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As expected of a short story collection, the quality varies a bit, but skews to the good side. All the by now classic Ligotti elements are here: moody nihilism, crooked cities, the futility of... anything really, the trapping of illusion such as masks and manikins,... And throughout the idea of mental illness, not as a ruinous consequence of occult knowledge but as a normal way to deal with the world as it is. Some of the highlights for me were: - Drink to Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes - The Lost Art of Twilight - Dr. Locrian's Asylum - The Sect of the Idiot - The Music of the Moon - The Last Feast of the Harlequin - Nethescurial - The Night School

The Shadow at the Bottom of the World ★★★ Ligotti's take on Lovecraft's The Colour out of Space. A small town is confronted with strange happenings around a scarecrow out in the fields. They discover that the tendrils that reach out for it come from an impossible deep place, they try to cover it up and forget about it. But soon the town suffers from collective nightmares and they decide that only blood will fix this.

Miss Plarr ★★ A young boy gets a temporary housekeeper and tutor. She wanders through the house as a vague presence. She has an influence on the boy and something (what exactly?) happens between them, before she disappears into the mist. Another sinister meeting between young and old. I'm not a fan of Ligotti's stories written from the point of view of kids, it feels overwrought.

The Library of Byzantium ★★ A small disturbed child gets a visit by an old priest who offers him an inspiring glimpse of a world of torment in a book. When the child steals a page from it, he forms a psychic connection to the priest and learn what the consequences can be of the path offered by a monastic life. I found it not very evocative or thrilling, with a rather curt, evasive ending.

The Glamour ★★★ A man wanders into a part of town he had never visited before and encounters a night theater. The building is condemned and seems to be made up from different kinds of reality mashed together. The basic material seems some sort of cobwebs with a visceral lighting, resembling fresh, bloody organs and entrails. And then the eyes start to see the feature...

The Night School ★★★★ An anxiety nightmare about being back in school. A prophet/teacher by the name of Carniero has started giving lectures again in his night school. Getting closer to the class, the blackness becomes material, the rot palpable. As a kind of Nyarlathotep figure, he spreads his knowledge of decay, refuse and shit. Don't forget your assignment!

The Cocoons ★★★ Somewhat unusual for a Ligotti story in that it's fairly dry and has a somewhat good (let's not call it happy) ending. A mental patient gets woken up and taken to a remote place by his doctor as part of his treatment and gets shown a rather crude, disturbing film. The world is unpredictable, you see, there's always worse than you'd imagined. Just... never trust your doctor.

In the Shadow of Another World ★★★ This one initially reminded me of Lovecraft's 'From Beyond' in that other worlds, parallel to ours are revealed. But it's no machine making this possible, but an inverted haunted mansion! Once inside this overly sterile home, it's the outside that needs to be kept at bay with sigils; the windows becoming looking glasses through which fantastic and horrible sights intrude.

The Mystics of Muelenburg ★★★ A rather cryptic, mystical figure tells a tale about a medieval town where a perpetual grey twilight set in and the true nature of the world was revealed, leading to despair. The 'twist' in the end is a bit redundant.