Reddit reviews Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

Patrick, Veins of the Earth is a very evocative work that has a well-crafted aesthetic prose throughout. When I had the pleasure of meeting you at Gen Con, you were reading Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. I have enjoyed it quite a lot so far. What other literature do you have to recommend—and what does Scrap recommend—keeping in mind the aesthetics of Veins but not necessarily the content? (i.e., literature not so much about caves but that will beautifully creep you the fuck out?)

Look the characters namesakes for recommendations. Martin Blackwood is named after Algernon Blackwood. An English author famous for his horror/weird fiction.

In the same vein:
Thomas Ligotti(my favorite author) I would recommend this collection

Arthur Machen

H.P. Lovecraft

Robert Chambers

Ashton Clark Smith

John Langan

I would also heavily endorse house of leaves, it reads like the darkness, the spiral, and the vast all decided to be roommates in Northern VA

You can get Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe together in one volume for only ten bucks! I'm really grateful to Penguin for releasing this, since both books had been out of print before this.

The thing I love about Ligotti, is that he took the monsters and mystery of writers like Lovecraft and brought them into the workaday world. So many of his stories center around the drudgery and banality of trying to earn a living and what it can do to you internally, both physically and emotionally. I've always credited Ligotti as having invented the Creature In The Gray Flannel Suit genre of fiction.

I've been reading The Weird and Ligotti's The Town Manager has probably been my favorite short of the year. It convinced me to pick up Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe and I haven't been disappointed.

Anyway, favorite for the year is The Town Manager. It is about an ineffective town manager who is replaced by someone more incompetent. Has a very Kafkaesque nightmarish world.

Some of these are a bit older and aren't all single-author collections, but they contain some really high-quality stuff:

Prime Evil by Douglas Winter (ed)

Dark Forces by Kirby McCauley (ed)

Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti

The Dark Descent by David Hartwell (ed)

Alone with the Horrors by Ramsey Campbell

Dark Gods by T.E.D. Klein

Wormwood by Poppy Z Brite

Black Evening by David Morrell

Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti is a great collection of short horror stories that bears similarity to Lovecraft in its focus on cosmic/unknowable horror, but is better written in my opinion.

Here´s the first story I ever read by him, called "The Frolic" and it's absolutely chilling. https://pastebin.com/cbWmGNA7

It's about 15 pages too if I remember correctly so it's a quick read. If you like that story then I would recommend ordering Songs of a Dead Dreamer/Grimscribe as that collection has some of his better stories including The Frolic. https://www.amazon.com/Songs-Dreamer-Grimscribe-Thomas-Ligotti/dp/0143107763.

I tried reading his other collection called Teatro Grotesquo but wasn't that into it because it's very abstract horror which kind of loses me after a few stories. That said I've also heard Conspiracy Against the Human Race (which is an essay) is one of his best pieces so in the end just look for what interests you most! (But seriously, read The Frolic you won't regret it)

Is it ok to get a little weird? Because some of my favorite short stories fall in that genre.

I'm honestly surprised no one has mentioned Edgar Allan Poe. While most of his work of course belongs to the horror and macabre,
there's still a huge (dark) fantasy element to it. I'd say the same goes for authors like Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Thomas Ligotti.

You might like the anthology Mannequin: Tales of Wood Made Flesh

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1096969467/ref=as_li_tl_nodl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1096969467&linkCode=as2&tag=silentmotoris-20&linkId=0df82ec6a03de90b7abb8cb8110479dc

Also some short stories from Thomas Ligotti

https://www.amazon.com/Songs-Dreamer-Grimscribe-Thomas-Ligotti/dp/0143107763/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=thomas+ligotti&qid=1564779967&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Both of those are contained in this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Dreamer-Grimscribe-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143107763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543345502&sr=8-1&keywords=songs+of+a+dead+dreamer+and+grimscribe

Great value for that book. I also highly recommend Teatro Grottesco by Ligotti. It's the book that got me into him.

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story by Thomas Ligotti

Summary: Gerland Riggers, A writer of horror stories sits down to record his thoughts on the horror story itself. He takes the same basic plot of a horror story and re-imagines it in a myriad of styles. As Mr. Riggers' essay wears on he reveals that he is actually the character of his horror story: Nathaniel Stein, soon essay and narrative collide, revealing the strange horror of this story to be the horror of Nathaniel's own life.

Commentary: Though this is perhaps one of Thomas Ligotti's strangest stories I still think it's one of his best. It begins as a sort of snarky and clever dive into the world of horror stories and then turns dramatically into a confusing meta-narrative where identity and plot become muddled. In this story Ligotti really reveals his thoughts on what horror is about, at least for himself, in a way which is both fascinating and terrifying.

If you like short stories, I recommend Songs of Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti. It's his first two collections in one.

Also, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski