On Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

I know Ligotti is a fan favorite, and one of the very few living writers Penguin Classics publishes, but this book took me ages to get through. There were a few exceptional stories and a lot of much weaker ones. My favorites were:

• “The Frolic”
• “Les Fleurs”
• “The Chymist”
• “Vastarien”
• “The Last Feast of Harlequin”
• “The Mystics of Muelenburg”

— along with a handful of others whose titles I can’t remember. Ligotti is at his best in truly cosmic horror: the world is a fundamentally alien place that we shape with our own minds, and once the fragile foundations come undone, we go mad. Unfortunately, too many of the stories here don’t handle that especially well. I’m glad to have read some of him now, but I’m not sure I fully “get” him.