Customer Reviews

My Work Is Not Yet Done

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Thomas Ligotti writes to prove human existence a blind travesty and an unending tragedy. His stories are dreamlike and oppressive, seething with atmosphere and malevolence, and his characters are the deformed and the sick. My Work is Not Yet Done, a collection of "Three Tales of Corporate Horror" marks a deviation from his usual, Lovecraft-influenced Weird Tales style, focusing not on the supernatural or the metaphysical as the source of their horror but rather on society, work an all encompassing metaphor for the futility and barbarity of humanity.

The opening and eponymous story is by far the longest piece of fiction that Ligotti has written. The seasoned Ligotti reader will notice several changes right off the bat, one being the absence of any supernatural elements for quite some time. Ligotti's dense and ornate prose is still, in part, present, but it's offset now by a far leaner style and a sardonic wit. Our narrator, Frank Dominio, is a bitterly unhappy man who's been sorely abused by the corporate framework he finds himself in. When he tries to please his new bosses and creates a new product, he finds his creativity exploited and is driven out of the company by the panel of supervisors he was once a member of, the group he refers to as The Seven Dwarfs: "Barry, Harry, Perry, Mary, Kerrie, Sherry, and, of course, Richard." (p. 18) Cast out from the company, exiled from his old role of invisible and inoffensive worker, Dominio recasts himself: There are no angels unless they are Angels of Death...and I would never again doubt my place among them or lose my resolve to serve in their wild ranks. (p. 102)

Dominio haunts abandoned buildings and is fascinated only by the broken, by the "humble charms of wabi, the morose pleasures of sabi." (p. 67) Like many a Ligotti narrator, he rarely hesitates to discuss the emptiness he sees behind our lives, but Dominio is not your standard authorial spokesman. He is only too aware of the absurdity of his position, of how far outside the norm it leaves him. He's fond of bitingly sarcastic commentary and never-ending slander against his coworkers, but there's an unmistakable element of self mockery to his words. The world has attacked him so many times that he can do nothing but join in, even while he tries to preserve what's most important to him:

"But what could I say to her? that I'm drawn to those old buildings and junk because (voice beginning to seethe)...because they take me into a world (the seething builds)...a world that is the exact opposite of the one (voice seething to a pitch)...the one I'm doomed by my own weakness and fears to live in (uncontrollable, meta-maniacal seething)...to live in during my weeks, my months, my years and years of work...work...work?" (p. 53, My Work is Not Yet Done)

To this point, My Work is Not Yet Done is an odd specimen of a Ligotti tale. Darkly pessimistic words have been spoken, yes, but our perspective has been more the whiny and wronged worker than the psychotic subjected to the truths of existence, the equivalent of reaching the end of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and finding a polar bear instead of an inter-dimensional monstrosity. Our hypothetical Ligotti reader, the one who went in expecting the cosmically grandiose and so far has received comparative normality, will no doubt be relieved to see the tale explode from the gate as part two of our tale begins. As he prepares to embark on his quest for vengeance, Frank Dominio dies. But his work is not yet done.

The mundane quest of Frank Dominio here takes a turn toward the cosmic, our friendly worker quite literally meeting the meaning behind life. In his nonfiction work, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Ligotti discusses Schopenhauer's idea of the Will-to-Live and also its counterpoint, Philipp Mainländer's idea of the Will-to-Die. Both ideas attribute life to a single all powerful but unconscious force that propels our unthinking bodies -- and everything around us -- for its own ends. The difference between the two is that, for Schopenhauer, the Will struggles to continue existence, while Mainländer believed the purpose of life to be its inevitable end. In My Work is Not Yet Done, Ligotti brings those ideas to grotesque life. Dominio's entire miserable existence was leading him up to the slaughter of his coworkers, and he will not be allowed to stop until his life's work is completed. As Dominio realizes, the world is nothing but premeditated strife, conflict engineered for its own sadistic sake:

"I -- and you -- now understood: We were brought into this world out of nothing.

I -- and you -- now understood: We were kept alive in some form, any form, as long as we were viciously thrashing about, acting out our most intensely vital impulses, never allowed to become still and silent until every drop had been drained of the blackness flowing inside of us.

I -- and you -- now understood: We would be pulled back into the flowing blackness only when we had done all the damage we were allowed to do, only when our work was done. The work of you against me...and me against you." (p. 127, My Work is Not Yet Done)

As the enacting of a philosophical idea, My Work is Not Yet Done is a complete success. From death on, Frank Dominio is both more and less than he ever was. He is, in fact, a deeply considered version of the standard vengeful ghost seen so often. His view of his coworkers has changed. He now sees them as arbiters of everything wrong in the world, and, at the same time, no more truly in control than he is, ultimately irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. Dominio's new perspective doesn't change his mission, and he sets out to destroy them one by one.

As a novel, however, My Work is Not Yet Done has serious problems. Surprisingly, those problems are in large part precisely what makes Ligotti's short form work so effective. What works for an eighteen page short story, however, does not necessarily work as well at a hundred and forty-eight pages. The story here is interesting both for its execution and its implications, but it's never one that the reader wants to follow for its own sake.

The very things that contribute to such a pure depiction of the grand Will-to-Live and Will-to-Die ideals does not work as a narrative. The plot is inevitable; Dominio is unstoppable and near omniscient, his foes mortal but, essentially, everywhere and everything. As a result, there's no tension when Dominio confronts his former coworkers, because we know that they cannot stand before him, and there's no tension when he tries to track them down because we know he will not fail. As for the confrontations themselves, the various gruesome tortures that Dominio enacts upon his fellow man are nothing short of sickening. In all likelihood, that revulsion was intended - but intent doesn't make disgust more appetizing.

The characters of the novel are resolutely unsympathetic. The arrogance and flaws of the Seven Dwarfs - and Dominio's relentless mockery of their character and being - make them thoroughly unlikable, but they're no better than Dominio himself. When the idea of the massacre first occurs to Dominio, he tries to write a manifesto that would insure he wouldn't be "dismissed as just another kook," or, "Even worse -- to be perceived as a psychological casualty of the times." (p. 70) He never succeeds, because he realizes that there is simply no way to write his thoughts without saying: "They made me feel bad, so I bought some guns and killed them all." (p. 152) Of course, it's the very senselessness of the violence that makes the novel's ideas shine through so clearly. If Dominio was sympathetic, or if he was truly accomplishing something with the barrel of his gun, we wouldn't be left with the same horrifically dark vision that we are. But that doesn't make the reader care about any of the characters, and without caring about killer or victim, the violence is distant and unaffecting even while it upsets us, reading like spectacle for its own disturbing sake even while being anything but.

The other stories in the collection are both focused on similar settings and themes, though neither's as graphically bloodthirsty as the title tale. The book's second piece, I Have a Special Plan for this World (a title that Ligotti also used, earlier, for a poem), is far more atmospheric than the prior story, but is hamstrung by the obviousness of its creation and the metaphors therein. Tension palpably fills the office to the point where the workers can't see clearly for more than a few feet. The former supervisors of the town aren't fired but killed. The new supervisor doesn't even bother to wear a mortal face but is, instead, the simple, amoral, ruthless presence of the company's soul itself. Etc. Surprisingly, this story's faults are almost the direct opposite of the prior one's. Where My Work is Not Yet Done was too open, too focused on rubbing our faces in the hideous edge of its protagonists acts, I Have a Special Plan for This World leaves all consequences off-screen, creating a piece that's interesting but never emotionally engaging. If located in one of Ligotti's other collections -Teatro Grottesco, say - I Have a Special Plan for This World would be fairly unremarkable, neither sticking out as a failure or being remembered as one of the volume's key tales.

