<div>The World Fantasy Award&ndash;winning collection from the architect of the Well-Built City Trilogy No matter how far into the realms of space and fantasy Jeffrey Ford&rsquo;s stories may venture, they have one trait in common: They&rsquo;re grounded in the universal. The Fantasy Writer&rsquo;s Assistant, Ford&rsquo;s debut collection, is no exception. &ldquo;Creation,&rdquo; which received the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story and a nomination for a Nebula Award, relates a boy&rsquo;s attempts to animate a man made of sticks and pebbles. Even as the creature&rsquo;s life fades along with the summer, its loneliness and yearning for contact are palpable. Other blends of the worldly and otherworldly are evident in &ldquo;Bright Morning,&rdquo; in which a man searches far and wide for a cursed Kafka book, and &ldquo;At Reparata,&rdquo; when the grief of a king over the death of his queen takes the form of a destructive moth that could overtake the entire kingdom. The Fantasy Writer&rsquo;s Assistant, its titular story another Nebula Award finalist, reveals Jeffrey Ford at his creative best. </div>

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The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

<div>A modern fable based on the labyrinths created by us all Belius has led a peaceful if not uneventful existence until now, as far as minotaurs&rsquo; lives go. He mostly keeps to his house, avoiding anyone outside of his family. Despite his human parents&rsquo; efforts to shield him from the potential hysteria of the townspeople, Belius hears about something beyond his home&rsquo;s walls, even beyond the town itself&mdash;something called the Wider World. He decides to explore this strange place where the possibilities far outnumber those of the mundane real world. Here, Belius has a chance to be the minotaur he has always wanted to be. He is joined by Vashti the owl and Pezimote the tortoise, creatures that provide the philosophical guidance he will need if he is to complete his physical and metaphysical journey. From World Fantasy Award winner Jeffrey Ford, The Cosmology of the Wider World is about the hopes, dreams, and visions we create for ourselves. This ebook includes an introduction by Jeff VanderMeer.</div>

The Cosmology of the Wider World

<div>Starting with the Nebula-winning title story, this &ldquo;outstanding&rdquo; fantasy collection by the author of Ahab&rsquo;s Return will have you &ldquo;entranced and delighted&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Few writers can extract as much enchantment from the mundane as award-winning author Jeffrey Ford. His talent for storytelling is readily evident in The Empire of Ice Cream, his collection of ordinary and extraordinary juxtapositions. The bittersweet Nebula Award&ndash;winning title story introduces a composer with synesthesia who finds the sound&mdash;and woman&mdash;of his dreams through a cup of coffee. Then there are the fairies that inhabit sandcastles in the fleeting moments before the inevitable rise of the tide. Ford populates this charmed collection with stories taken from his own life as well, including &ldquo;Botch Town,&rdquo; which finds him as a schoolboy, and &ldquo;The Trentino Kid,&rdquo; which recalls his experience digging for clams.</div>

The Empire of Ice Cream

<div>This &ldquo;wondrous&rdquo; collection of fantasy tales from Neil Gaiman, Patricia A. McKillip, and others &ldquo;is a treasure chest. Open it and revel in its riches&rdquo; (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). For this enchanting anthology&mdash;a World Fantasy Award finalist&mdash;editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling &ldquo;asked their contributors to reimagine F&auml;erie&rdquo; in the present day, or &ldquo;search its more dimly lit pathways,&rdquo; and the authors have responded with bountiful imagination. The title piece is a poem by Neil Gaiman, but most of the others are longer pieces, &ldquo;like shards of stories you want to hear more of.&rdquo; Jeffrey Ford &ldquo;limns the heartbreaking tale&rdquo; of fairies who live in sandcastles built by young children; Ellen Steiber&rsquo;s &lsquo;Screaming for Fairies&rsquo; &ldquo;sketches the lineaments of desire.&rdquo; Bruce Glassco &ldquo;finds a different voice for Tinkerbell and Captain Hook in &lsquo;Never Never.&rsquo;&rdquo; Tanith Lee&rsquo;s &lsquo;Elvenbrood&rsquo; tale is eerie and &ldquo;chilling.&rdquo; Gregory Maguire, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Patricia A. McKillip, and Emma Bull&rsquo;s stories all &ldquo;enchant&rdquo; and bewitch. Delia Sherman&rsquo;s &lsquo;CATNYP&rsquo; is &ldquo;both funny and deeply clever, warming the cockles of anyone who has ever had dealings with a research library, especially New York Public&rsquo;s&rdquo; (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). This companion volume to The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest is &ldquo;a rewarding choice for those who like the traditional with a twist&rdquo; (Booklist).</div>

