Customer Reviews

The Nightmare Factory

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A celebration of utter bleakness that becomes beautiful in the courage of its purity...imagine John Doe of the film, Seven, but with the hatred replaced by wonder. Ligotti is the best American horror writer since H.P. Lovecraft, and perhaps the best American prose poet since Poe.

This is a fine collection -- a sort of "greatest hits," if you will, from the man who I would consider the best author of short horror ever. Ligotti taps into a fertile territory of the subconscious with an intellecual vigor that is frightening in its intellegence. His stories are densely packed with narrative information, often cryptic, and sometimes difficult to read, but they are always rewarding. As with any visionary author, his stories cannot be lumped in with any concrete genre, although horror comes closest to describing Ligotti's style; still, though, there are many cases where he spills over the boundaries into a more philosophical, surreal form that I'd not even be sure how to categorize. While there are the definite imprints of Lovecraft, James, and Campbell on these stories, there are also hints of Pynchon (although some might disagree with me on that) and Kafka. This is a collection of stories taken from his three released collections ("Songs of a Dead Dreamer," "Noctuary," and "Grimscribe"), as well as a group of new stories that are very good as well. My only small complaint is that some stories, I suppose by necessity, had to be left out; but I do miss the inclusion of such Ligotti greats as "Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story" and "Professor Nobody's Little Lectures." Also missing from this collection are the brilliant short-short stories that form the last pages of Noctuary. Still, these are small quibbles, and as an introduction to the work of this luminary of modern storytelling, one can hardly do better than to buy this book

Ligotti pens the dark blues, purples, greys and ash of twilit towns, where the occupants grow to pale mushrooms. Or, more often then not make their appearances as clowns, marrionettes... the faceless walkers of festivals. We are just puppets, dear readers. So get on with it and read. That is your job, isn't it?

truly disturbing. its images will bore into your mind and haunt you long after the book is read. Best literary horror in ages.

Shortly before I purchased this book, I was in the mood for a good, twisted, even disturbing, novel. You know, one that messes with your head, perhaps even changes your perception of life and reality. Well, in searching for that genre, if you will, I read H. P. Lovecraft's 'The Road to Madness'. Now, I think Lovecraft is a good writer; however, few of his stories really sparked the edginess that I sought. To tell you the truth, the only one I can think of at this time was "Arthur Jermyn". Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is this: it took me Lovecraft's entire book to realize that he is an ok 'disturbing' writer; it took me Ligotti's first story ('The Frolic') to realize he is one of the most intrigueing and 'twisted' writers of all time. I wasn't able to put the book down for a good two hours, and that was before I even left the bookstore. Ligotti has a dark and eloquent style that perplexes and intrigues, while not smothering the plot or destroying character depth. He is simply by far the most intelligent and enchanting writer I have encountered.

This is a collection of three books from Thomas Ligotti: "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", "Grimscribe", & "Nocuary. It also contains some unpublished material to form Part 4. This is absolutely the most authenticly frightening and ingenius collection I have ever read. Ligotti is without a doubt the best weird fiction author alive today! I won't go into the details because I'm sure others have already done it (better than I can); but I will say this: if you are considering buying a Ligotti book, buy this one! It contains a good portion of his work and it's super-cheap! You will not be disappointed! Be sure to pick up "My Work Is Not Yet Done" after you've finished this one...

Some here have written more detailed reviews, so I will simply say that I have not been this excited about a horror/macabre writer since I discovered Lovecraft when I was a teenager. Ligotti is brilliant, there is no comparison of this book to the dreck that floods the horror genre. Like Lovecraft, his writing is dense (yet not as bombastic) and filled with detail, but not belabored. If you are a fan of the horrors that live on the edges of perception like those found in Lovecraft, than you must read this book. If you prefer your horror in White Castle bites of easy swallowing, stay with King.

O.K. Maybe some of his other books are alright, but this one is the "Bermuda Triangle" of description. He comes out of nowhere and leads you around for awhile giving ALOT of useless information on the way things look, feel, act, smell, etc. etc. Most of the stories have maybe an inkling of horror to them....but that's about it. The rest are just frolics in la la land and a trip around in a void. Yes, description is important to give the reader an insight into who, what, where, when, and why. But come on! I don't enjoy reading for forty minutes about a door in some dark alcove with light just dusting the outer edges
giving a faint impression of the promise of a voyage into an abyssmal beyond. Just get me through the darn door and let's go from there! Jeez!

The work of Thomas Ligotti is the revival horror literature was in dire need of since the swamping of the genre by writers with below-average imagination and a writing rate of three paperbacks a year. If you have liked the works of E.A.Poe, or H.P. Lovecraft, or both, then Ligotti will come as a blessing to you.
"Nightmare Factory" combines the four collections of Ligotti, sadly missing the drawings and poems that were included in the original editions of "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", "Noctuary", "Grimscribe" and "Teatro Grottesco". Being a nihilist himself, Ligotti delivers a verse that carries a very strong sense of foreboding gloom. His settings are out of place, nightmarish and maddeningly surreal. As you read through paragraphs, you feel yourself walking just steps behind the helpless protagonist into dread regions of madness where everything is a broken reflection of its original self. Horror unfolds as the "Greater Festival of Masks" nears its time of unmasking, where faces without soul take the stage. Young girls are abducted into frolicking, without a scream, without a whimper. A way lost in twisted alleys ends up in the worst place one can possibly hope not to get. Reflections in windows refuse to leave until people step over their dread and step into shuttered rooms. Sects worship idiot gods, intoning phrases and chants neither they, nor their idol understand.
With a strong use of language, Ligotti carries us through his Nightmare Factory, where the line between light and darkness gets fuzzy, meanings of words are sinisterly re-defined, and it is impossible to tell whether angles are acute or obtuse.
If you read horror, please do yourself a favor and take my advice. Ligotti is easily the best writer in the genre, and it seems he'll stay that way until someone else comes along.

Thomas Ligotti and Gore Vidal are America's greatest living writers. It is unfortunate that Mr. Ligotti has been so egregiously pigeon-holed as a mere "horror" writer, because his fiction is utterly incommensurable with the usual cretinous "horror" fiction bulked out on schedule by the Kings and the Barkers. Ligotti is not merely the tallest building in the Wichita of horror fiction, as it were, but a Titan of legitimate literature, a genius who must be ranged alongside his true peers: Baudelaire, Huysmans, and Poe (this is not, repeat not, irony!)
Ligotti's finest tales appear in the omnibus collection entitled "The Nightmare Factory," which opens with a beautifully written and appropriately ominous "Foreword" by Poppy Z. Brite, a concise tribute which distills the sense of mystery and awe evoked in so many discerning readers of the Master's works. Ligotti's style is astonishingly deft, beautifully orchestrated, and insinuatingly minatory in its tone, for his sorcerous visions are embodied in a lush language that closely approximates the "prose-poetry" of such louche 19th century masters as Jean Lorrain, Octave Mirbeau, and Walter Pater. Ligotti's world is almost oppresively darkling and yet his artistry is such that we delight in the spell even as it clutches at our hearts.
Read "Nethescurial" and "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World"--and maybe this time we won't have to wait for some French critic 50 years hence to reproach America--bitterly and justifiably--for having missed another giant, as we certainly have done with Poe and Lovecraft. Let's give the man his due now!