pass him and join Carraden in another room, at
which point the archaeologist throws himself from
the window, even though they are on the fifth
floor. Jorman makes his way out of the hotel, con-
vinced that Carraden is dead, but he hears the
man’s footsteps run past him, followed relentlessly
by the other. It is only a short while later that he
realizes the truth. Carraden did, in fact, die in the
fall, but he is being pursued in death just as he was
in life. Arthur’s story delivers a double shock and is
particularly effective as told from the point of view
of Jorman, who obviously never sees the form of
the pursuer, if it was ever visible in the first place.
Ford, Jeffrey (1955– )
Most readers and editors tend to be very wary of
writers who stray from existing styles and plots.
Readers are often reluctant to try anything new, and
publishers are reluctant to risk what might prove to
be a commercial failure. Fantasy is generally viewed
today as a literature of romance and adventure, and
only a handful of writers have used it for more liter-
ary purposes. Most of them were already established,
such as Gene WOLFE. It is much more difficult for a
newcomer to break out of the mold.
Jeffrey Ford first started appearing in print
during the late 1980s, most notably with his quirky
short novel Vanitas(1988), which mixes science
fiction and fantasy as it tells the story of a leg-
endary hero who allegedly visits the moon and de-
feats a virulent new plague before dying under
mysterious circumstances. He leaves behind vari-
ous pieces of exotic equipment, including some
that appear to be designed to revive the dead. Al-
though not as powerful as his more recent novels,
Vanitaswas quite exceptional for its time, but it
nevertheless was published by a small press in a
limited edition.
Ford began attracting attention during the
early 1990s with short stories such as “The Woman
Who Counts Her Breath” (1995) and his first full-
length novel, The Physiognomy(1997), which won
the World Fantasy Award and was a New York
Times Notable Book of the Year. Cley, the protago-
nist, is an expert specializing in personality analysis
based on certain physical and mental traits and is
employed by the government in a fantasy world
that is roughly early industrial, although it does not
exactly parallel our own history. As punishment for
an infraction, he is sent to a remote mining village
to catch a thief and instead learns that much of
what he thought he knew about his society is
wrong. Cley returned for two sequels, Memoranda
(1999) and The Beyond(2001). In the former, the
man who Cley exposed counters with a plague of
induced sleep, and in the latter he goes on a phan-
tasmagoric journey of discovery.
Short stories began to appear regularly after
the 1990s, including excellent tales such as “The
Fantasy Writer’s Assistant” (2000), “Something by
the Sea” (2002), and “Jupiter’s Skull” (2004). His
most recent novel is The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
(2002), which won significant critical acclaim from
the mainstream press as well as within the fantasy
field. The setting is another fantasy world, a large
city in which an artist is hired by the woman of the
title to paint her portrait, but he must do so with-
out ever setting eyes on his subject.
Ford won a second World Fantasy Award for
best collection, The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and
Other Stories(2002), which includes most of his
better short stories, and a third for “CREATION”
(2002). He has also been one of the finalists for
other awards as well. Ford’s innovative settings and
nontraditional plots have clearly struck a resonant
chord with readers, and his superior literary quali-
ties suggest that he may be finding a much wider
audience than will most of his contemporaries.The Forgotten Realms Series
The Forgotten Realms series, like the very similar
DRAGONLANCE SERIES, is a shared world system
that was originally derived from a series of role
playing games set in an elaborately contrived fan-
tasy background. Although there are monsters,
elves, and magic, a large portion of the work in this
milieu concentrates almost entirely on humans, one
notable exception being the Elminster books by Ed
GREENWOOD, whose central character is an elf.
There has been considerable variation in quality
among the many authors of the more than 130 ti-
tles to date, all of them published by TSR Books or
its later incarnation as Wizards of the Coast. Most
of the more active contributors to the series have118 Ford, Jeffrey