Vanitas

Vanitas

Jeffrey Ford

Who was the mad inventor Scarfinati? Whence came his mysterious powers? What dark secret caused him to meddle in innocent lives? His bizarre life story unfolds at the Carnival of the Dead, where a young woman seeks his spirit’s forgiveness for accidentally killing him—and nothing is as it seems!

“Shades of Lovecraft and Bradbury make for an absorbing, fast-paced horror/sf/mystery…”—The Bookwatch

“Ford plays with words like a literary master, weaving his twisting tale gently in and out among his characters…”—Knoxville News-Sentinel

Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels Vanitas, The Physiognomy (1998 World Fanstasy Award), Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, and The Shadow Year. There’s a short novel due out on October 11th, 2017, The Twilight Pariah, from Tor.com and a full length novel in March, 2018, Ahab’s Return, Or The Last Voyage, from Morrow/Harper Collins. His story collections are The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, Crackpot Palace, and A Natural History of Hell. Ford has published well over 100 short stories, which have appeared in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies, from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. He is the recipient of the World Fantasy Award, Nebula, Shirley Jackson Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Grand Prix de l’imaginaire (France), Hayakawa Award (Japan). His fiction has been translated into about 20 languages. In addition to writing, he’s been a professor of literature and writing for 30 years and has been a guest lecturer at Clarion Writing Workshop, The Stone Coast MFA Program, The Richard Hugo House in Seattle, and the Antioch University Writing Workshop. He lives in Ohio and currently teaches part time at Ohio Wesleyan University.