The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!! - The Something Awful Forums

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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

the_enduser: May 1, 2006; They say the user lives outside the net.

The Cipher was cool, I'll probably pick up a physical copy when the reprint comes out.

# ? Feb 7, 2020 23:49

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:51

Skyscraper: Oct 1, 2004; Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Big Mad Drongo posted:

I actually disliked The Ruins and The Deep for the same reason: they both seemed like excuses to torture unpleasant people to death. I don't mind books full of unlikeable characters, but those two seemed to be full of cardboard cutouts designed to die for your reading pleasure.

Also seconding The Cipher, that book felt even more gritty and dirty and full of awful characters, but in an earned way, for lack of a better description.

Yeah, I'd second these, though I liked The Deep anyway (but certainly not as much as The Cipher).

# ? Feb 8, 2020 00:00

Anomalous Blowout: Feb 13, 2006; rock
ice
storm
abyss

It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars.

*

I'm glad I'm not the only one who just couldn't get into The Ruins. It has so many thematic elements I love but somehow despite being a perfect mishmash of my fave tropes it felt like the book equivalent of reading a really sarcastic editorial. If I want to read about assholes getting their just desserts that badly I'll reread Peter Watts or watch the Twilight Zone.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 03:19

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

the ruins is, and i am not being hyperbolic, one of the top 3 worst books i have ever read in my life

# ? Feb 8, 2020 10:41

Anomalous Blowout: Feb 13, 2006; rock
ice
storm
abyss

It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars.

*

http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/...thomas-ligotti/

Owl Goingback and Thomas Ligotti announced as 2019 HWA lifetime achievement winners. It's kind of bonkers Ligotti didn't have one of those already.

Goingback I didn't even realize wrote horror, ha. I have a lot of nieces and I thought he was a kids' book guy. Time to do a back catalogue read I guess! Anyone got any recs of his?

# ? Feb 8, 2020 12:49

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

Owl Goingback? I don't think I've ever heard of them, are they any good?

e: beaten.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Feb 8, 2020

# ? Feb 8, 2020 12:53

Ornamented Death: Jan 25, 2006; Pew pew!

Just start with Crota, his first novel.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 15:50

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

anilEhilated posted:

Tangentially related to the Klein talk - where would you folks recommend starting with Ramsey Campbell?

Going back a little: Cold Print if you like Lovecraft, The Doll Who Ate His Mother if you don't.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 16:20

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Anomalous Blowout posted:

http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/...thomas-ligotti/

Owl Goingback and Thomas Ligotti announced as 2019 HWA lifetime achievement winners. It's kind of bonkers Ligotti didn't have one of those already.

quote:

OWL GOINGBACK
�I grew up an only child in the rural Midwest. I would probably have gone stark raving mad of boredom, especially during the harsh winter months, if I hadn�t been kept entertained by horror fiction and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. I owe a lot to Poe, Lovecraft, Bradbury, Forry Ackerman, and many modern scribes of dark fiction for helping me keep my sanity during those years, and I wanted to give something back to the genre by writing horror fiction of my own. I am deeply honored that the Horror Writers Association has named me a Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and eternally thankful that my works of fiction are being read and enjoyed by at least a few people.� �Owl Goingback

THOMAS LIGOTTI
Thomas Ligotti has accepted and will be making an official statement soon.

something nice happened to him and he doesn't know how to react :3:

:3:

# ? Feb 9, 2020 01:52

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

stokerfolk: please give us a brief description of your life

ligotti:

ligotti:

ligotti: :cb:

:cb:

# ? Feb 9, 2020 01:57

Count Thrashula: Jun 1, 2003; Death is nothing compared to vindication.; Buglord

ligotti: -curls into a fetal position in the corner and starts screaming-

# ? Feb 9, 2020 02:41

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

owl goingback will attend the ceremony, accept the award with tears, and give a twenty minute speech. ligotti will not attend but will send a small marionette in his stead

# ? Feb 9, 2020 03:25

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

he really is one of the only famous horror people i want to be irl friends with, but sadly also one of the ones most likely to have a freezer full of dismembered something. hopefully beef pork goat nonsense

# ? Feb 9, 2020 04:33

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

i've always had a thing for puppets and department store mannequins, and also for poles and sicilians, and so i feel a profound sense of kinship with the man

# ? Feb 9, 2020 04:34

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

does anyone know anything about ballingrud's background? dad wants to know if he's jewish. i don't think he is though

e: please forgive me for my weird intrusive anthropological fascination with horror writers' cultural backgrounds. i have had an interesting life

