My Work Is Not Yet Done

Thomas Ligotti

Thomas Ligotti stamped himself as a force to be reckoned with in horror fiction from the release of his very first collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, almost fifteen years ago as I write this. He has remained, unfortunately, obscure ever since, despite putting out some of the highest-quality horror to be found anywhere in recent years. Now, along comes My Work Is Not Yet Done, and it's released by the smallest of presses, virtually ensuring it will not find the audience it deserves and catapult Ligotti to the top of the bestseller lists, where he has belonged all this time.

My Work Is Not Yet Done is a short novel (the title piece) and two previously collected stories. Of the three, “My Work Is Not Yet Done” is the collection's best piece. While Ligotti has always been a writer of unimpeachable quality, the critics who likened his early work “derivative of Lovecraft” were not all that far off the mark. “My Work Is Not Yet Done” is a whole new Ligotti; it's as if his own voice suddenly broke through and he left behind the shed skin of Lovecraft. And Ligotti's own voice is just as compelling, if not even more so. His protagonist in this story has a lot to say, and says it well. Traces of the ridiculously erudite still remain, but the guy sounds more like someone sitting next to you in a restaurant than someone delivering a lecture to PhD candidates.

The other two stories in the book are minor works, but still indicative of the brilliance of Ligotti. “I Have a Special Plan for This World” puts a completely alien spin on the urban landscape, giving us just enough details to get queasy without actually giving us the goods a la the splatterpunks and their spinoffs. “The Nightmare Network,” the collection's weakest piece, takes an impressionist dada look at the world of the corporate merger. It seems as if Ligotti were going for the same “give them just enough” vibe from the previous story, but fell short by a few yards. Still, what's there is capable of evoking a vague sense of dread, rather than simply falling flat on its face, as so many unsuccessful horror stories do.

Absolutely wonderful. Probably very hard to find. Absolutely worth it. If you haven't yet discovered the wonder that is Thomas Ligotti, you owe it to yourself to find this and read it. As soon as possible.