lucasilievskie's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
A bleak and unsettling homage to Ligottian horror and the genre’s namesake progenitor.
I did genuinely enjoy a number of the stories – Furnace, By Invisible Hands, and The Xenambulist in particular were excellent pieces that evoked the classic nihilism and existential dread I’ve come to adore in Ligotti’s prose – but the rest of the stories, quality-wise, ranged from ‘pretty good’ (The Lord Came at Twilight, Basement Angels) to ‘confusing and mediocre’ (Gailestis, The Man Who Escaped This Story).
I also couldn’t help but notice that some of the stories felt out of place thematically (The Human Moth struck me as a classic dark fantasy piece, but not necessarily Ligottian, for example).
Regardless, I’d recommend this collection to any avid reader of weird fiction. There were a number of callbacks and fun little homages to Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, and Teatro Grottesco that I feel would go over the heads of readers not already acquainted with Ligotti.
Rating: Three and a half (potentially hostile) Blue Stars
A bleak and unsettling homage to Ligottian horror and the genre’s namesake progenitor.
I did genuinely enjoy a number of the stories – Furnace, By Invisible Hands, and The Xenambulist in particular were excellent pieces that evoked the classic nihilism and existential dread I’ve come to adore in Ligotti’s prose – but the rest of the stories, quality-wise, ranged from ‘pretty good’ (The Lord Came at Twilight, Basement Angels) to ‘confusing and mediocre’ (Gailestis, The Man Who Escaped This Story).
I also couldn’t help but notice that some of the stories felt out of place thematically (The Human Moth struck me as a classic dark fantasy piece, but not necessarily Ligottian, for example).
Regardless, I’d recommend this collection to any avid reader of weird fiction. There were a number of callbacks and fun little homages to Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, and Teatro Grottesco that I feel would go over the heads of readers not already acquainted with Ligotti.
Rating: Three and a half (potentially hostile) Blue Stars
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