I have a copy of this coming in the mail. Have you guys read it? I've been told it is a dark, poetic book that in some ways resembles Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith...yet is quite original and unique.
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Songs of a Dead Dreamer [Hardcover]
Thomas Ligotti (Author)
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Subterranean; Deluxe Hardcover edition (March 31, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596062967
ISBN-13: 978-1596062962

[www.amazon.com]

I am in the minority, here, but my personal view of Ligotti is that, although his fiction is generally worthwhile, he is extremely overrated. His work certainly does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as HPL's or CAS's.

Ligotti's best collection, in my opinion, is Grimscribe. Songs of a Dead Dreamer actually contains a lot of his weakest material, I think, where his defects (verbosity, preciosity, needless obscurity, and middle-class schoolboy nihilism) are on full display.

OK, now, someone rush reactively to Ligotti's defense. ;-)

Absquatch Wrote:
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his defects (verbosity, preciosity, needless
> obscurity, and middle-class schoolboy nihilism)
> are on full display.
>
> OK, now, someone rush reactively to Ligotti's
> defense. ;-)

That sounds awesome to me! Can't wait to read it!

;)

The pandering "reviews" attached to his bathetic non-fiction volume, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race[i][/i] would be an embarrassment to any serious author. His fiction is only mildly interesting. William Scott Home is a better [i]avant gardist[/i] in my humble opinion.

jkh

I enjoy Ligotti and happen to be reading his thick NIGHTMARE FACTORY presently -- a book that includes several stories from SONGS. To expect HPL or CAS might leave you disappointed but there's a great sense of unease in Ligotti that I find often powerful.

Let us know if you like it or loathe it.

I find Ligotti utterly contrived and artificial, to the point of unreadability.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> I find Ligotti utterly contrived and artificial,
> to the point of unreadability.

I've tried to read him and I completely agree. I don't see why he's liked by so many. Emperor's new clothes?

But if someone likes and enjoys him, more power to them.

The more of his work I read, the more I enjoy it. Perhaps he is an acquired taste.

I am impressed so far! This stuff is hinting at horrors that my mind's eye is making much more fucked up than what is written on the page! It's genuinely horrifying stuff!

:)

I to have picked up Ligotti with the hopes of finding some modern cosmicness. But didn't feel the drive to finish Dreamer... I know that at some time I will attempt again based on various reviews and thought's I have picked up on from the Internet.
I didn't think it was bad, just not enough to keep me going through the effort with so many other books calling me.

Well it was a good book, but not quite the mind-bender I was hoping. It is very modern and I would have to agree that it really does not remind me of CAS or HPL! But Ligotti is a good writer!