The Nightmare Network is the collection's one unqualified success. It's told through brief, disconnected scenes and documentation from OneiriCon and the Nightmare Network, two corporations that seem to encompass everything we know and can ever know. The story is similar to The Red Tower from Teatro Grottesco in being utterly devoid of any human elements. There are no characters here, no suspenseful plot, nothing but mood and the ideas that come as the reader fits the tale's pieces together. The other main note of interest when comparing The Nightmare Network to the rest of Ligotti's work is that, despite Ligotti's stated disinterest in the genre, it's quite obviously science fiction, right down to the "artificial entities" (p. 194) that pop up now and again. Despite that, the writing here is the closest thing in this collection to the claustrophobic, opulent density of the man's usual prose. The tale may shift between perspectives and scenes fast enough that it's difficult to ever get one's bearings, but the prose is anything but disorganized. It's flowing and dark, amusing without losing its edge, and it's both expository and churning with atmosphere:

"Our names are unknown and our faces are shadows drifting across an infinite blackness. Our voices have been stifled to a soft murmur in a madman's ear. We are the proud failures with only a single joy left to us -- to inflict rampant damage on those who have fed themselves on our dreams and to choke ourselves on our own nightmares. In sum, we are expediters of the apocalypse. There is nothing left to save, if there ever was anything...if there ever could be. All we desire (in all our bitterness) is to go to our ruin in our own way -- with a little style and a lot of noise." (p. 193, The Nightmare Network)

Ultimately though, no matter how interesting The Nightmare Network is, the main part of the collection's impact comes from the story that takes up three quarters of its length. My Work is Not Yet Done is, like all of Ligotti's work, something that I greatly admire. But it's not something that I can enjoy. Is that a problem? Is it wrong to seek enjoyment in a work as bleak as this? Perhaps, but I think it's a problem when the reading is, at times, as unpleasant to the reader as it is to the characters. If My Work is Not Yet Done was the first thing that I'd read of Ligotti, I would still have respected it -- but I'm not sure that I would have sought out more of the author's work.

[Note: All page numbers from the Mythos Books hardcover edition]

A little bit Kafka, a heap of H. P. Lovecraft, with a dash of Clive Barker and Stephen King in their prime. Ligotti's dream-like horror is something special. Not for all tastes, but something every aficionado of cosmic horror should try at least once.

This book is a novella and 2 short stories so I will review them in order. My Work Is Not Yet Done is a great horror novella. It rather surprised me because I thought a few chapters in that this was going to be a revenge fantasy/Mucko Mc Dermott story put to fiction. Much to my delight it takes a darker turn into the macabre and gets only better from there. Mr. Dominio/Domino's journey into the darkness is as incredible as the revenge he inflicts on those who have wronged him. The only drawback to this story is that it is too short for my taste. I could have read about Mr. Dominio for a few hundred more pages.
I Have a Special Plan For This World reminded me of a great Twilight Zone episode. I enjoyed this twisted corporate horror tale very much. The elements of the story including the degeneration of the workers, the yellow haze, the savage murders and the evil behind it all seem comparable to the styles of Poe or Serling.
The Nightmare Network is at the start a little confusing and disjointed. It starts out as a want ad and just goes beserk from there. Every new article or want ad getting stranger and stranger as they go along. Also Twilight Zone esque, not as enjoyable as the other two stories, but not bad at all.
I reccomend this book to any fan of modern horror novels.

Ligotti again transcends the horror genre with this influential piece of contemporary horror. If you have enjoyed Ligotti's work in the past this book will be right up your alley. For newcomers this is a good place to start and I guarantee you will be searching for more of this brilliant author's work. This re-release along with Teatro Grottesco helps bring newcomers into Ligotti's diluted reality. Buy it! Read it again and again and share with everyone you know!

First off, let me honestly say that I am very unhappy to be writing a negative review of a Ligotti book. I was infatuated with Shadow at the Bottom of the World; after Teatro Grottesco, it was love. So I pre-ordered this book months in advance and squealed with glee when it arrived.

