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Compilation of blurbs by Thomas Ligotti
Allen, Mike. Unseaming, Antimatter Press , 2014Back cover:
“There's one thing that I feel especially urged to say: these stories are fun. Not "good" fun, and certainly not "good clean" fun. They are too unnerving for those modifiers, too serious, like laughter in the dark-unnerving, serious laughter that leads you through Mr. Allen's funhouse.”
Online:
"Throughout Unseaming, reality is usually in bad shape right from the start-and from there things proceed to go downhill. Such is the general background and trajectory of life in Mike Allen's fictional world. More could be said, of course, but there's one thing that I feel especially urged to say: these stories are fun. Not "good" fun, and certainly not "good clean" fun. They are too unnerving for those modifiers, too serious, like laughter in the dark-unnerving, serious laughter that leads you through Mr. Allen's funhouse. The reality in there is also in bad shape, deliberately so, just for the seriously unnerving fun of it. The prose is poetic, except it's nonsense poetry, the poetry of deteriorating realities, intermingling realities, realities without Reality. And all the while that unnerving, serious laughter keeps getting louder and louder. Are we having fun yet? "
Anderson, Douglas A. (ed.), H.P. Lovecraft's Favorite Weird Tales: The Roots of Modern Horror, Cold Spring Press, 2005Online:
"To understand why Lovecraft regarded these stories as the touchstone for greatness in the literature of supernatural horror is to understand the significance of the genre itself. The classic works included in this collection, along with Lovecraft's own best tales, both justify and represent the essence of this form of human expression."
Angerhuber, Eddie M. Nocturnal Products, Rainfall Books, 2002Introductory blurb inside the book:
"In Monika Angerhuber's stories, one can hear the true voice of horror--not simply as a literary genre or a specialized emotion provoked by certain types of art, but as the language of that set of inescapable experiences which comprise the nightmare of being alive. This publication of the author's "nocturnal products" in English--translated, amazingly, by Angerhuber herself--will allow a new audience to hear this voice and to be reminded, as we rarely are, why Horror needed to emerge as a separate tongue among the babel that makes up the history of literary expression. Angerhuber's stories have their closest affinities, quite naturally, to the more meditative and intimate prose works of such European writers as Stefan Grabinski, Dino Buzzati, and Thomas Owen, figures whose writings form a tradition of poetic horror that looks back to the oneiric landscape of Poe and at the same time looks ahead to even darker and more delirious territories that will require who knows what combination of words and silence to describe. 'Rinaldini's Hands' is especially recommended as an absolute gem of a tale."
Burke, Kealan Patrick. The Turtle Boy (The Timmy Quinn Series Book 1), Elderlemon Press, 2010 Online:
"THE TURTLE BOY is a fine example of the Dark American Pastoral--not the heart of darkness, a dead end of absolute despair, but a more shadowy realm that is equally troubling for its mingling of the sad and the sinister, of dreams and the things that kill dreams."
Cantwell, Adam S. Bastards of the Absolute, Egaeus Press, 2015Online:
"The stories in Adam Cantwell’s Bastards of the Absolute are richly imagined mysteries. They could be fairly equated with the works of Kafka or Borges if their prose were not so luxuriant and surprising at every turn. Contemplating the mood and storylines of these arresting pieces, a quote from Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym comes to mind: “My visions were of shipwreck and famine; death or captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean unapproachable and unknown.”
The fate of each protagonist in Cantwell’s collection delineates or fulfills Pym’s fantasy—one that is both lavish in its exoticism and unbounded in its desolation. Although these beings are entrapped in worlds that to all appearances turn upon axes of torment, they are as likely to be resigned as resistant to their cruel destinies. While readers may not chortle in experiencing these awful fantasias, they will be captivated by them."
Cardin, Matt. Divinations of the Deep, Ash-Tree Press, 2002Front flap:
"Matt Cardin's horror stories are the real thing: works that are committed to exploring what is irremediably strange and terrible in human existence. They are examples of what compels true seekers of horror to page through miles of magazines, collections, and anthologies in search of a few, or even a single story that speaks to the darkness within us all."
Cardin, Matt/Daemonyx ,Curse of the Daimon, 2009 (CD)Not Printed.
Online:
"There are many haunting and beautiful compositions that complement or completely make horror films—you know the ones—as well as appeal to listeners who are sensitive to the mystery and dread of life. In its debut album 'Curse of the Daimon,' Daemonyx has offered us thirteen works of such quality."
