Liggotti Report

-GRIMSCRIBE, HIS LIVES AND WORKS-

The Author: Thomas Liggotti. A man one encounter with a dark god (Akin to the one described in his book My Work Is Not Yet Done) away from becoming an anime villain, suffering from severe anhedonia and agorophobia, an antinatalist with a belief that ALL OF EXISTENCE IS MALIGNANTLY USELESS.
	He believes that human consciousness and free will does not exist, and that the whole human condition and will to live is a “Conspiracy Against The Human Race,” which also happens to be the title of his main philisophical manifesto.
	Immensely reclusive, to the point of being considered the Thomas Pynchon of horror, and in fact until recently his books were incredibly hard to find due to his commitment to them being small press, though I acquired them via the simple process of YAR HAR FIDDLE-DEE-DEE!
	But they are enormously influential, most recently in the television show True Detective, where while they are ultimately rebuked, they are a notable influence on a character's worldview.

The Themes: His collection is early, but still the idea of reality as a thing that hates you and consciousness as a paradoelia generated by misinterpretations of instinct and the world's malevolent will is the major running concept. His “monsters” are notably either environmental; as in the school in Night School or the universe itself in his classic Lovecraft pastiche Nethescurial, or pathetic; such as the Harlequins of Mirocaw in The Last Feast of Harlequin or Plomb from The Spectacles In The Drawer.
	He is fascinating because his prose takes the “descent into nightmare” that Lovecraft was brilliant for and strips out the racism for cold, hard nihilism. He has no descriptions of racist caricatures; but plenty of the world falling apart like Lovecraft in his most brilliant moments, and even his commentary about human degeneration is more existential than Lovecraft's, as can be seen by comparing The Last Feast of Harlequin to Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
	It is similar to the works of Johnathan Wojcic's Noisy Tenant Mythos too in how it uses ogrewhelming onionlike layers of reality and perception as a mechanism for its cosmic horror; but whereas Ligotti's is deeply pessimistic; a phrase often appearing in assessments of his work, Wojcic's is humanistic and darkly whimsical; perhaps even a bit hopeful.
	Both of them are vital for anyone who wants to write Cosmic Horror, as much as Lovecraft if not moreso, perhaps as well for those who want to write Cosmic Sci-Fi/Fantasy too...

Further Insights:
A Rare Interview With The Man (With A Collection of Excellent Research At The Beginning Too): http://www.teemingbrain.com/interview-with-thomas-ligotti/
A Free Story From This Collection, Nethescurial: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=433
A Free Story Outside Of The Collection, Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=439
His Amazon Page to Buy His Works For Yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Ligotti/e/B000AP9BIM/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
A Rebuttal To His Worldview: https://lovecraftzine.com/magazine/issues/2012-2/issue-13-april-2012/this-inscrutable-light-a-response-to-thomas-ligottis-the-conspiracy-against-the-human-race-by-brandon-h-bell/
Library of Wojcic's Similar Noisy Tenant Setting: http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/library.html
The Main Noisy Tenant Work “Awful Hospital”: http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/archive.html