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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 7, 2009 13:14:03 GMT
Grimscribe: His Lives and Works - Thomas Ligotti (Carroll & Graf, 1991; Jove, 1994)
Introduction
The Voice of the Damned The Last Feast of Harlequin The Spectacles in the Drawer Flowers of the Abyss Nethescurial
The Voice of the Demon The Dreaming in Nortown The Mystics of Muelenberg In the Shadow of Another World The Cocoons
The Voice of the Dreamer The Night School The Glamour
The Voice of the Child The Library of Byzantium Miss Plarr
The Voice of Our Name The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2009 17:58:26 GMT
Back in 1996, Raven, the then-horror imprint of those-lovely-people-at-Robinson, gave Ligotti the full 'Mammoth' treatment, 600 pages, introduction by Poppy Z. Brite, three pages of endorsements from all the big cheese magazines, etc. I know loads of people swear by his work, some of them eminently sane, and perhaps i should be able to look beyond titles that scream "Dark Fantasist at work" ..... Here's the contest list. Thomas Ligotti - The Nightmare Factory (Raven/ Robinson, 1996) Cover illustration: Eric Dinyer Foreword- Poppy Z. Brite Introduction: The Consolations Of Horror
1. From Songs Of A Dead Dreamer
The Frolic Les Fleurs Alice's Last Adventure Dream Of A Mannikin The Chymist Drink To Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes Eye Of The Lynx The Christmas Eves Of Aunt Elise The Lost Art Of Twilight The Troubles Of Dr. Thoss Masquerade Of A Dead Sword Dr. Volk And Dr. Veech Dr. Locrian's Asylum The Sect Of The Idiot The Greater Festival Of Masks The Music Of The Moon The Journal of J. P. Drapeau Vastarien
2. Grimscribe
The Last Feast of Harlequin The Spectacles in the Drawer Flowers of the Abyss Nethescurial The Dreaming in Nortown The Mystics of Muelenberg In the Shadow of Another World The Cocoons The Night School The Glamour The Library of Byzantium Miss Plarr The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
3. From Noctuary
The Medusa Conversations In A Dead Language The Prodigy Of Dreams Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel The Tsalal Mad Night Of Atonement The Strange Designs Of Master Rignolo The Voice In The Bones
3. Teatro Grottesco & Other Tales
Teatro Grottesco Severini Gas Station Carnivals The Bungalow House The Clown Puppet The Red TowerBlurb `A PRINCE OF DARK FANTASY' -FEAR
In the realm of the supernatural, Thomas Ligotti is the master of stylish, eerie writing of the highest quality. This new edition brings together his collected short stories with 'Teatro Grottesco', a sequence of new stories not published before.
PRAISE FOR THOMAS LIGOTTI'S WORK:
`I don't know when I have enjoyed a collection of an author's horror stories more ... Songs of a Dead Dreamer has to be one of the most important horror books of the decade ... Ligotti is one of the few consistently original voices in contemporary horror fiction' - Ramsey Campbell `The most startling and unexpected literary discovery since Clive Barker:' - Washington Post `Ligotti offers interesting and original ideas ... with provocative images and a style that is both entertaining and lyrical' - New York Times Book Review `Simply essential ... if you buy only one short story collection this year, this should be it' - Shock Express `One of the finest writers in his field' - Sunday TimesNow i'm terrified people will write in telling me what i'm missing ....
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 8, 2009 12:04:00 GMT
Not much more than a headache, Dem! I'm afraid I don't really get on with Ligotti's work myself and I've read a fair bit, but it's all a bit too bloody miserable, self-pitying and introspective for me.
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 8, 2009 13:55:12 GMT
I struggled with Ligotti for a long time, and usually just assumed I was too thick to understand what was going on, but something seemed to click whilst I was reading Teatro Grottesco - I actually found many of the stories a) very scary, and b) very funny, not reactions I had particularly had too his earlier work. I'm not sure if this suggests that I'm getting smarter (unlikely), or if Ligotti's getting better - going back to the earlier volumes like Grimscribe I did find a lot more to enjoy than first time round, but I still think Teatro Grottesco contains most of his best (and most reader-friendly!) work.
Perhaps he's just learnt not to take himself too seriously - the list of artworks mentioned in "Severini" (including such classics as Defiled and Delivered, On Viscous and Sacred Ground (a.k.a. The Tantric Doctors), In Earth and Excreta, The Black Spume of Existence, Integuments in Eruption, and The Descent into the Fungal) is clearly tongue-in-cheek, but if published 15 years earlier in Noctuary it might have been meant in earnest. Another favourite quote, from "The Shadow, The Darkness":
"I wrote it after being treated in the emergency room of that place very late one night," explained the poet. "What were you treated for?" I asked him. "Oh, nothing serious. I went home a few hours later. I was never admitted as a patient, I'm glad to say. It was, and I quote from my poem on the subject, the 'nucleus of the abysmal.'" "That's fine to say that," I said. "But could we possibly speak in more explicit terms?"
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Post by dem bones on Sept 8, 2009 19:36:38 GMT
Much as his worship's post made me laugh out loud, i think i get where you're coming from on this, Jonathan, having had much the same experience with Ramsey Campbell. And as with Ligotti, Clive Barker and certain Best New Horror regulars, it felt like i was being told i had to like him or there was something wrong with me - that didn't help. I'm not sure which of RC's collections i began with, but it perplexed and ultimately numbed me to the point where i'd routinely skip his stories for years, though i'd always read his non-fiction! It was Dolls in one of Michel Parry's Black Magic books that decided me on giving him another go, and second time around i found plenty to like, even lots of jokes! Maybe it's just a case of there being a right time in your life for certain authors (though surely, there can never be a right time for a title like Drink To Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes)?
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Post by rawlinsonend on Jan 7, 2013 9:47:21 GMT
Not sure if anyone can help me with this query, I'm a longtime reader of the (rather excellent) board but have only recently joined up. I've been trying to track down some Ligotti collections at decent prices for a while and just found out that there's been ebooks made available of some of his titles, including Grimscribe and Songs of a Dead Dreamer. But the only sites I can find that stock them insist on a U.S. billing address. Does anybody happen to know of any U.K. sites that sell them?
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 9, 2019 14:46:26 GMT
... surely, there can never be a right time for a title like Drink To Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes? Wonderful title, isn't it. I love this Poesque little piece. Very readable. And it's got (weird) humor too, albeit being one of his earliest. The image of the guy attempting to lean against the wall with the thickly patterned wallpaper, is forever imprinted on my brain.
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 25, 2019 18:17:14 GMT
I usually read something small by Lovecraft on Christmas Eve, to get into the Yuletide spirit. But this year has been stressful for us all, and we seem to have been drawn further away from traditional Christmas traditions than ever, so I choose something on random, and my blind finger hit "The Mystics of Muelenburg". After a somewhat abstract and confusing start, this turned into a fine weird story; in fact, I think it is a classic masterpiece.
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