SF Gospel: Thomas Ligotti's Dark Buddhism

Besides being its own self-contained review of Thomas Ligotti's recently re-released paperback, My Work Is Not Yet Done, Gabriel McKee's article at "SF Gospel" is an insightful little piece on the author's worldview. Ligotti's attention to the overwhelmingly negative features of physical, conscious existence have become legendary, and have served as a focus for analyzing his work in a moderate handful of essays. However, the depths of the Buddhist or Eastern philosophical connections to Ligotti's fiction are often just grazed.

McKee's review/commentary doesn't tear into the depths of this fascinating entrapment of ideas, but it is a well said summary of Ligotti's affair with Buddhism. McKee does as fine a job noting the similarities as the differences: especially Ligotti's unshakable conviction that there is no liberation save death (and even that's questionable) from a nightmare universe.

-Grim Blogger