Thoughts on Harlan Ellison and Thomas Ligotti

[Oedipus]

Being a fan of the former and having heard so much praise for the latter, I was wondering what the board thinks of these two writers. Both are primarily short story writers, with Ellison in a Speculative Fiction vein and Ligotti an extension of the Lovecraft style.

Ellison's "Shatterday" is one of my personal favourite short story collections of the genre, so you know my opinion.

[figurered]

I have read neither Ellison nor Ligotti but one of my favorite groups, Current 93 ( aka David Tibet), has used one of Ligotti s works in one of their albums:

in a foreign town in a foreign land is the title of the album.

[ladderandbucket]

I have read Ligotti's non-fiction book, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. I found it perversely enjoyable but hard to take very seriously. His world view is so unremittingly depressive it feels like parody. He believes that life is not worth living and the book draws heavily on nihilist and suicidal writers in order to drive the point home. There's not much subtlety in his arguments, in fact a lot of what he says is objectively banal - he just wants us to see things from the bleakest possible perspective. I think it is safe to say that he suffers from severe tunnel vision.

That said, he is clearly intelligent and a talented writer. I am interested to see what his fiction is like, hopefully more nuanced than his philosophy.

[Calidore]

I have a copy of Ligotti's Nightmare Factory somewhere, but haven't read it yet. Ellison's style isn't really to my taste, though I respect him as an original voice.