Thomas Ligotti

[GOLLUM]

Well, considering you've been around since what? the 25th century of the Third Age, it's not that surprising. After all, your reumatiz must be actin' up somethin' fearful....

Um...yesss man who remains mired in pre-20th Century texts; talk about pot calling the kettle black...

Now, whatever gave you that idea....?

Dunno.....call it a psychic's intuition....

 

[j d worthington]

Um...yesss man who remains mired in pre-20th Century texts; talk about pot calling the kettle black...

Ah, but I've not been wandering about since Gandalf was in nappies!

Dunno.....call it a psychic's intuition....

Errr... been talking to Madame Cleo again....?

 

[GOLLUM]

Errr... been talking to Madame Cleo again....?

Damn! How did you know?....

Ah, but I've not been wandering about since Gandalf was in nappies!

Q.E.D....

OK, 'nuff said I shall refrain from any further outbursts.....

 

[j d worthington]

All right. To keep to Ligotti: How would you compare Songs of a Dead Dreamer to Grimscribe: His Lives and Works?

 

[GOLLUM]

Well not wishing to shirk J.D., but I haven't looked at my copy of Nightmare Factory for some while now; so it's not easy for me to provide you with the comprehensive answer I like to give to such questions. I would need to re-read those two sections of the collection again before giving you a proper response as I don't want to say something as pat as they're both excellent representations of Ligotti's prose style, chilling, subtle, visceral, internalized etc.... and from what I recall I found Songs Of A Dead Dreamer to be superior to Grimscribe with it containing a stronger element on prose, the difference in structure with Grimscribe exclusively employing a first person narrative approach etc...

Also Nightmare Factory does not contain the complete Songs Of A Dead Dreamer to my knowledge, so I don't know how the exclusions may alter the balance b/w these 2 works?? If someone owns the original Songs Of A Dead Dreamer it would be interesting to get some feedback on that.

Perhaps I should have stuck to derailment hey?.....

P.S. I plan a re-read of ALL my Ligotti books this year, so I would prefer to do that before subjecting myself fully "into the fray" as J.P. likes to put it as my memory cells 'aint as sharp as they used to be...

 

[nomadman]

Also Nightmare Factory does not contain the complete Songs Of A Dead Dreamer to my knowledge, so I don't know how the exclusions may alter the balance b/w these 2 works?? If someone owns the original Songs Of A Dead Dreamer it would be interesting to get some feedback on that.

Which stories from Songs... weren't included in Nightmare Factory? I may be able to give you some feedback at a not too later date, though I don't currently have the book to hand.

 

[GOLLUM]

Well I'm basing that on reports I saw once that stated there were 20 works in the original Songs Of A Dead Dreamer and I count 18 in Nightmare plus the fact Part 1 starts with from Songs Of A Dead Dreamer vs. the other section headings made me suspicious. Yes, a difference of 2 is not much of a difference but you never can tell....Quickly typed from my copy, here's the stories in Nightmare ...Frolic, Les Fleurs, Alice's Last Adventure, Dreams Of A Manikin, The Chymist, Drink 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. Voke and Mr. Veech, Dr. Locrian's Asylum, The Secret Of The Idiot, The Greater Festival Masks, The Music Of The Moon, The Journal Of J.P. Drapeau and Vastarien.

Thanks for any light you may throw onto this...

 

[nomadman]

Quickly typed from my copy, here's the stories in Nightmare ...Frolic, Les Fleurs, Alice's Last Adventure, Dreams Of A Manikin, The Chymist, Drink 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. Voke and Mr. Veech, Dr. Locrian's Asylum, The Secret Of The Idiot, The Greater Festival Masks, The Music Of The Moon, The Journal Of J.P. Drapeau and Vastarien.

Thanks. When I check my copy I'll get back to you.

 

[j d worthington]

Well I'm basing that on reports I saw once that stated there were 20 works in the original Songs Of A Dead Dreamer and I count 18 in Nightmare plus the fact Part 1 starts with from Songs Of A Dead Dreamer vs. the other section headings made me suspicious. Yes, a difference of 2 is not much of a difference but you never can tell....Quickly typed from my copy, here's the stories in Nightmare ...Frolic, Les Fleurs, Alice's Last Adventure, Dreams Of A Manikin, The Chymist, Drink 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. Voke and Mr. Veech, Dr. Locrian's Asylum, The Secret Of The Idiot, The Greater Festival Masks, The Music Of The Moon, The Journal Of J.P. Drapeau and Vastarien.

Thanks for any light you may throw onto this...

I do not have the original Silver Scarab edition, which I understand is incredibly scarce; but I do have the Carroll & Graf paperback edition, which includes a note stating that "All of the stories have been revised, several omitted, and some new one added to this, the first general edition". At any rate, the pieces missing from The Nightmare Factory are:

"Notes on the Writing of Horror"
"Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror"

which, as I recall, are a blending of essay and horror tale proper....