The Faery Reel

<div>Drawing on the mythology of the Green Man and the power of nature, Neil Gaiman, Jane Yolen, and others serve up &ldquo;a tasty treat for fantasy fans&rdquo; (Booklist). There are some &ldquo;genuine gems&rdquo; in this &ldquo;enticing collection&rdquo; of fifteen stories and three poems, all featuring &ldquo;diverse takes on mythical beings associated with the protection of the natural world,&rdquo; most involving a teen&rsquo;s coming-of-age. Delia Sherman &ldquo;takes readers into New York City&rsquo;s Central Park, where a teenager wins the favor of the park&rsquo;s Green Queen.&rdquo; Michael Cadnum offers a &ldquo;dynamic retelling of the Daphne story.&rdquo; Charles de Lint presents an &ldquo;eerie, heartwarming story in which a teenager resists the lure&rdquo; of the faerie world. Tanith Lee roots her tale in &ldquo;the myth of Dionysus, a god of the Wild Wood.&rdquo; Patricia A. McKillip steeps her story in &ldquo;the legend of Herne, guardian of the forest. Magic realism flavors Katherine Vaz&rsquo;s haunting story. Gregory Maguire takes on Jack and the Beanstalk, and Emma Bull looks to an unusual Green Man&mdash;a Joshua tree in the desert&rdquo; (Booklist). These enduring works of eco-fantasy by some of the genre&rsquo;s most popular authors impart &ldquo;a real sense of how powerful nature can be in its various guises&rdquo; (School Library Journal). &ldquo;A treasure trove for teens and teachers exploring themes of ecology and folklore.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews &ldquo;The stories are well-written and manage to speak to both the intellect and the emotions.&rdquo; &mdash;SF Site</div>

The Green Man

<div>Winner of the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards: &ldquo;Twenty insanely inventive, hauntingly atmospheric and flat out coo coo for Cocoa Puffs stories&rdquo; (Hellnotes). A World Fantasy Award nominee, &ldquo;this anthology . . . is a collection of some of the most talented horror and speculative fiction authors writing today&rdquo; (BuzzFeed). It includes all-new stories by Laird Barron, Pat Cadigan, Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Ford, Ca&iacute;tlin R. Kiernan, Garth Nix, Michael Marshall Smith, Kaaron Warren, and other masters of all things spooky and suspenseful. In tales that crisscross the boundaries of fear and imagination&mdash;from a haunted courtyard in New Orleans to a remote Arctic research station&mdash;swamp monsters, pool-cleaning robots, and cannibalistic spirits wreak chaos and terror across the pages. You&rsquo;ll be invited to a prom where a psycho hides inside a sparkly dress or rented tux; on a trip aboard a train to a destination that teems with ghosts; and into the darkest recesses of a human mind, the most fertile ground for the blossoming of true evil. &ldquo;Datlow&rsquo;s &lsquo;experimental&rsquo; crowdfunded horror anthology is nicely unthemed. . . . This is an excellent anthology for horror fans, with a nice range of tones and styles and some intriguing new voices.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;[Fearful Symmetries] not only goes beyond expectations, it raises the bar high above into the horror heavens. . . . A melting pot of distinct voices and styles that leave you wanting more.&rdquo; &mdash;Hellnotes &ldquo;One of the best horror anthologies I&rsquo;ve ever read.&rdquo; &mdash;Thirteen O&rsquo;Clock</div>