# ? Feb 9, 2020 04:40

escape artist: Sep 24, 2005; Slow train coming

so what's a good Ligotti entrance point

# ? Feb 9, 2020 05:44

N-N-N-NINE BREAKER: Jul 12, 2014

escape artist posted:

so what's a good Ligotti entrance point

This is probably bad advice, but I started with The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, and I think it's a great primer to how to think about his stories

# ? Feb 9, 2020 05:52

Count Thrashula: Jun 1, 2003; Death is nothing compared to vindication.; Buglord

I've only read Teatro Grottesco but it was great

# ? Feb 9, 2020 06:15

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

escape artist posted:

so what's a good Ligotti entrance point

the eyes

# ? Feb 9, 2020 06:27

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

teotro grotesco

e:

N-N-N-NINE BREAKER posted:

This is [...] bad advice, but I started with The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

# ? Feb 9, 2020 07:10

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

somebody get me ligotti's email so i can stop taking out my sexual frustration on this thread

# ? Feb 9, 2020 08:20

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

here's an interview with him

quote:

I politically self-identify as a socialist. I want everyone to be as comfortable as they can be while they�re waiting to die.

this is sweet:

quote:

The farther your thoughts and feelings are from those of the mainstream, the more attached you will become to the writer who speaks for you so. You will feel lucky to have found that writer. And that writer will feel even luckier to have found you

# ? Feb 9, 2020 08:44

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

i think Annie Wilkes-ing ligotti would be really good for him, emotionally

# ? Feb 9, 2020 08:47

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

chernobyl kinsman posted:

i think Annie Wilkes-ing ligotti would be really good for him, emotionally

i agree, that's why somebody needs to get me his email asap

hahaha omg

quote:

For instance, I was a religious fanatic for years when I went to Catholic school. I used to say hundreds of prayers a day and have nightmares about going to hell. Even now my fear of hell may be revived during a panic attack, which causes the peculiar and absurd terrors to arise. In sum, my life has made no sense at all.

# ? Feb 9, 2020 12:17

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

quote:

Q: What was the first story you ever penned about?

A: That would have been a story I wrote in elementary school, which I don�t think would have much interest in the present context. In any case, it was a fantasy story about a rubber eraser that comes to life.

quote:

Q: There was some mystery surrounding your identity in the beginning of your career. Why do you think that is? Is Thomas Ligotti your real name? Did you find all the speculation annoying?

A: What you�re talking about was a hoax perpetrated by a friend and scriptwriting collaborator of mine named Brandon Trenz. Both of us were rather amazed when the whole thing got out of hand with a certain group of persons. Others knew it wasn�t true from the beginning. My birth name is indeed Thomas Ligotti. And I�m not a Muslim.

quote:

Q: What was it like to see an illustrated novel based on your work?

A: It was no great thrill. I agreed to it for money.

quote:

Q: Does it irritate you to hear that some people consider you a nihilist?

A: I would call myself a pessimist. At one time I thought it simply inaccurate for anyone to call me a nihilist, since the dictionary definition of nihilist applies to me in very few of its aspects. The term nihilist is more apt in connection with _{someone like Nietzsche, for whom I have no use at all. Nietzsche also considered himself a type of pessimist, but after he ceased to admire Schopenhauer he modified the term pessimism so that it carried almost none of its original meaning.

These days I don�t mind being called a nihilist, because what people usually mean by this word is someone who is anti-life, and that definition fits me just fine, at least in principle. In practical terms, I have all kinds of values that are not in accord with nihilism.For example, I politically self-identify as a socialist. I want everyone to be as comfortable as they can be while they�re waiting to die. Unfortunately, the major part of Western civilization consists of capitalists, whom I regard as unadulterated savages. As long as we have to live in this world, what could be more sensible than to want yourself and others to suffer as little as possible? This will never happen because too many people are unadulterated savages. They�re brutal and inhuman. Case in point: Why is euthanasia so despised? Answer: Because too many people are barbaric sons of bitches. And even} _{_{in those places where euthanasia is allowed, you can�t be assisted in dying until you�re suffering to the brink of madness. At the Swiss clinic known as Dignitas, where you can be humanely euthanized, or in Oregon, where euthanasia is still legal, though perhaps not for long, you have to jump through a host of hoops to prove you�re mentally lucid. Who the hell is mentally lucid when they�re in such pain that they can hardly think? What a boon to humankind it would be if we offer everyone euthanasia before they are reduced to zombies of misery, so that they could say good-bye to their friends and families with a smile on their face and a clear mind. And what about people who are in mental pain from which they are not likely to recover? Have some loving mercy. There is nothing in this}} _{_{_{world as important as to be able to choose to die in a painless and dignified manner, something we do have the ability to bestow on one another. If euthanasia were decriminalized, it would demonstrate that we had made the greatest evolutionary leap in world history. If we could only arrange society so that we didn�t have to fear every one of us, the throes of agony that routinely}}} _{_{_{_{precede death, I would be proud to call myself a human being}}}}

quote:

Q: If you could change one thing about this world we live in what would it be?

