.
March 10, 2026
Ford occupies a world all his own, exploring arcane worlds with his own literary flair. As with most short story collections this is a mixed bag, but it's a great bag well worth exploring.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews