The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
by Thomas Ligotti
Cold Spring Press, 2005
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
(First published in Apex Digest)

Stylistically speaking, the field of horror, dark fantasy, supernatural or weird fiction (or whatever it's called these days) is a pretty broad one. Those readers conditioned to yarns filled with contemporary characters - some of whom might even be sympathetic - snappy patter, plenty of action, buckets of blood and gore, liberal doses of T&A and numerous pop culture references might not know what to make of Thomas Ligotti, whose fiction contains very little of the above mentioned.

An "introductory sampler" of Ligotti's work, The Shadow at the Bottom of the World includes 15 short stories drawn from four collections released between 1985 and 1996. There's also Purity, a previously uncollected story, a foreword by Douglas A. Anderson and an introduction from Ligotti - excerpted from an upcoming book - in which he discourses upon the nature of the horror short story.

Ligotti's stories all seem to have a timeless quality, even the ones that are apparently set in modern times. Most are rather quiet and mannered - regardless of how macabre - and have the feel of tales that should be told over brandy and cigars in the smoking lounge of a somewhat stodgy gentleman's club.

One of the best of these - in my ever so humble opinion - is the one that kicks things off. The Last Feast of Harlequin is the longest tale in the book. It's dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft and suggests a version of Lovecraft pared of all the attendant Lovecraftian excess and florid prose. The story of a professor journeying to a town that's putting on an exceedingly peculiar pagan winter fest of some sort, it's decidedly unsettling.

Other standouts include The Strange Design of Master Rignolo, a curious tale of two men, a giant face buried in a marsh and a dwarf artist who paints bizarre landscapes. Also quite striking was The Cocoons, a brief piece that builds very slowly, like so many of Ligotti's, but which pays off with a short scene that nearly made my skin crawl.

Also noteworthy was The Red Tower, another shorter piece. This one succeeds, despite the fact that it's virtually plotless, consisting primarily of the narrator's description of an abandoned subterranean factory that once produced a "terrible and perplexing line of unique novelty items."

Limited space precludes recounting anymore, but that's just as well since Ligotti's complex works don't generally lend themselves too well to this sort of snappy summarizing.

Recommended to anyone who prefers their chills a little more on the atmospheric side.

Copyright 2007 – William I. Lengeman III