Cardin, Matt. Dark Awakenings, Mythos Books, 2010Back flap:
"In Dark Awakenings, Cardin proves himself to be an adept in the fullest sense of the word. To both the morbid and the cosmically minded, who may be one and the same, he delivers his visions and nightmares in a master's prose. In the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft, Cardin's accomplishments as a writer are paralleled by his expertise as a literary critic and theorist, as readers can witness in this volume. His analyses of supernatural horror and its practitioners are also dark awakenings in the dual manner of his stories, with one eye on the black abyss and the other on an enlightened transcendence without denomination. Again, this quality of Cardin's work can be seen in the writings of Poe and Lovecraft, two other felicitous freaks who merged the antagonistisms of their imagination into a chimera as awful as it is awe-striking."
Cisco, Michael. The Divinity Student, Buzzcity Press, 1999Online:
“The Divinity Student is a festival of unrealities, an entrancing body of hallucinations mutilated with surgical precision by a masterful literary maniac.”
Cisco, Michael. The Tyrant, Prime Books, 2003 Back cover:
"Michael Cisco's works immerse the reader in worlds that are not simply dreamlike in the quality of their imagination but somehow manage to capture and convey the power of the dream itself. THE TYRANT is his masterpiece."
Cisco, Michael. The San Veneficio Canon, Prime Books, 2004Back cover:
"A festival of unrealities, an entrancing body of hallucinations mutilated with surgical precision by a masterful literary maniac."
Cisco, Michael. Secret Hours, Mythos Books, 2007
Cisco, Michael. The Wretch of the Sun, Hippocampus Press, 2016Back cover:
"Michael Cisco's works are indispensable to contemporary fantastic literature. They not only elevate this genre, they hover above it."
Cisco, Michael. The Great Lover, Buzzcity Press, Chômu Press, 2011Online:
"It seemed as if The Tyrant was the biggest monster Cisco could make, but The Great Lover is now his new masterpiece. Brilliant, light-years beyond … still marauding. He should receive plaudits for conceiving the Prosthetic Libido alone. Cisco has an identity as much as any writer I’ve read."
Crawford, Jim. Confessions of an Antinatalist, Nine-Banded Books, 2010Back cover:
"Even if one loathes the idea of antinatalism on its face, the questions that Crawford raises are such that everyone would be well advised to confront, for someday they may be called upon by their offspring to answer them."
Online:
"Even if one loathes the idea of antinatalism on its face, the questions that Crawford raises are such that everyone would be well advised to confront, for someday they may be called upon by their offspring to answer them. And Confessions of an Antinatalist dares them to come up with answers they can stand by in good conscience."
Crisp, Quentin S. Remember You're a One-Ball!, Chômu Press, 2010Back cover:
"Quentin S. Crisp's work belongs to a tradition of horror literature that both defines the genre and justifies it as a worthy form of artistic expression."
Online:
“Quentin Crisp’s work belongs to a tradition of horror literature that both defines the genre and justifies it as a worthy form of artistic expression. Literate, inventive, deeply thoughtful, and concerned with the darkest aspects of human fate, Crisp exemplifies what it means to be a horror writer.”
Crisp, Quentin S. The Nightmare Exhibition, BJM Press, 2001Online:
"'The Psychopomps' was a fascinating piece -- uncompromising in its effort to express the worst fate the author could imagine"
Cushing, Nicole. Children of No One, DarkFuse, 2013 Online:
"The confidence and expertise so blatantly evident in Nicole Cushing's writing is astonishing. To make the reader wonder just how a particular work could have been conceived is the height of artistry. And Children of No One instills this wonder indeed. At the same time, it presents art as a vehicle for the grossest inhumanity, something that both hypnotizes and appalls. Ultimately, however, the source of the story's dread is life itself, as the author explicitly announces late in the narrative, too late for those who by force or fancy must play its awful game."
Cushing, Nicole. The Sadist's Bible (2016) , 01Publishing, 2016 Interior, page with praise for the book:
“The confidence and expertise so blatantly evident in Nicole Cushing's writing is astonishing.”
De Winter, Corrine. Valentines for the Dead, Shadowfall Publications, 2012 Online:
“Corrine De Winter is a virtuoso of forlorn Romanticism. Her poems are those of one who is perpetually aware that all must end and, in many cases, the sooner the better. In others, a mortal ending is insufficient and others may be required. Admirers of Nico may hear in De Winter’s work echoes of the morbid chanteuse’s voice accompanied by a harmonium breathing its last.”
