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Mr.48 posted:Man I read the whole of the re-write that is currently available in one reading and it was really great. I really wanted to know what happed after the most recent re-written chapter and switched over to the original. I cannot express in words just how terrible the original is compared to the re-write. I gave up after about 5 more minutes because reading the original was like hammering nails into my own head. I didn't know a re-write existed, and when I went to see if it was available on Amazon, I was greeted with one of the worst covers I have ever seen: http://www.amazon.com/Night-Land-Story-Retold/dp/0615508812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327380136&sr=8-1 That is actually sort of making me hesitant on getting it even though everything I have heard makes me think that I will like the book.
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Jan 24, 2012 05:47
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BetterWeirdthanDead posted:You should also look up Clark Ashton Smith. He was a contemporary of HPL, and Lovecraft supposedly considered him to be a better writer. Weren't they actually friends and corresponded with each other, along with Robert E. Howard? Some of Lovecraft's stories even refer to some wizard or something named Klarkash-Ton.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:26
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abske_fides posted:I have to get myself a copy of Teatro Grottesco again... might buy his 2 other cheaper novels at the same time and I'm seriously considering to pre-order Noctuary or get a copy of Grimscribe. Does anyone know HOW different the new editions of Grimscribe/Noctuary are compared to the old ones? If you have any interest at all, I would probably just pre-order Noctuary right now. Subterranean Press books sell out really quickly (or rather, they have very small print runs), and Ligotti's a good writer. At the very least, I'm sure you can flip the book if it's not to your taste. As for the differences between editions, here's an interview with Ligotti (I was actually surprised that he did an interview) describing what he did for Songs: http://evilhat.blogspot.com/2011/09/interview-thomas-ligotti.html quote:1. The Subterranean Press reissues are definitive editions of Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, and the forthcoming Noctuary are, we're told, the "revised, definitive edition[s]." So, of course, the question must come: what's different? Was there a specific element you looked for with your changes, an intended change of focus, or were they more focused on strengthening the effects already present? Would it, perhaps, even be possible for you to quote some later-altered line and its newer counterpart, and state the reason for the changes therein?
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Mar 27, 2012 02:40
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Ornamented Death posted:Simon Strantzas, especially his first collection Beneath the Surface. I started to read this because of this recommendation, and there is very much a Ligotti feel to it, and by extension Lovecraftian, as he does douse the city in this oppressive atmosphere of perpetual dread. I only read like the first four stories so far, but they all seem to feature people who are mired in existential crises, these sorts of lonely figures lost within the hungry churning of a city. It's sort of like the city, and the modern life that it seems to symbolize, is the cosmic horror, rather than some dark elder god or supernatural entity. The stories remind me a lot of Harlan Ellison's amazing story, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," not so much in language, but in viewing the city as a very dark, hungry force. The collection that collects that story, Deathbird Stories, is definitely worth a read, but not cosmic horror really, just a sort of cosmic pessimism.
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Apr 11, 2012 23:04
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Reading more of Simon Strantzas' Beneath the Surface, I get the impression that I really like the build up that he does in his stories, but the end result is pretty disappointing. I just read the story of the guy who has to work at a new job, and it did a pretty good job leading up to the ending, which just sort of happened and was kind of goofy about it at the same time. I imagine it's sort of like a movie that does a great job building a tense atmosphere, only to reveal that the monster is some dude in a rubber suit. Maybe I am just sort of weary of tentacles and malformed shapes being the "horror." Comparing that story to Ligotti's My Work Is Not Yet Done, which is probably one of his weaker works, and the conclusions are just much more satisfying. People die in more off-putting ways and the final climax is pretty, uh, Ligotti. Strantzas is definitely readable and I would recommend it, but never over any of Ligotti or even Lovecraft.
