Jeffrey FordA Natural History of Hell: Stories

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...

An incredible collection by one of the best fabulists in the genre, often dark, sometimes hopeful but always intense, deep and moving, sometimes to tears. Fords ability to craft empathy in short stories is a remarkable feat, not to mention crafting original settings, ideas, and worlds. I know when i crack into a ford book or story that I will come out the other side with new perspectives and ideas. always.Some of the stand out stories:The Blameless: A world where exorcisms are as casual as a sweet sixteenWord Doll: A take on the harvest spirit/monster themeBlood Drive: A re-imagined America encourages both high school students and teachers carry firearmsA Terror: Emily Dickinson takes that famed carriage ride with Death.The Thyme Fiend: A young in Ohio who sees strange things. The spirits of the dead come back to resolve some mysteries in the living world.The Prelate's Commission: A story about trying to put a face on the devil and how the devil feels about such efforts.

I have never read anything by Jeffrey Ford until now, and I have to say, I am both surprised and excited, the latter because I have much more to read now.If the above didn't give it away, I was pleasantly surprised by the stories in this book. Not that I was expecting bad, but they far exceeded my expectations. Ford is a good author, many of his tales have an air of "folky-ness" to them, in the sense that most of them read like a good ol' dark fairy tale. or ghost story. This quality adds to their enjoyment immensely for me.I can say honestly that I enjoyed every story in this collection, which is rare even for authors that I love. Which is one of the main reasons I will be actively reading more of Fords work in the future.The word dolls was one of my particular favorites.Anyways, if you are a fan of dark horror stories, which are very original, I would find it difficult to believe that you wouldn't at least find this book worth your time.

It's amazing but I felt something similar to the experience to read Borges' Fictions... there are stories from different times and places; they live in their own world but at the same time there is something underground connecting them, indeed communicating them from beginning to beyond, crossing worlds as an invisible thread.Hell is a word that in its simplistic view is something like a gymnasium without ventilation, fortunately it is not the case here and even more the meaning takes so many subtle variants or shades as stories has the book.The stories are truly amazing, there is such a tour de force of creativity, such vitality! I read it at a rate of one story per day; considering my meager time that's a fantastic accomplishment.

Ford has released yet another rock-solid collection. There are some truly masterful historical fantasy stories here ("The Time Fiend", "A Terror', "The Fairy Enterprise"), a couple of farces ("Blood Drive", "Rocket Ship to Hell") a supernatural noir thriller ("The Last Triangle") and a new story featuring Ismet Toler, the protagonist of the sword-and-sorcery piece "The Coral Heart", which was collected in his previous collection. Alongside all of this are more of the inimitable genre-defying surreal fantasy and horror pieces of the type that Ford is known for. Everything in here is gold; if you love fantasy short fiction you will want to read these stories more than once, so do yourself a favor and buy this book!

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

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

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.

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.