Ford, John B. Macabre Delights and Twisted Tales, BJM Press, 1997
Ford, John B. Tales of Devilry and Doom, Rainfall Books, 2001Online:
"'The Illusion of Life' reminded me of one of my favorite, truly uncanny tales -- 'The Fashionable Tiger' by Jean Ferry"
Ford, John B. Dark Shadows on the Moon, Hive Press, 2001, Back cover:
"I particularly appreciate the fact that the overall mood is dire and the endings so grim... I especially admired 'The Curse' and 'The Enemy Within.' (The Illusion of Life) reminded me of one of my favorite, truly uncanny tales - 'The Fashionable Tiger,' by Jean Ferry."
Gavin, Richard. Charnel Wine, Rainfall Books, 2004Back cover:
"With the debut of Richard Gavin's first collection, it seems clear that a renaissance of the horror story has secretly been taking place in the small presses. These are stories that bear witness to a Golden Age of the past and evidence a new resolve in the present. Gavin's writing serves as a testament that great masters once crafted great stories...and as evidence that they shall do so again."
Gavin, Richard. Omens, Poplar Bluff, 2007Back cover:
"... Gavin's writing serves as a testament that great masters once crafted great stories...and as evidence that they shall do so again."
Isis, Justin. I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, Chômu, 2011Interior, page with praise for the book:
“If you ever wanted to experience some life-bending obsession but thus far are still waiting for one to come along, reading I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like will serve as the next best thing. In his disarmingly masterful first collection of stories, Justin Isis reports on what it is like to be young, Japanese (quite incidentally in our global culture), and hopelessly a slave to awful and bizarre attractions—eccentric enchantments that any fugitive from the conventional world would take agonizing pride in confessing to a sheaf of private papers. Indeed, these are stories in the best tradition of the confessional genre. Even when they are not narrated in the first person, the focus is still that of a Poesque psyche utterly fixated with an imprudent intensity upon someone or something of an unparalleled nature. One problem in writing for the uninitiated about Isis’ stories is how to praise them in terms appropriate to their character. But while there are so many ways in which one might go wrong, each would be likely to bring up some aspect of their fascination. So for present purposes, let us simply generalize them as admirably captivating narratives with the following “black box” label: To be read by those who themselves would be overtaken by the extraordinary liaisons and manias that either save or doom—it can be hard to tell—the characters in these works.”
Jacobs, Teri A. The Void, Leisure Books, 2002Front cover:
"In The Void Teri A. Jacobs ambitiously and relentlessly pursues a darkness beyond darkness."
Jacobs, Teri A. Secrets of the Bones Wildside Press, 2005 Back cover:
“Teri A. Jacobs ambitiously and relentlessly pursues a darkness beyond darkness."
Joshi, S. T. I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, Hippocampus Press, 2013 Not Printed.
Online:
"I received Joshi's monumental biography of Lovecraft the other day and have been poring over it since. ... Every major library in world should have in its holdings these volumes. And Joshi should be recognized as the major biographer he has proven himself to be, his single volume biography alone having already well made this case."
LaValley, Dustin. Odds and Ends: An Assortment of Sorts, Raw Dog Screaming Press , 2013Online:
"Extraordinary. Hauntingly poignant."
Lines, Steve & Ford, John B. (ed.). The Derelict of Death and Other StoriesBack cover:
"This is really fine work, if I may be allowed to say... An extremely memorable reading experience."
Minnis, Michael. Anencephalous and Other Poisoned Dreams, Bärenklau Ed. Bärenklau Plaidt mgVerl., 2005Online: "Writing in a style that is equally concise and evocative, brutal and poetic, Michael Minnis is an expert teller of horror tales that are both delicately nuanced and emotionally powerful."
Nulick, James. Valencia, Nine-Banded Books, 2015Back cover:
“The prose of Valencia is delicately simple yet densely poetic. Its voice is haunting. I couldn't help being reminded by every line I read in James Nulick's novel of Garcia Lorca's famous "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias" and its chilling refrain: At five o'clock in the afternoon”.
Olson, Danel. Exotic Gothic 2: New Tales Of Taboo, Ash-Tree Press, 2008Back cover:
“The concept of a horror anthology structured by world regions is enticing in itself. Danel Olson's first such compilation of exo-terror tales in EXOTIC GOTHIC included some of the finest writing in the genre. In this sequel anthology, which is even more focused on unfamiliar territory, the writing is equally fine and each of its locales is well explored for the peculiar horrors they hold. What H. P. Lovecraft did for New England, EXOTIC GOTHIC 2 does on a global scale.”
Olson, Danel. 21st-Century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels Since 2000, Scarecrow Press, 2011 No Printed.
Online:
"A massive masterpiece of critical essays on gothic fiction.When I started out writing, it seemed as important to read analyses of gothic and supernatural works as it did to read the works themselves... This is for anyone seeking insight into what has been written in the horror genre."
