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The First Thread

I had forgotten how long and convoluted Krasznahorlai's sentences are. Pages with only two of them are no rarity.
Love the atmosphere of gloom and portent that emanates from between the lines though.

Claude and Hyppolyte; or The Inadmissible Tale of the Turquoise Fire ✓

A Descent ✓

Baltimore Nights ✓

Idalia on the Tower ✓

The Shadow at the Bottom of the World ★★★
Ligotti's take on Lovecraft's The Colour out of Space. A small town is confronted with strange happenings around a scarecrow out in the fields. They discover that the tendrils that reach out for it come from an impossible deep place, they try to cover it up and forget about it. But soon the town suffers from collective nightmares and they decide that only blood will fix this.

Miss Plarr ★★
A young boy gets a temporary housekeeper and tutor. She wanders through the house as a vague presence. She has an influence on the boy and something (what exactly?) happens between them, before she disappears into the mist. Another sinister meeting between young and old.
I'm not a fan of Ligotti's stories written from the point of view of kids, it feels overwrought.

The Library of Byzantium ★★
A small disturbed child gets a visit by an old priest who offers him an inspiring glimpse of a world of torment in a book. When the child steals a page from it, he forms a psychic connection to the priest and learn what the consequences can be of the path offered by a monastic life. I found it not very evocative or thrilling, with a rather curt, evasive ending.

The Glamour ★★★
A man wanders into a part of town he had never visited before and encounters a night theater. The building is condemned and seems to be made up from different kinds of reality mashed together. The basic material seems some sort of cobwebs with a visceral lighting, resembling fresh, bloody organs and entrails. And then the eyes start to see the feature...

The Night School ★★★★
An anxiety nightmare about being back in school. A prophet/teacher by the name of Carniero has started giving lectures again in his night school. Getting closer to the class, the blackness becomes material, the rot palpable. As a kind of Nyarlathotep figure, he spreads his knowledge of decay, refuse and shit. Don't forget your assignment!

The Cocoons ★★★
Somewhat unusual for a Ligotti story in that it's fairly dry and has a somewhat good (let's not call it happy) ending. A mental patient gets woken up and taken to a remote place by his doctor as part of his treatment and gets shown a rather crude, disturbing film. The world is unpredictable, you see, there's always worse than you'd imagined. Just... never trust your doctor.

In the Shadow of Another World ★★★
This one initially reminded me of Lovecraft's 'From Beyond' in that other worlds, parallel to ours are revealed. But it's no machine making this possible, but an inverted haunted mansion! Once inside this overly sterile home, it's the outside that needs to be kept at bay with sigils; the windows becoming looking glasses through which fantastic and horrible sights intrude.

The Mystics of Muelenburg ★★★
A rather cryptic, mystical figure tells a tale about a medieval town where a perpetual grey twilight set in and the true nature of the world was revealed, leading to despair. The 'twist' in the end is a bit redundant.

The Dreaming in Nortown ★★★
What living with a cultist as roommate does to you and about nightly wandering in the underbelly of the city. Moody and evocative, ultimately not that haunting.

Nethescurial ★★★★
An unnamed narrator reads an obscure manuscript, about a desolate island, a found artefact and the cult worshipping its evil creator god. All very evocative and quirky, until the narrator goes to sleep and the knowledge starts to haunt them and drives them mad.
'Nethescurial is not the secret name of the creation.'
Superb writing contemplating the world as inherently malignant.

Flowers of the Abyss ★★
A weaker story but nonetheless containing quite a bit of evocative moments. A man is sent to cjeck out (or spy) on a reclusive inhabitant of a decrepit house in the woods, where years ago a family seemed to have befallen a 'tragedy'. The recluse is a kind but detached host, lost after confronting 'the madness of things'.

The Spectacles in the Drawer ★★★★
What if you are trying to get rid of that try-hard, wannabe poseur that keeps showing up to ogle and admire your collection, only to inadvertently set him up a path to transcend you, and thus haunt you forever?

The Last Feast of the Harlequin ★★★★★
A superb story! A nameless anthropologist with an interest in clown traditions discovers a winter festival in the remote town of Mirocaw. As he follows in the footsteps of his former mentor professor Thoss, he learns about the deeper meaning of the celebrations, and the festival-within-the-festival.

Vastarien ★★★
Every self respecting horror writer needs their own fictitious book, and Vastarien is Ligotti's version. Victor, a seeker of other worlds more interesting than our own reality, wanders in a obscure bookshop where some crowlike figure helps him buy the book meant to be read by him.

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau ★★★
A bunch of vignettes in journal form. Written from the point of view of a late 19th century inhabitant of Bruges, it involves typical Ligottian themes such as labyrinthine, crooked cities and dolls. There's no overarching plots, which is a bit of a let down, but it's very accessible.

The Music of the Moon ★★★★
Tressor, an insomniac, wanders the deserted city at night to alleviate the boredom, when ge gets a leaflet pressed into his hands with an invitation. When he explores the deserted venue that was advertised he meets some weird musicians that direct him to the nocturnal concert that is going to be held for a captive audience.

The Greater Festival of Masks ★★★
Another story about illusion and identity.
Noss is a newcomer to a certain misbegotten town and wants to participate in the irregular tradition of the Festival of Masks that's already starting to slowly peter out from the edges. Walking into a costume shop he quickly finds a mask that's a perfect fit. But the shopkeeper is dismayed. He needs another mask...

The Sect of the Idiot ★★★★
An explicitly Lovecraftian story this time. A man visits an unnamed town, described in typical Ligottian fashion with high, steep, unnatural roofs (imagine something from a Tim Burton movie). During a vivid dream he gets into contact with some sort of sect whose members took note of him. Ultimately costing him his bodily integrity and... sanity.

Dr. Locrian's Asylum ★★★★
An unnamed town is dominated by the oppressive presence of the ruins of an insane asylum. When in an unspoken, collective act, the townspeople tear it all down, they unwittingly release its true purpose: the truth of the world as only madmen can understand it.

Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror ★★★★
Not a story but an actual collection of a few very short essays on horror and Ligotti's pessimistic view on life. Actually quite decent and contains a few great sentences.

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech ★★★
Be careful what you wish for, especially from the weird puppet guy in the attic. If being a puppet in this world is one of the ultimate agonies, what is being a human dummy then?

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie ★★★
Ligotti's attempt (or is it version?) in grimdark fantasy. There's little detail but it's about some sort of former hero, going mad, being cured of his madness by spectacles while also losing any other interest in the world. Then he takes on a mercenary job and dons a jester outfit to infiltrate a masked ball that ends in pandemonium...