Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

Thomas Ligotti

Oct 2015 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Two terrifying classics by “the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction” (The Washington Post)
 
Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction.  Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.

Ligotti’s stories take on decaying cities and lurid dreamscapes in a style ranging from rich, ornamental prose to cold, clinical detachment. His raw and experimental work lays bare the unimportance of our world and the sickening madness of the human condition. Like the greatest writers of cosmic horror, Ligotti bends reality until it cracks, opening fissures through which he invites us to gaze on the unsettling darkness of the abyss below.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Ratings and reviews

UPDATE: LIGOTTI IS A MASTERFUL, SUBTLE MIND-HAUNTER! This is reading for existentially bleak midnights. Original review: The hyperbole reminds me of the praise for Michael Blumlein's ho-hum The Brains of Rats. We already had a new Lovecraft and Poe come on the scene: Clive Barker. But I will keep reading, hoping to understand all the praise. The cover painting is by a pop musician who was in a band that strongly influenced the 1990s "rebellious music" scene, which was as fake as Laurel Canyon hippies and all those rich military-bigwigs' kids who got to play controlled opposition against the anti-Vietnam war effort. These people all run together in military-intelligence related packs. So maybe all the hype is just coming from social engineers. Ligotti's great-granddad may have invented the push pin or plastic gag ice cubes with flies in them.

Lovecraft successor. 5/5

About the author

Thomas Ligotti was born in Detroit in 1953. Among the most acclaimed horror writers of the past thirty years, he has received three Bram Stoker Awards, a British Fantasy Award, and an International Horror Guild Award. He lives in South Florida.

Jeff VanderMeer is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance). He is a three-time World Fantasy Award winner.