Padgett, Jon. The Infusorium, Dunhams Manor Press, 2015 Online:
"That imagination precedes reason in our lives is perhaps the most obvious truth of all. It is the foundation upon which the mind is raised. In The Infusorium Jon Padgett adeptly conjures the more terrible and, we should admit, blatantly captivating aspects of the imagination. What is not obvious is how Padgett has done this and done it so well. While the terrors of his story are imagined, they are no less real for that.”
Perry, Sarah. Every Cradle Is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide, Nine-Banded Books, 2014Back cover:
"[I] Strange as it may seem to some of us, there are scads of volumes that praise the abuses we endure in our lives. Such works have always been well thumbed, though they are only prayer-books for the purpose of worshiping misery. Sarah Perry is more honest and less perverse on the subject of suffering, treating pain as both a philosophical and a practical problem to which, it is admitted, there is no ultimate solution. Nonetheless, in her view there still remains intelligence and compassion as a means for confronting the insoluble. That is what makes this book as much a necessity as it is a rarity."
Online:
"Every Cradle Is a Grave undertakes a difficult task—to write on discomforting matters from a perspective that is socially unsanctioned. Strange as it may seem to some of us, there are scads of volumes that praise the abuses we endure in our lives. Such works have always been well thumbed, though they are only prayer-books for the purpose of worshiping misery. Sarah Perry is more honest and less perverse on the subject of suffering, treating pain as both a philosophical and a practical problem to which, it is admitted, there is no ultimate solution. Nonetheless, in her view there still remains intelligence and compassion as a means for confronting the insoluble. That is what makes this book as much a necessity as it is a rarity."
Pulver, Joseph S. Portraits of Ruin, Hippocampus Press, 2012Back cover:
“Let us posit that Bukowski is the sun. Or Brautigan, Burroughs and the Beats — a solar Coney Island of the Mind where Timothy Leary’s dead and dead Cthulhu waits and sings the live long daydream believer. Then Joe Pulver’s Portraits of Ruin would be the burst of planets, Big Bang-Bang, Marquee Moons hanging on for what they got, scream of consciousness — in Outer Space no one can hear it . . . except Coffin Joe, Monster Mash Potato that big ol’ Portraits of Ruin — Mars needs it, you need it, so just open the lid and shake your fist — then say: “They kill horses, horses, horses, horses.” Thank you. Come again?”
Pulver, Joseph S. Blood Will Have Its Season, Hippocampus Press, 2009Online:
"Some writers one admires and others make one want to do as they do, or try. For me, Joe Pulver is of the latter type. His imagination is so vile so much of the time that it makes me giggle with amazement. And the prose so deadly visionary. I'm grateful that the pieces in this collection are those of a fellow horror writer who has raised the ante on what it means to be such a creature."
Pseudo-Leopardi. Cantos for the Crestfallen, gnOme, books 2014 Back cover:
“Not since Die Nachtwachen (The Nightwatches), published in 1804 under the pseudonym of Bonaventura, a German Romantic of often-attributed yet arguably still uncertain identity, has there appeared such a book as Cantos for the Crestfallen. Also written by an unknown hand, one drenched in a philosophy and poetics of an apocalyptic tone, the latter title rivals its predecessor in both mystery and melancholy. At the same time that the authors of these works tear the mask from the dark face of the inhuman comedy, they practice a reckless wit that makes the blackness of our lives blacker still. Cantos for the Crestfallen in particular flows with gruesome conceits that empty into an ocean of tears, ultimately drowning its reader far from the sight of land, of home, and of hope.”
Russel, Ray. Putting the Pieces in Place, Ex Occidente Press, 2009Online:
"Ray Russell's stories in Putting the Pieces in Place are captivating for their depth of mystery and haunting melancholy. These qualities place Russell in a tradition of authors that includes Sheridan LeFanu and Ramsey Campell, storytellers whose works proceed with a creeping uneasiness that leaves a lasting impression on the reader."
Russel, Ray. Literary Remains , PS Publishing, 2010Front flap:
"Ray Russell's stories are captivating for their depth of mystery and haunting melancholy."
Samuels, Mark. The White Hands and Other Weird Tales, Tartarus Press, 2004Back cover:
“…a treasure and a genuine contribution to the real history of weird fiction...”
