{"id":531,"date":"2006-05-07T23:44:10","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T03:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/05\/07\/recommended-read-empire-of-ice-cream\/"},"modified":"2009-02-28T00:04:05","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T04:04:05","slug":"recommended-read-empire-of-ice-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/07\/recommended-read-empire-of-ice-cream\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading: Empire Of Ice Cream"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Empire<\/a>A lovely large box of books arrived on Friday, and amongst them was one I was terribly anxious for: The Empire of Ice Cream<\/a>, the new short story collection by Jeffrey Ford<\/a>. It might be a bit early, but I think I’m prepared to make the call that this will be the short story collection of the year.At some point Kelly<\/a> will have to hand over the well-deserved crown that Magic For Beginners<\/a> earned her last year–of course she’s still (very justifiably) winning awards<\/a> for it, so this may be precipitate.<\/footnote><\/p>\n

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’m a long time fan of Ford’s–I’ve posted about his work several times, and I’ve also posted about the interesting content of his LiveJournal<\/a> at least once.<\/p>\n

I’ve been excited about this new collection since Golden Gryphon<\/a> first posted the table of contents<\/a> for it–I’ve read about two-thirds of the material already, but in addition to reading the new stuff I’m also interested in rereading the material I’ve already read in a new context. Ford’s work has such a broad stylistic range that I’m really curious about what may appear as common elements when looking at the stories side-by-side.<\/p>\n

I knew the quality that the physical object would have, as I have purchased quite a few of Golden Gryphon’s “archival quality hardcovers<\/a>” over the years, including Ford’s previous short story collection, The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also knew the quality that the stories would have. As I mentioned above, I’ve read a good number of the stories already and, of course, I had read the previous collection. That’s not even mentioning Ford’s novels, which I’ve read almost all of (I’m still trying to find a copy of his first novel “Vanitas”). He’s definitely in the top ten short story writers working today, and I would probably put him in the top five.<\/p>\n

But hey, don’t take my word for it. Here’s an extract from Ford’s Wikipedia entry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

His stories and novels have been nominated multiple times for the World Fantasy Award<\/a>, the Hugo Award<\/a>, the Nebula Award<\/a>, the Theodore Sturgeon Award<\/a>, the International Horror Guild Award<\/a>, the Fountain Award<\/a>, the Edgar Allan Poe Award<\/a>. He has been the recipient of three World Fantasy Awards, for his second novel The Physiognomy,<\/i> the short story collection The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant,<\/i> and his short story “Creation.” In 2004, he won a Nebula Award for his novellette “The Empire of Ice Cream”. “Exo-Skeleton Town” won the Grand Prix l’Imaginaire<\/a> for best translated story in 2005. “The Annals of Eelin-Ok” won The Fountain Award (for excellence in the short story) also in 2005. The Girl in the Glass<\/i> won the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award<\/a> in the Best Paperback Original category.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Still not convinced?<\/p>\n

Well, you can go and read the title story<\/a> online. That should give you some idea of the quality of work we’re talking about.<\/p>\n

Once you’ve had that taste, you can find a bunch more of his stories online<\/a>. In particular you might want to check out The Annals of Eelin-Ok<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you do get the book, you might want to later check out the interview with Jeff<\/a> at Science Fiction Weekly, wherein he discusses quite a number of the individual stories in the collection.<\/p>\n

\"divider\"<\/p>\n

As an aside, I really (really<\/strong>) liked Ford’s last novel, The Girl in the Glass<\/a>. It is also very recommended.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of discussion of that book<\/a> going on over at the Litblog Co-op<\/a> right now, driven by my pal Gwenda<\/a>. <\/p>\n

You should check out what’s happening over there. At a minimum you should see Gwenda’s initial post<\/a>, Ford’s two<\/a> essays<\/a>, and the MP3 podcast<\/a> featuring discussions with Gwenda & Jeff.<\/p>\n

(Incidentally, if you have read Ford’s work and not previously met him or heard him speak, prepare to be surprised by his voice on the podcast. The first time I met Ford I was quite taken aback by the difference between my mental image of “the guy who could write these stories” and the reality of Jeff. I had pictures someone kind of effete, with a faintly upper class English accent, and with that sort of starved aesthetic look of a madman who spends his days in a garret caught in a fevered obsession with the crafting of his words. The reality is a little different: Jeff is straight outta Jersey and sounds it. He looks like this<\/a>. The reality of Jeff makes him twice as awesome in my books.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lovely large box of books arrived on Friday, and amongst them was one I was terribly anxious for: The Empire of Ice Cream, the new short story collection by Jeffrey Ford. It might be a bit early, but I think I’m prepared to make the call that this will be the short story collection of the year.At some point… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[458,371,284,457],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-books","tag-jeff-ford","tag-recommended","tag-reviews","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-8z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2357,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}