Jeff’s Reviews > Pandemonium Waltz > Status Update

"Into the Copse: Kelly Link Asks, Jeffrey Ford Answers": 2/5 - aside from the brief, apocryphal background on writing a few of his stories and references to smoking joints and doing a special writing dance, not much to offer. Ford is charming and his humor carries this section as far as it will go, but it comes off as a little self-indulgent and very anticlimactic after the final entry in the collection.

"The world spins ever onward, dust to dust, rust to rust, rarely just. The administration of my duties is usually dispassionate and curt. I will admit to a few licks of malice through the centuries. When you have the power of a god, it’s so easy not to do the right thing."

Ford at his best--fantastic and vivid, but quietly profound and relatable.

"The Adjutant's Dinner Guest": 4/5 - a good anti-war monster story. A little abbreviated, with just enough exposition before a brief, baffling dose of horror.

His name was Misrimol Piliteen and he was one agitated adjutant.

"Plunged in the Years": 4/5 - a story that doesn't have much significance until the end, but wields undeniable power, about how a person can be haunted by their own sense of obligation, especially in regard to family and the things they didn't do.

"Cold Blooded": 5/5 - when I think creature stories, my mind first goes to authors like Josh Malerman, Jeff Strand, maybe Stephen Graham Jones. But Jeffrey Ford took the idea of the cheesy cryptid hunter television series and wrote the story every horror fan needed. It has that signature Ford flair, with a little noir and a little humor infusion. Such a great contrast against Nat Cassidy's upcoming collection.

"...there’s a Frogman running around Ohio in a white tank top and Doc Martins, kind of a green skinned Edward G. Robinson, strong arming nitwits out of their Netflix dreams?”

Yes. That.

Faking a cryptid sighting is such a great plot for a story.

"The Visitation": 5/5 - A casually brilliant Christmas horror story. As an author, Ford is the magician telling the audience how he'll do the trick, then performing it in front of your eyes, and you're still mystified. Yet another take on the theme of "whose story is this?"

"The Golden Hour": 5/5 - what begins as the small town curiosity of a man who claims to be a time-traveler transforms into a story about the nature of ideas and the creation of fiction. Charming, authentic, undeniable.