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May 2, 2012 16:49
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SlaveTrader posted:It was a Deep One. And for anyone that's curious, the victim manages to convince the Deep One to help her escape by giving it a handjob. I think the handjob thing was a way to placate the Deep One so that it would stop raping the lady. The Deep One helped her escape because he did the "pregnancy test" and realized she was pregnant. Neonomicon would have been pretty okay if like half of it wasn't an extended rape scene. The initial investigation part and the mythos interpretation at the end were pretty cool, but then there is just a bunch of uncomfortably explicit rape in the middle and it's like, welp. It's still not a stellar story or anything. Ligotti has some graphic novel interpretations of his works, but I have no idea how they are. There are two volumes of The Nightmare Factory (not to be confused with his book of the same name), but again, I have no idea how well done it was.
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Aug 20, 2012 17:25
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Ornamented Death posted:In other news, Bad Moon Books is going to be publishing an expanded edition of Ligotti's Death Poems later this year. It's one of the rarer Ligotti titles, so I'm looking forward to it coming back in print. Thanks for the heads up on this. Hopefully I can snag a copy before it instantly goes out of print like all the other Ligotti works. Is Subterranean Press done with the republishings? Is there even anything left to reprint? Also, as someone who doesn't have the originals, how do they actually compare with the reprints? I know Ligotti personally revised them, but I don't know if it's for the better or worse.
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Jan 10, 2013 05:37
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Anyone have anything to say about Ligotti's Death Poems? It's up for pre-order on this publisher website, not sure if Amazon will follow suit or not: http://www.badmoonbooks.com/product.php?productid=3621&cat=0&page=1 It's only 68 pages, though...
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May 6, 2013 20:50
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Ornamented Death posted:There are the classic answers, Ligotti, Kiernan, and Barron, but here's a new entry: Whom the Gods Would Destroy by Brian Hodge. You've mentioned (Caitlin) Kiernan before, but looking through her Amazon listings, her books have some godawful covers that make them seem like your standard supernatural romance fiction a la Anita Blake. Don't judge books by their covers blah blah but the only one from the description that even seems like cosmic horror would be her short story collection "The Ape's Wife and Other Stories." Unless there are multiple Caitlin Kiernan's, which would be unfortunate.
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Feb 4, 2014 03:59
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While searching through some cosmic horror on Amazon, I came upon this upcoming new book from Thomas Ligotti: http://www.amazon.com/Spectral-Link-Thomas-Ligotti/dp/1596066504 Unfortunately it is only 96 pages. I feel bad wanting more from the man given that he apparently has to subject himself to some gross misery to write, but uh, yeah I want more. Also goddamn, that blurb.
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Feb 4, 2014 06:03
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BigSkillet posted:Bit of a tangent, media-wise, but apparently the writer behind HBO's True Detective has mentioned being directly influenced by Thomas Ligotti in a couple of recent interviews. I haven't seen it myself yet, but there were apparently a couple lines in the first episode specifically written to sound Ligotti-esque. I didn't know this, but in retrospect it sorta makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOGoX1B6_2k
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Feb 11, 2014 05:06
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So it The King in Yellow actually worth reading? Reading through Amazon reviews, it seems like some of the stories therein are crap, but the Dover Mystery version seems like it cuts out all the lovely stories and adds some other ones from elsewhere in his career.
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Feb 18, 2014 03:40
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Stravinsky posted:If you like weird tales/cosmic horror then most definitely get on that. Also why would they change out the stories? While they are not all stellar they follow a theme and its kinda important to have them together to keep it up. Unless the edition your talking about pulled stories with the same common thread in as well but I have no idea as I have only read the original book and none of his later works. This is the edition. Looks like it cut The Prophets Paradise, The Street of the Four Winds, The Street of the First Shell, The Street of Our Lady of the Fields and Rue Barrée, and adds in The Maker of Moons, A Pleasant Evening, The Messenger, The Key to Grief, The Harbor Master, In Quest of the Dingue and Is the Ux Extinct? How does that selection look? Are the cut stories still worth reading?
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Feb 18, 2014 04:20
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If I were to get one Barron short story collection, which should I go for? Occultation, Imago Sequence, or The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All?
