The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (2009) by Thomas Ligotti: Whew! Great writer of visionary horror Thomas Ligotti checks in with his first non-fiction tome, a philosophical exploration of horror fiction and the need for the human race to cease to exist. It's the feel-good book of 2009!
Is it non-fiction, though? Throughout, Ligotti refers to lectures by Professor Nobody, a Ligotti stand-in. And the philosophical arguments made by Ligotti dovetail with the fictional horrors he's been visiting upon us for decades. One can never underestimate Ligotti's sense of humour.
Regardless, it's an interesting book. And a depressing one. Without giving too much away, the "conspiracy" of the title is the fact that humans possess self-awareness and an Ego. This means that we suffer more than anything else in creation, so much so that having a child is an atrocity: parents unleash children into a world where that child's suffering will always outweigh its joy.
In order to defeat suffering, humanity must cease to procreate. But it won't because humans have been programmed to have children. And they've been programmed to believe that their suffering will be lifted from them. Or isn't that bad.
Fun times, right? Ligotti goes into a number of areas in his relentlessly downbeat argument. Horror fiction, Ligotti notes, is the one branch of the Arts that faces the overwhelming suffering in a useful way: we are, in a way, all those characters in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft who learn that humanity's existence has neither hope nor meaning, and that we are all self-aware, suffering ants in a meaningless cosmos of suffering.
I've simplified and left out a lot of stuff. Look, read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Or don't. It just doesn't matter. Highly recommended.
Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of 70's and 80's Horror Fiction (2017) by Grady Hendrix: A delightful book about the boom in horror paperbacks that lasted from roughly 1968 to 1993. What a time it was to be alive! I know! I was there!
Copiously illustrated. Maybe obscenely illustrated! Horror writer Grady Hendrix keeps things zipping along, aided by all the crazy covers from those paperbacks (and discussions of some of the more famous cover artists of the period). A chronological discussion of the era shares space with thematic discussions (Insects! Incest!) and pieces on notable writers of the boom.
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| Nazi leprechauns! |
The covers, though. Really, even if this were just a picture book, it would be worth the money, even for a casual horror reader. I'm not casual, so I really loved it.
Hendrix begins the story of his own infatuation with horror paperbacks by discussing his discovery of John Christopher's batshit-crazy novel The Little People, thanks to its batshit-crazy cover art.
Holy moley! I have to buy and read this book!
I noticed a few factual errors (most puzzlingly, the misidentification of the writer of Watership Down). But overall, Grady has an interestingly idiosyncratic take on the Golden Age of Paperback Horror, along with the reasons for its rise and fall. Will Errickson supplies an essay at the back of the book, along with a lot of help Hendrix gleaned from Too Much Horror Fiction. Highly recommended.