Fearful Symmetries

<div>Expand your vision of what a fantasy story can be with tales by Peter S. Beagle, Lucius Shepard, Catherynne M. Valente, Paul Di Filippo, and others. Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology Inspired by the literary salons of eighteenth-century France, Salon Fantastique brings together renowned authors to create and share new tales that show the fantasy form at its best. The resulting stories form a conversation between established and emerging writers, historical and contemporary fiction, timeless folklore themes and the immediacy of modern politics, traditional linear narratives, and more experimental storytelling. Kicking off the collection is Delia Sherman&rsquo;s &ldquo;La F&eacute;e Verte,&rdquo; in which a nineteenth-century prostitute takes a lover among the other women in a Parisian bordello, a mysterious wraith who sees the past, present, and future. In Catherynne M. Valente&rsquo;s &ldquo;A Gray and Soundless Tide,&rdquo; a woman shelters a selkie and learns her tragic story, while in Paul Di Filippo&rsquo;s &ldquo;Femaville 29,&rdquo; a tsunami gives birth to a glorious new city rising from the imagination of children. In the intimate company of today&rsquo;s master fantasists, you&rsquo;ll be gifted with stories that will take the genre in directions you never could have imagined . . . &ldquo;Bring[s] together mostly new fantasy writers, most of them contributors to previous Datlow/Windling books and perhaps forming a distinct &lsquo;school.&rsquo; Call it American magic realism.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;A roster of fifteen contributors to make any lover of literary fantasy go weak at the knees. . . . an anthology that rewards reflection.&rdquo; &mdash;Strange Horizons</div>

Salon Fantastique

<div>Stories of the archetypal Trickster from Michael Cadnum, Charles de Lint, Patricia A. McKillip, Jeffrey Ford, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and others. World Fantasy Award Finalist The mythic Trickster is both good and bad, wise and witless, sacred and profane. He appears in many different guises in world mythology, taking the form of a god in Greek legend; a coyote, raven, or rabbit in Native American lore; a meddlesome faery in English folktales; a larger-than-life human being in Germany; or the charming, seductive, and deadly kitsune of the Japanese. In true Trickster fashion, this captivating collection of stories will elicit both laughs and gasps. A Louisiana swamp girl makes a wager with a bon &agrave; rien who fiddled the devil out of hell in Delia Sherman&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Fiddler of Bayou Teche.&rdquo; World Fantasy Award winner Patricia A. McKillip introduces a pickpocket who tries to predict the future with stolen cards, but for whom fate has something else in store, in &ldquo;The Fortune-Teller.&rdquo; And in &ldquo;The Dreaming Wind&rdquo; by Jeffrey Ford, a seasonal gale causes havoc among humans and nature&mdash;but nothing compares to what happens when it fails to reappear. &ldquo;The anthology features tricksters of many cultures from all over the world. Along with Coyote, there are stories here of Loki, Legba, Hermes, Raven, the Monkey King of China, and the fox spirits of Japan. . . . Windling and Datlow have done their usual excellent job of selecting quality work.&rdquo; &mdash;Strange Horizons &ldquo;Sophisticated and well-written.&rdquo; &mdash;Fantasy Literature</div>