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Feb 26, 2014 03:39
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NickRoweFillea posted:God drat Thomas Ligotti is depressing Yeah, I've said it before, but he is the only writer that leaves me in a consistent down mood after reading his works. And it's not like they're particularly drenched in human misery, but they just create this sort of oppressive atmosphere that is just absolutely heavy. God I love it. Dude needs to be miserable more often so he can write.
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Mar 28, 2014 04:10
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I read Ligotti's The Last Feast of Harlequin and there was a very Shadow Over Innsmouth feel to it, which I'm sure was punctuated by the dedication to HP Lovecraft at the end. It didn't quite have the same amount of sheer misery and misanthropy that the rest of his stories have, but it was a pretty great Lovecraftian story.
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May 30, 2014 16:16
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Pope Guilty posted:True Detective was really loving good. Closest thing in tone that I think I've ever seen to Seven. The Mythos elements were present but not misused. I liked True Detective, but I think it would be mischaracterized as having Mythos elements. There is a LOT of Ligotti's philosophy, as whole passages are pretty much quoted from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and weirdly enough some Alan Moore sprinkled at the end. I always thought that Chambers ended up being mostly supernatural romance rather than actual psychological horror, so along those lines, there was a lot of relationship decay that I noticed was pretty common in his stories. Not scary per se, but tinged with this sort of melancholy and inevitable end. But yeah, in spite of the setup, it is still really good.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:07
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andelazo posted:the Picture In The House is pretty decent as well. If this is the story that I remember, boy that ending sure was...something. (Note: Not a good something) The Shadow Over Innsmouth is the only Lovecraft story that really creeped me out. Rats in the Wall and The Whisperer in Darkness do a good job, too. Call of Cthulhu did nothing for me, but I love the opening few paragraphs since it sets a tone for the rest of his work.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:04
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Nuclear Tourist posted:That was a pretty awesome story. This is viral marketing? For what, eyedroppers? Pixar's Cars  Cool story, though. Kinda makes me want to read House of Leaves or, really, any good haunted house story. Any suggestions? I'd prefer to move away from spooky ghosts and whatnot and go into strange geometry territory.
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Oct 6, 2014 16:48
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Von Sloneker posted:
That's kinda curious. I wonder if it will be a straight reprint or if they're doing the Subterranean Press rewrites. ...I'll probably get it anyway 
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Jan 20, 2015 19:47
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Von Sloneker posted:Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe it is. October release. I guess that works, as that's usually the time of year I start rereading Ligotti. And henceforth I won't have to watch the yellowing of my Nightmare Factory pages in real time. drat, no word if it's the updated version or the original version. I'd totally throw more money at that man for the original, apparently better text.
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Jan 30, 2015 07:02
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The Shadow Out of Time could have been scary if the main character was transposed with the Yithian at the end and experienced the flying polyp extinction event first hand, combining that sense of loss of identity (from temporal theft, even) with whatever horrors incurred by the polyps, with the main character realizing that he's going to die alone in a strange land/time, and nobody will ever realize it. But maybe existential horror is why I tend to dig Ligotti a bit more. Speaking of, has it been confirmed whether his latest reprint of Songs and Grimscribe will be the original texts or his edited ones?
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Jun 3, 2015 02:49
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Ex-Priest Tobin posted:Ligotti is such a great writer - his prose is so much better than any one else in the genre. But I wonder, is his persona for real or is it all just an elaborate joke? The Conspiracy Against the Human Race just seems way too grim and over the top to take seriously, especially when stories like Our Temporary Supervisor and The Shadow, the Darkness display a pretty awesome sense of humour. Well, apparently the only way he found the inspiration to write The Spectral Link was because he was sick and miserable (with some stomach thing?). He literally became one of his own characters. Is True Detective Season 2 plagiarizing more of his work?
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Jun 22, 2015 23:50
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Roark posted:I haven't seen it mentioned in the thread yet, but in addition to a Ligotti collection, Penguin is also putting out a Charles Beaumont collection. He's probably most famous nowadays as a Twilight Zone writer ("The Howling Man", "Shadow Play", a bunch of other well known episodes) and for screenplays, but his stories really hold up. This looks really great, thanks for the mention! Do we know yet if the Ligotti collection is the original prose or his edited prose?
