The Sect of the Idiot

by Thomas Ligotti

Genres: Short Stories, Horror

Unknown Binding

About the author

Thomas Ligotti is a contemporary American horror author and reclusive literary cult figure. His writings, while unique in style, have been noted as major continuations of several literary genres—most prominently Lovecraftian horror—and have overall been described as works of "philosophical horror", often written as philosophical novels with a "darker" undertone which is similar to gothic fiction. The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction"; another critic declared "It's a skilled writer indeed who can suggest a horror so shocking that one is grateful it was kept offstage."

Reviews

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly atmospheric Bloodborne-core short story in which a dweller of Yharnam gains the insight of madman’s knowledge upon contact with a forbidden dream. Remain wary of the frailty of men. Their wills are weak, minds young. Seek the Old Blood.

“I was no more than an irrelevant parcel of living tissue caught in a place I should not be, threatened with being snared in some great dredging net of doom, an incidental shred of flesh pulled out of its element of light and into an icy blackness. In the dream nothing supported my existence, which I felt at any moment might be horribly altered or simply ended.”

“But the truth was notwithstanding in the face of these insanities; whether by calculation or accident, I was the victim of the unknown. And I succumbed to an ecstatic horror at this insight.
On waking, it seemed that I had carried back with me a tiny, jewel-like particle of this horrific ecstasy, and, by some alchemy of association, this darkly crystalline substance infused its magic into my image of the old town.”

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

His most Lovecraftian story