The Coyote Road

<div>Shapeshifting stories by Tanith Lee, Peter S. Beagle, Midori Snyder, Jane Yolen, and others: &ldquo;Rich reading that meets the editors&rsquo; high standards.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews In world mythology, transformation legends are attached to almost every type of animal: a variety of birds, fish, reptiles, and even insects. In this book, you&rsquo;ll find stories inspired by such myths from around the world, retold and reimagined by some of the very best writers in the realm of fantasy and science fiction. In &ldquo;The Puma&rsquo;s Daughter&rdquo; by World Fantasy Award&ndash;winning author Tanith Lee, a boy betrothed to a girl from a powerful family in the hills hears whispered rumors about his intended that describe her golden hair, her strength&mdash;and her ability to transform into a great cat. A man brings his boyfriend to his conservative hometown, teaching his little sister a lot about acceptance&mdash;and mermen&mdash;in &ldquo;Map of Seventeen&rdquo; by Stonewall Honor Award&ndash;author Christopher Barzak. And in &ldquo;The Hikikomori&rdquo; by Hiromi Goto, winner of the Commonwealth Writers&rsquo; Prize, a misfit fifteen-year-old girl, bullied at school, discovers her true form&mdash;and heroic purpose. &ldquo;Twenty-two short stories and poems speak to the fascination with therianthropy (animal-human metamorphosis). From riffs on Beauty and the Beast to original tales of sexuality and an adolescent yeti, well-known fantasy and sci-fi authors create morsels that address themes as varied as coming-of-age and the environment&mdash;all while changing people into animals and vice versa.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist &ldquo;This collection will appeal to fantasy lovers as it provides both stories by beloved authors and exciting new voices to discover.&rdquo; &mdash;School Library Journal &ldquo;A top-to-bottom very readable, engaging, book.&rdquo; &mdash;SF Site</div>

The Beastly Bride

<div>Sixteen tales that combine the otherworldly with hardboiled crime fiction&mdash;from Joe R. Lansdale, Caitl&iacute;n R. Kiernan, Paul G. Tremblay, Melanie Tem, and others. Here are the femme fatales, the tough guys, the down-on-their-luck detectives&mdash;but with a twist. Collected by Hugo and Bram Stoker Award&ndash;winning editor Ellen Datlow, these stories of the murderous and macabre will take you onto the dark streets of worlds unlike our own, where the monstrous stalk their prey. At the behest of a beautiful blonde client, a small-town East Texas private eye is drawn into a case of grave robbing by someone&mdash;or something&mdash;with an unholy interest in &ldquo;Dead Sister&rdquo; by Joe R. Lansdale. Elizabeth Bear&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Romance&rdquo; takes partygoers on a wild ride when the centerpiece of a birthday celebration turns out to be a haunted merry-go-round. After robbing a pawnshop, a group of small-time crooks get their shocking comeuppance as they flee the scene in &ldquo;The Getaway&rdquo; by Paul G. Tremblay. &ldquo;Little Shit&rdquo; by Melanie Tem follows a college student with a very unique skill set as she makes money on the side taking down criminals. Supernatural Noir also includes bone-chilling tales from Lucius Shepard, Laird Barron, Brian Evenson, Gregory Frost, Richard Bowes, Jeffrey Ford, Lee Thomas, Tom Piccirilli, Nate Southard, Nick Mamatas, and John Langan. &ldquo;This anthology has some of the most exciting fiction published in 2011. This is fiction that will make you uncomfortable, that will haunt you, that will show up in your dreams. . . . Horrifyingly wonderful.&rdquo; &mdash;Fantasy Literature</div>

Supernatural Noir

<div>Encounter the scariest clowns and freakiest curiosities under the big top, in stories by Stephen Graham Jones, Laird Barron, Priya Sharma, and others. With an introduction from Katherine Dunn Ladies and gentlemen, step right up for fifteen tales of terrifying rides, supernatural sideshows, and petrifying performers guaranteed to keep you up all night&mdash;with Hugo and Bram Stoker Award&ndash;winning editor Ellen Datlow as the ringmaster. In Stephen Graham Jones&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Darkest Part,&rdquo; three men are driven to madness by the clown that has haunted them since one misguided Tunnel of Love ride during their childhoods. The deaths of three circus performers&mdash;two brothers and a beautiful fire dancer&mdash;become the burning obsession of an author who wrote a book about the tragedy in &ldquo;The Firebrand&rdquo; by Priya Sharma. &ldquo;Skullpocket&rdquo; by Nathan Ballingrud takes you to an alternate fantasy world where a well-respected ghoul from a town near Chesapeake Bay grieves the death of his one true love, a freak show attraction known as the Orchid Girl. Under the tent, you&rsquo;ll find more chilling stories by Genevieve Valentine, Robert Shearman, N. Lee Wood, Nick Mamatas, A. C. Wise, Terry Dowling, Joel Lane, Glen Hirshberg, Jeffrey Ford, Dennis Danvers, and Livia Llewellyn. &ldquo;To Datlow&rsquo;s credit a number of her selections take the dark carnival theme into provocative new territory. . . . Ballingrud&rsquo;s tale is a magnificent piece of storytelling. Accompanied by another 14 estimable acts, it makes admission into Nightmare Carnival well worth the price.&rdquo; &mdash;Locus &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not a bad story in the bunch.&rdquo; &mdash;Horror DNA</div>