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Jul 21, 2015 16:38
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Goblin posted:The Penguin Classics reprint of Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe will be out on the 6th, just in time for some October/Halloween themed reading. Do we know yet if these are the original stories or the ones he recently edited, apparently for the worse?
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Sep 30, 2015 19:35
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Skyscraper posted:I imagine a person could just post up excerpts of what was changed without pirating it, unless really large portions were changed. Even then, there could be some key examples. Given how much of Ligotti is the mood that he evokes, it's probably really hard to notice a tangible difference from a sentence or two vs. reading an entire story and seeing how both are affected by the change in diction or whatever. But here are some examples from a random blog: https://heroictimes.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/ligotti-vs-ligotti-comparing-subterranean-press-vs-carroll-grafs-grimscribe-editions/
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Oct 19, 2015 17:50
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Reading through these, he certainly changed it to be far less poetic. Whether or not one thinks that prose approaches purple is probably up to personal tastes, but now I wish I had purchased some version of The Nightmare Factory because drat if I don't prefer the phrase "frenzied pageant of vulnerable fresh" over "meat grinder of life." The former is a suggestion that lets the imagination create the imagery, whereas the other is a metaphor that just feels more real, and thus less disturbing.
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Oct 21, 2015 17:59
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Helical Nightmares posted:Revisiting this post. I ordered this based on the quote about bars. I really like that line, and the general ability of cosmic horror to instill this feeling of dread into the mundane. It's like you don't have to look for the horror, it's already there and you just need someone to point it out for you. Now I'm kinda wondering about mixing cosmic horror with the political system and whether or not that's been done.
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Mar 21, 2016 02:10
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Helical Nightmares posted:Ligotti's My Work Is Not Yet Done has office politics intersect with cosmic horror in a fantastic way. Yeah I was definitely thinking about My Work Is Not Yet Done, although I sorta wish he had spent some more time waxing entropic about the corporate life. It's been a while since I read it though, so maybe I should reread it with my newfound "appreciation" of working in an office.
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Mar 21, 2016 03:15
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I spent an hour sitting in a meeting discussing the procedures and preparations of how to best inject test solutions into the eyes of approximately 40 rabbits, all of which will end up dead anyway because they need to autopsy them for the results. People were making jokes about it, but I wasn't sure whether it was a coping mechanism for the grim task set for them or just another dull expression of sadism in the name of science. It's essentially a look into how the sausage gets made, which has always been something lurking in the back of my mind, but to have it brought to the forefront has sorta unsettled me and put this sort of malaise on me. I don't know where that lands on the cosmic horror scale, but I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to adapt something like that
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Mar 21, 2016 04:33
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Neurosis posted:Edit: I just checked his website and most of 2016 was a nothing for Hodge's productivity because he had a 'temporarily crippling accident'. He seems revitalised and optimistic now, though. Is there something about horror authors and some sort of crippling accident/major medical trauma? I know life happens, but drat. Also why is Worlds of Hurt not available in a dead tree edition?
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Jan 12, 2017 06:47
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Brubaker also wrote Fatale which is also very much noir meets eldritch horrors. Unlike Black Monday Murders, this one is all done and you can pick it up in a nice complete hardcover.
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Mar 13, 2017 19:53
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Speaking of The Willows: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/beehivebooks/illustrated-classics-by-pope-shimizu-and-sienkiewi/description
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May 28, 2017 15:57
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Thomas Ligotti.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:28
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Waroduce posted:what is the novel that best represents his work Unfortunately all of the short story collections sort of merged together, but Penguin sells a combination of Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. Teatro Grotessco is fun. If you liked True Detectives Season 1, The Conspiracy Against The Human Race is the essay that the writers plagiarized from.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:47
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Did he recover from that flesh eating bacteria or whatever it was that was loving him up?
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Nov 28, 2017 17:19
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Is World of Hurt ever returning to Kindle?
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Apr 27, 2018 11:31
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