The Nightmare Factory

Rating:
Summary: Gnostic Nihilism
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Gnostic Nihilism
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: I agree with David Tibet - Greatest Living Writer
Review: Eerie. That's the first word that pops to mind when thinking of Ligotti's style of writing. Like a word association test; Ligotti . . . Eerie. Ligotti has a unique style of writing. Quite rare when so many writers are trying to write "like" someone else. King, Campbell, Straub, Barker, the list of the imitated goes on. It must be admitted, however; when one reads Ligotti, one can see the pastiche of different styles. The influence of Lovecraft is particularly poignant. Indeed, "The Last Feast of Harlequin," is dedicated to Lovecraft. What one has to realize is that this is not imitation but mastery. Ligotti is not trying to write "like" someone else . . . He can write better. After reading Ligotti, one might think that he studied under Lovecraft, mastered that style, then moved onto another until he had mastered all styles he felt he needed. It is similar to how artists study under recognized masters then create their own works after finishing their apprenticeship. Ligotti is an artist unto himself, but one can tell the "styles" under which he is versed; just as one can tell the "styles" under which Remembrandt was versed.
Ligotti has a way of "bending" reality as, quite aptly, in a nightmare. More akin to Kafka, these are psychological skews in perception. But sometimes (and the scary part is that we never know whether or not the story we are reading falls into this particular "sometime") the horror is more than psychological, it is Lovecraftian. The first story in the collection, "The Frolic," is a good example of this. [STOP reading here if you do not want to know what happened in the story.] Is the prisonner simply an insane murderer or is he a being from a different plane of reality, a demon dimension bordering ours? Either way you look at the story, psychological (the killer is a psychopath) or supernatural (the killer is a demon from another dimension) you are hit with horror. The only difference is the difference between being hit with a 50 foot tidal wave or a 150 foot tidal wave. [RECOMMENCE reading now.]
Ligotti is not a complex writer; he is a sophisticated writer. A complex writer presents many parts, all of which may not go together. A sophisticated writer presents many parts, ALL of which serve an important purpose, like a well played chess match (or the engine block of a 65 Mustang). Ligotti has been indicted with being too ambiguous, too vague, in his writing. But the beauty of Ligotti's writing is that it is open to multiple interpretations. This is the reason for the confusion. His writing is not ambiguous, it is multifaceted. It is highly sophisticated with amazing prose, and I only hope that, unlike his Providence predecessor, Ligotti will not have to wait until after his death to receive the recognition he deserves as a truly original, truly eerie, voice in horror literature.

Rating:
Summary: Waking up in a nightmare
Review: 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?

Rating:
Summary: By far the best book I've read in a LONG time
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Too few superlatives to describe the caliber of his writing
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Carrying the traditional weird tale into the next century
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Collection from the Best Weird Fiction Writer Alive!
Review: 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...

Rating:
Summary: GOTHIC DECADENCE FROM AN AMERICAN MASTER
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Writing, concepts = 10 stars!
Review: Thomas Ligotti is the most interesting thing happening in all the books currently on my shelf (besides the ever-fascinating Osho). I'm absorbed. However, I don't detect perfection as far as a writer of pure horror or terror. He's not as scary, for instance, as early Stephen King (who is?). But he's soooo damned beautiful in his words, his economy, his expression of things you always wondered if anyone else ever dared consider in whatever dark proclivities your mind possesses. The stuff will scare you if you meditate upon it, sure. But it's sometimes ineffable, and you can't wait to see what he tackles in the next tale. I will have to read many stories again, for sometimes the endings leave me with a slight letdown. Then you realize that, no, you didn't miss anything in the story, you're just not used to letting things sink in. Ligotti send reflections of fear down the corridors of a mind that likes to reflect. You get to play in those corridors if you have this fantastic book. It's intellectual meat-and-potatoes almost posing as mind-candy. You feel the creep not so much through the plots as through the strange circumstances and bizarre images and unspeakable implications. No, he doesn't *go* for the scare, just for the next best thing: He makes you think.