Nightmare Carnival

<div>A Bram Stoker Award&ndash;winning anthology featuring twenty stories based on local legends and ghost stories from around the world. Wherever you&rsquo;re from, there are local stories of ghosts, unexplained phenomena, or some thing that people are afraid to talk about. You can dismiss them as old wives&rsquo; tales, and yet they stay with us, haunting our everyday lives. In Haunted Legends, these tales are brought disturbingly to life by some of the best horror and dark fantasy writers in the world. Among the contributors are award-winners Ramsey Campbell, Caitl&iacute;n R. Kiernan, and many others. Here are stories from America&rsquo;s big cities and small towns, as well as far-flung corners of the globe. Discover the fox spirits of Vietnam, the specter of communism still haunting Russia in the form of Comrade Beria&rsquo;s ghost, the famed vampires of Rhode Island, a haunted amusement park in the Pacific Northwest, the Indian ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri, and more.</div>

Haunted Legends

<div>This multiple award-winning anthology of twenty psychological and supernatural horror stories explores the outer limits of fear. To create this volume, renowned horror editor Ellen Datlow wrote to her favorite authors asking for stories that would &ldquo;provide the reader with a frisson of shock, or a moment of dread so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable that the reader feels impelled to turn up the lights very bright and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear.&rdquo; Mission accomplished. The resulting collection draws together some of the most powerful voices in the field: Pat Cadigan, Terry Dowling, Jeffrey Ford, Christopher Fowler, Glen Hirshberg, K. W. Jeter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lucius Shepard, to name a few. Each author approaches fear in a different way, but all of the stories&rsquo; characters toil within their own hell. Winner of the 2008 World Fantasy Award, International Horror Guild Award, and Shirley Jackson Award for Best Anthology.</div>

Inferno

<div>This award-winning horror anthology is the &ldquo;yardstick by which future ghost fiction will be measured&rdquo;&mdash;featuring Tanith Lee, Joyce Carol Oates, and others (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Award-winning anthologist Ellen Datlow&mdash;praised by William Gibson as &ldquo;the genre&rsquo;s sharpest assembler of strange, dark fictions&rdquo;&mdash;is determined to prove that ghost stories still possess the power to chill modern readers to the marrow. So she reached out to a list of varied and talented authors and invited them to scare the heck out of her. The resulting anthology redefines the ghost story, venturing beyond the accustomed tropes and into horror&rsquo;s true realm: the unknown. The Dark takes a nuanced and disquieting look at the tormented and unquiet dead; the darkness in us, the living; and the sometimes tenuous boundary between the two. Under the covers of The Dark, you will find a gathering of sixteen unique ghost stories, deftly penned by authors versed in the argot of the damned, including Ramsey Campbell, Jeffrey Ford, Glen Hirshberg, Kelly Link, Sharyn McCrumb, Lucius Shepard, and Gahan Wilson. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. Winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best Anthology of the Year</div>

Jeffrey Ford
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Books By Jeffrey Ford (3 Books)

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

The Cosmology of the Wider World

The Empire of Ice Cream

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Jeffrey FordFollow this author

Books By Jeffrey Ford (3 Books)

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

The Cosmology of the Wider World

The Empire of Ice Cream

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Jeffrey Ford
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