Online:
”[The White Hands] is a treasure and a genuine contribution to the real history of weird fiction ... Even when the settings and characters are modern Samuels manages to convey a sense of otherworldly nightmare. For example, the use of computers in 'The Impasse' gives these infernal machines the feel and function of the strange books that stock the shelves of so many of the best weird tales from Lovecraft to Borges. ("Mannequins in Aspects of Terror" is the other major instance of this wonderful feat.) I thought the most impressive story in the collection was "The Search for Kruptos". The exotic locale and the historical setting are not the sort of thing that I would attempt in a story, and I thought Samuels handled both tasks magnificently, not to mention the ingenious and awful concept of a book in innummerable volumes. The other stories that were among my favorites, and served most powerfully to convey a uniform sensibility to The White Hands, were "Apartment 205" and "Colony".”
Sterling, George. The Complete Poetry of George Sterling (3 VOLUMES), Hippocampus Press, 2013Online:
"The short-lived phantasm of Decadence and the perennial worlds of Romance have rarely been so proficiently and masterfully exemplified as in the life and works of George Sterling. Denied the Parisian milieu of Maurice Rollinat, who recited his macabre lyrics at the Chat Noir, or a fin-de-sičcle London where an amber-tinted morbidity was too briefly purveyed in the Baudelairean verse of Theodore Wratislaw and John Gray, who glittered dimly among the more glaring stars of the era, Sterling created and presided over a poetic circle founded on pure imagination that required no peculiar time or place. While Sterling s epic masterpiece A Wine of Wizardry is known and widely praised among the cognoscenti of the fantastic and the weird, his catalogue extends more deeply and broadly in this domain and others, as Hippocampus Press has verified in its three-volume edition of Sterling s wealth of wonders he composed before his voluntary death by poisoning in the surroundings of the Bohemian Club. Along with his overconsumption of intoxicants and his influence on such eccentric successors as Clark Ashton Smith, Sterling seems excessively faultless as an accursed resident of environs both dauntingly grotesque and marvelously exquisite in form. As an alchemist of chimerical visions, Sterling is unsurpassed. For those who aspire to the extraordinary in their own writings or who find solace and delight in transcending this ragged landscape into which they have been roughly thrown, his work is essential."
Strantzas, Simon. Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales, Hippocampus Press, 2014Back cover:
"The stories of Simon Strantzas exemplify a style of horror that might be compared to the novellas of T. E. D. Klein."
Subject A. Verses from the Underlands , gnOme books, 2016Back cover:
“Everyone should be aware that there is a strain of poetry that embraces stricken visions, hopelessly so. They should know that there are bibles of verse, Maurice Rollinat’s Les Névroses for instance, that elegantly sing of sick nightmares and thereby critique the wholesome norm. They should be force-fed this knowledge, if only that they might be robbed of some parcel of their contemptible health. Verses from the Underlands excellently contributes to this mission with its revelations of a supernatural malady with neither a cure nor even an earthly diagnosis.”
Thacker, Eugene. Horror of Philosophy (Book 1), Zero Books, 2011Online:
"Thacker's discourse on the intersection of horror and philosophy is utterly original and utterly captivating...In the Dust of This Planet is an encyclopedic grimoire instructing us in the varieties of esoteric thought and infernal diversions that exist for the reader's further investigation, treating us to a delightful stroll down a midway of accursed attractions that alone are worth the ticket of this volume."
Sotos, Peter. Tool, Nine-Banded Books, 2013 Online:
“Peter Sotos is one of those rare writers who can say, ‘The words I write are me,’ or at least as close as anyone can come to communicating who they are in words.”
Thomas, Jeffrey. Godhead Dying Downwards, Earthling Publications, 2003Online:
"Jeffrey Thomas' GODHEAD DYING DOWNWARDS is an ingenious and impeccably written tale filled with choice offerings of the sort relished by devotees of the English ghost story."
Tugen, Rasu-Yong, Baroness de Tristeombre. Songs from the Black Moon, gnOme books, 2014Back cover:
“A book of beautiful and strangely tranquil outbursts of disaffection and dissolution. I wish everyone on earth lived by the sentiments expressed within it.”
VanderMeer, Jeff. City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris , Cosmos Books 2001
Online:
"...impressive work...I confess I tried to skim its pages - my usual procedure - but soon found that it was unskimmable and that every sentence needed to be read (and often reread)."
Wiloch, Thomas. Mr. Templeton's Toyshop: Prose Poems & Short Fiction, Jazz Police Books, 1995Back cover:
"For over a decade Wiloch has been publishing what deserve to be included among the best prose poems ever written in any language. They are - often simultaneously - haunting, hilarious, cruel and intensely unusual."
Wiloch, Thomas. Stigmata Junction, Naked Snake Press, 2005Inside the front cover:
"Wiloch has been publishing what deserve to be included among the best prose poems ever written in any language. They are - often simultaneously - haunting, hilarious, cruel and intensely unusual."
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