"The Small People," one of the two novelettes contained herein, is not just my favorite Ligotti story of all-time, but one of the very best pieces of fiction I've ever read, and I've revisited it every year since I first bought this mini-collection back in 2015. It's beautiful, haunting, weird-as-hell, and (somewhat unique for Ligotti) quite emotionally moving. And it freaked the shit out of me. It's narrated in the first person by a possibly mentally ill man to his doctor. He recounts his lifel...

A short small book containing 2 stories about forty pages each in length and a two page introduction. It's new work from Thomas Ligotti! What more needs to be said. His ability to delight, enthrall, fascinate and confound through his manipulation of language is a joy to behold.Your Doctor should proscribe this book.

An All-New ContextSalvation is the pervasive neurosis of the Western world - that everything will work out just fine. It’s religious genesis from Judaism to Christianity and hence to Islam is obvious enough. But its secularised versions - from the political ideologies and terrorisms of the right and the left to the self-help and self-improvement programmes of entrepreneurial intellectuals - have become even more pervasive, and destructive, as global society has tried to shed its religious roots....

I try and I try, but I just don't get Ligotti's stories. There, I've said it. I know he's one of the grandmasters, and massively influential, and yet . . ..I don't exactly dislike him, but his brand of existential horror is just not for me. I don't find it scary, merely sort of dreary and enervating. Which is not to say I reject his nihilism -- in fact I agree with his philosophy in many of its particulars, and really enjoyed The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. But what was interesting in tha...

First, this book was unexpected. I thought we wouldn't see new Ligotti stories anymore, but here are two that have been freed from his mind by his recent medical trauma. My expectations for these two stories were already very high, and I'm happy to say the short book lived up to them."Metaphysica Morum" features the crumbling urban settings and mysterious authority figures present in much of Mr. Ligotti's past work, as well as the blending of oppressive dreams with the waking world. Ligotti can

Nothing much to say about this one as it's ruefully short and is essentially "more Ligotti". Not a criticism at all however, as both of these stories are great and threaded together by a framing device of Ligotti's characters (the first presumably being a stand-in for the man himself) recounting their unsettling experiences to a psychotherapist. While both works in this small volume are meritorious, "The Small People" is the better of the two, combining said framing device and Ligotti's fascinat...

Earlier this year I had a chance to read two of the most recent projects by horror writer Thomas Ligotti -- contemporary corporate novella My Work Is Not Yet Done and his nonfiction primer on "pessimistic philosophies," The Conspiracy Against the Human Race -- and found both of them to be excellent, really dark and unique stuff that appealed to me as a non-fan of this genre. So I thought I'd take a chance and read up on a bunch of his short fiction too (Ligotti has never actually written a singl...

Wonderful, wonderful book, and a welcome return for the Master of Horror. There are only two, long stories in this collection, but the quality of both of these tales is worth the cost and much more."Metaphysica Morum" is indeed highly unusual for Ligotti, but it's also beautifully and carefully crafted -- while being experimental and ambitious and often downright off-the-wall.I don't think any other writer alive has Ligotti's talent for getting under the skin of the reader via "dream occasions"

This short book includes two Ligotti's tales.The first one is called "Metaphysica Morum", and it was difficult to read some passages because it was very metaphorical and dreamlike. The second tale is one of the best tales of Ligotti I have read. The plot involves a child who is obsessed with " the little people" , toy-like beings that surround us and make him crazy. The way Ligotti describes the small people and its no sense acts is awesome and it creates a great atmosphere.Both tales include Li...

Ligotti is a writer with a unique style, at least in my experience. Therefore, i recommend him to people who like to navigate through that obscure, thin line between supernatural horror and psychiatric delusions. That is because the ramblings of his characters echo those of the denizens of psychiatric wards and high-security prisons. At the same time, what if they are right, and normal people simply can't look past the veil of what is considered to be normal. What does actually lurk underneath t...

Wonderful, wonderful book, and a welcome return for the Master of Horror. There are only two, long stories in this collection, but the quality of both of these tales is worth the cost and much more."Metaphysica Morum" is indeed highly unusual for Ligotti, but it's also beautifully and carefully crafted -- while being experimental and ambitious and often downright off-the-wall.I don't think any other writer alive has Ligotti's talent for getting under the skin of the reader via "dream occasions"

Thomas Ligotti returns with two stories that perfectly exemplify his standing in weird fiction. I hope the next return comes soon.

I give this 5 stars because it is Ligotti. If only there were more. Stars. Or Ligotti stories. Or whatever you'd like to have more of. In The Spectral Link, you get two short stories. 96 pages of new fiction from a true master. The second story (The Small People) is very strong. One of my favorites of his. Right up there with The Last Feast Of Harlequin and The Town Manager.I hope there's more. After you read this, you will wonder if there ever will be. Has a . . . certain air about it.

Metaphysica Morum ends up being more of a philosophical piece than a proper story. Perhaps that is what the author intended. As such, it is a concise explication of Ligotti's grim philosophy. The Small People is a more interesting piece as it sticks to a narrative while still conforming to Ligotti's primary outlook. The weirdness of marionettes, dummies, manikins, dolls, shows up as a theme leading to the truly frightening feeling of loneliness and despair which is at the heart of all of Ligotti...

I'm not sure I'll have time to write a proper review for this.I'm still finding the navigation on Goodreads a little idiosyncratic, and don't know whether, by writing this review, I am also wiping out the running commentary I was making on this book or not. If not, then that commentary will have to stand for the main body of the review.I wasn't sure how to rate this - again, I hate star or number ratings, and the only reason I pander to them is because I don't want to give the impression I refus...

3.5/5 This is the first Ligotti I've ever read, and I'm not super impressed with his writing, but "The Small People" is really interesting. One of two of stories in the book, "TSP" falls somewhere between a parody of parables about bigotry and an exploration of misanthropy. Told from a first person perspective, the narrator lives in a world where human society nearly silently shares the earth with another species of small, almost doll-like pseudo-human beings. The small people live in their own

A highly competent and focused literary achievement to be sure, but the degree to which a given reader may actually "enjoy" this will directly correlate to their level of desire to focus closely upon a state of abject, alienated demoralization. If you've viewed Ligotti's previous works not just as great stories, but clear exemplars of your personal philosophy, you will love this. If like me you come to Ligotti not for the philosophy but for the singularly weird disquieting fictions, you may find...

And now I have no more collections of Ligotti's fiction let unread.

An excellent return to fiction from Thomas Ligotti. Metaphysica Morum (3 stars) uses typical Ligottian motifs to put his bleak philosophy into fictive form. It is decent enough, but the real blockbuster here is The Small People (5 stars) which may now be one of my favourite Ligotti stories. This slim book has whetted my appetite for more new Ligotti material.

On April Fool’s day 2012, Thomas Ligotti—who had been writhing on the floor, waiting for the ambulance—was transported to a local hospital for emergency diverticulitis surgery. In a 2014 conversation with Jon Padgett, he recalls “lying on a gurney outside of the radiology department while I screamed for help or euthanasia,” before “being slit open in a couple directions.” Ligotti’s reaction to this traumatic episode? He felt “revitalized” and began to write again after a ten year period of silen...