Incidentally, shouldn't that be "The Sect of the Idiot"? At any rate, it is a tale of Azathoth, and was also included in Chaosium's The Azathoth Cycle, which was my second encounter with (as Lin Carter called him) Magister Ligotti....

 

[GOLLUM]

....At any rate, the pieces missing from The Nightmare Factory are:

"Notes on the Writing of Horror"
"Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror"

which, as I recall, are a blending of essay and horror tale proper....

Incidentally, shouldn't that be "The Sect of the Idiot"?

Yes, you are correct; a typo on my part.

Thanks for bringing those other 2 items to my attention. I may be able to seek them out in other ways perhaps?...

 

[Moontravler]

He's just a show off!....

So....is someone here going to post a thread on rare books soon? If nobody does it by the end of the week I may be so moved to do so but it would be nice if Moontravler, being the new kid on the block, were to do so....

That's nice of you, Gollum, but now that I think about it, I'm not too sure what would constitute a rare book. Surely, it would be books that are out of print and sold out at most bookstores. ...but would that include simply old books? Special short-run limited editions? Wait..- let me start the thread with those thoughts, actually...

 

[GOLLUM]

That's nice of you, Gollum, but now that I think about it, I'm not too sure what would constitute a rare book. Surely, it would be books that are out of print and sold out at most bookstores. ...but would that include simply old books? Special short-run limited editions? Wait..- let me start the thread with those thoughts, actually...

I think All of the above are valid. Present, past, limited runs, small press publications etc.

I suppose the only proviso for me personally, would be that we focus more on the better quality works and not just those that had a limited run purely because they were just plain bad... At least in some cases...there are always plenty of exceptions given the time something was published, where recognition only comes posthumously.

Anyway, I'll leave it in your capable hands.

 

[nomadman]

Yes, you are correct; a typo on my part.

Thanks for bringing those other 2 items to my attention. I may be able to seek them out in other ways perhaps?...

Well, JD seems to have beat me to it, but yes those are the two pieces I've seen which aren't included in Nightmare Factory. As to where you might be able to obtain them, well, it seems from my brief bit of research that Songs... was the only full book collection they appeared in. Might be best off simply getting that. Alternatively you could try getting your hands on Dark Horizons #28 in which Notes... was first published. I also have an inkling that Professor Nobody's... might have been republished in The Thomas Ligotti Reader, but I haven't been able to find a full list of contents for that particular title so can't verify this for sure.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

This reprint lists both those pieces: Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer (preorder): Subterranean Press

 

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for the details provided.....

 

[Fried Egg]

I just finished "My work is not yet done". Once again, absolutely brilliant. The novella (from which the book takes it's title) was superbly done although I wish I hadn't read the synopsis on the back which gave way far too much for my liking.

This is, I would say, cosmic horror and Ligotti overcomes the problem that writers of cosmic horror face in making the reader share the same sense of terror of the cosmos that the protagonist feels. This is far more easilly done with more visceral forms horror and it is easy to feel disengaged from the terror when reading other writers of this sub-genre. To my mind Ligotti succeeds in this regard better than any other author I have read (including Lovecraft).

"I have a special plan for this world" was great too but I was left a little confused by "The nightmare network".

 

[Randy M.]

A bit of thread resurrection:

A few moments ago, browsing a list of soon to be released books (ISFDB), I experienced a moment of vertigo, a sense of reality distorting and a superficially similar but deeply odder, perhaps richer world surrounding me: In the U.S. in October Penguin Books is reissuing a Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe in one volume.

Almost as disconcerting, they will be putting out Perchance to Dream: Selected Stories, a collection of Charles Beaumont's short fiction, and The Case Against Satan, a novel by Ray Russell.

I'm guessing the reissuing of several titles, including a collection by Russell, a few years ago in association with Guillermo Del Toro must have been successful and with October coming around again, they think to follow up.

For anyone who hasn't read Ligotti, this would be a good volume to start with.


Randy M.

 

[Fried Egg]

A few moments ago, browsing a list of soon to be released books (ISFDB), I experienced a moment of vertigo, a sense of reality distorting and a superficially similar but deeply odder, perhaps richer world surrounding me: In the U.S. in October Penguin Books is reissuing a Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe in one volume.

Sweet, I see they're also releasing this volume in the UK too.

I've not read either of those collections so I can't wait.

 

[Randy M.]

Had a similar moment yesterday afternoon when I realized that in October the NYRB (New York Review of Books) Press is reissuing William Sloane's To Walk the Night & The Edge of Running Water in a single volume, The Rim of Morning. NYRB has reissued a lot of interesting, off-beat books I haven't had the chance to read (*sigh*), but ones I've read before their issue include The Other by Thomas Tryon and Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier.

Anyway, I've read Grimscribe cover to cover and would recommend it though I do not think it greater than the sum of its parts (story collection with connecting material). I've read some of the stories in Songs... and found "The Frolic" particularly unsettling.

Randy M.

 

[Fried Egg]

I've not heard of William Sloane. Worth reading I take it?