A: I really don�t like the idea that this world, or any world, exists at all.

i'm crying. my boy

# ? Feb 9, 2020 12:30

Lil Mama Im Sorry: Oct 14, 2012; I'M BACK AND I'M SCARIN' WHITE FOLKS

he�s truly a gift

# ? Feb 9, 2020 19:54

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

changing my username to muslim ligotti

# ? Feb 9, 2020 20:12

Count Thrashula: Jun 1, 2003; Death is nothing compared to vindication.; Buglord

Jihadi Ligotti

# ? Feb 9, 2020 23:07

Gary the Llama: Mar 16, 2007; SHIGERU MIYAMOTO IS MY ILLEGITIMATE FATHER!!!

Thomas Jihatti

# ? Feb 10, 2020 02:04

C2C - 2.0: May 14, 2006; Dubs In The Key Of Life; Lipstick Apathy

chernobyl kinsman posted:

here's an interview with him

this is sweet:

If you need anything, and I mean ANYTHING, on the forums then just PM me. I hadn't read this before and, like hallelujah, I think I'm in love with Ligotti now & you just provide the context.

# ? Feb 10, 2020 05:46

hallelujah: Jan 26, 2020; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

i would like to know if ligotti has seen the new cats, and what he thought of it

# ? Feb 10, 2020 12:50

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

it would cause him to have an episode

# ? Feb 10, 2020 17:28

a foolish pianist: May 6, 2007; (bi)cyclic mutation

I read Brian Evenson's Last Days this weekend, and it was really impressive. It's a sort of noire detective story set inside a cult that reveres amputation. Evenson really nails the noire style with the protagonist - it rides the edge of like Dashiell Hammett parody, but it also really works. Some of the body horror is really quite gruesome and affecting, too. I was about to write "two thumbs up", but considering the subject matter, it seemed too much like a terrible pun.

# ? Feb 10, 2020 18:53

grobbo: May 29, 2014

I know this thread is a constant cycle of Ligotti Chat and The Time Between The Ligotti Chat, so this recommendation has been made before, but:

I've been relistening to the Current 93 collaborations and they're pretty great. 'I Have A Special Plan For This World' is a drat good 22 minutes of 'what if Thomas did spoken word?'

# ? Feb 10, 2020 20:19

PsychedelicWarlord: Sep 8, 2016

I picked up Teatro Grotesco thanks to the thread and wow. This guy might be the most depressed man alive.

# ? Feb 10, 2020 20:50

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

PsychedelicWarlord posted:

This guy might be the most depressed man alive.

he's like a black hole

# ? Feb 10, 2020 20:52

PsychedelicWarlord: Sep 8, 2016

chernobyl kinsman posted:

he's like a black hole

I think it was you who mentioned this in an earlier post: usually it's not difficult to separate the narrator from the author but this distinction seems completely eroded for Ligotti. Just pure nihilism. it rocks

# ? Feb 10, 2020 21:00

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

PsychedelicWarlord posted:

I think it was you who mentioned this in an earlier post: usually it's not difficult to separate the narrator from the author but this distinction seems completely eroded for Ligotti. Just pure nihilism. it rocks

ligotti is a pessimist, not a nihilist, which imo is a crucial distinction

nihilists can occasionally be possessed of that tedious joie de vivre that posits a contextless existence provides ever greater opportunities for self-actualization and fulfillment, while pessimists are eternally curled up in the most cobwebby corners of the intellectual sphere, mumbling about death nonsense

# ? Feb 10, 2020 21:17

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

PsychedelicWarlord posted:

I think it was you who mentioned this in an earlier post: usually it's not difficult to separate the narrator from the author but this distinction seems completely eroded for Ligotti. Just pure nihilism. it rocks

all of ligottis narrators sound identical because they are not fictional characters, they are literally just thomas ligotti

# ? Feb 10, 2020 22:21

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:51

uber_stoat: Jan 21, 2001; Pillbug

hallelujah posted:

i'm crying. my boy

Thomas Ligotti posted:

That day may seem like other days
Once more we feel the tiny-legged trepidations
Once more we are mangled by a great grinding fear
But that day will have no others after
No more worlds like this will follow
Because I have a plan
A very special plan
No more worlds like this
No more days like that

# ? Feb 10, 2020 22:54

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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!

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