It was a huge disappointment. In the novella "My Work Is Not Yet Done," Ligotti stoops to the childish mundanity I had always been so relieved to see him avoiding. Ligotti's brand of colorfully painted, all-encompassing sorrow is gone here; in its place is an obnoxiously gruesome and whiny complaint. Not only is the writing rather amateurish, but the content is also uncharacteristically hackneyed. Mysterious skeleton towns and warped sideshows are replaced with rape and firearms, dull choices that focus your dislike less on the narrator (acceptable) and more on Ligotti himself (not acceptable). Nothing about the story or characters is intriguing and there are very few unexpected developments, while Ligotti ceaselessly barrages us with gross-out shock-factor images that, deprived of a justifying context, come off as merely boring. The story lumbers along at a dodgy and irregular pace until it finally terminates itself at an unsatisfying end.

The next story in the volume, "I Have a Special Plan for This World," may not be Ligotti at his best, but at least it feels like Ligotti again. This story was closer to what I expected from his self-styled "corporate horror" genre; a tricky narrator, supernatural satire, and a carefully unfolding storyline that leads you along without dragging you.

The final story is "The Nightmare Network," a collection of interconnected vignettes that could easily be classified as sci-fi. It's an interesting idea that seems like it should have had more room to grow; I would rather have seen this as the novella and "My Work Is Not Yet Done" as the throwaway ditty.

In short, I would NOT suggest this book to a first-time Ligotti reader. It is not only bad, it is a poor representation of Ligotti as a writer. He can do, and has repeatedly done, much better. Go get Teatro Grottesco, NOW, and see cosmic horror at its contemporary best.

In general I find Ligotti to be a brilliant writer, Teatro Grottesco is quite possibly my favorite book, but these stories are far from his better work.

The first, and longest story in the book, My Work is Not Yet Done starts out incredibly strong, painting a very convincing portrait of a neurotic yet sympathetic paranoid whose workplace may or may not be out to get him. Unfortunately, part 2 takes a dramatic turn for the worse when the ambiguous antagonists are turned into incredibly 2-dimensional straw men with ridiculous one-note flaws to demonize them. The revenge enacted against these antagonists tries (and ultimately fails) to be shocking less in the subtle, dreamlike style I'd expect from Ligotti and plays out more like juvenile revenge fantasies jotted in the back of some high school kid's composition book.

The other two stories fare slightly better, but still pale dramatically in comparison to Ligotti's stronger work. The best case I can make for the book is that Part 1 of My Work is Not Yet Done has very strong prose. But seriously, Ligotti man, I love you, but throwing in an S&M club as a setting for one short scene of the story for no other reason than to be 'edgy'? That's the kind of crap I expect from a much lower caliber of writer.

How ironic Thomas Ligotti should appropriately title this book for it suits it quite well. I hate to be overly critical of an author who is truly brilliant and possess one of the richest, most fertile, and under appreciated phantasmagorical mind's this side of Swiss artist H.R. Giger, but this novella and the two companion short stories (although the Nightmare Network can hardly be called a story) were complete and utter disappointments. I can only posit Ligotti fell into a deep state of dark rapture and began swimming in the murky waters of revenge-fantasies, only to come back up for air and churn out this tiresome excuse for horror literature. I have read his stories before, both in the pages of Weird Tales and in horror-themed short story collections, and his works have always provoked in me a deep respect for his literate, bizarre, neo-gothic, and overly-written approach to horror. Ligotti has an obvious distaste for the corporate world and its philosophy, and at this present juncture many of us will empathize and sympathize with his statement, but this is truly his darkest and most vulgar work to date: a pointless and merciless exercise in revenge-fantasy that has no special meaning: soulless and devoid of a true philosophy much like the corporate world he's criticizing. Pass on it unless you're a die-hard fan.

I wanted to read a Ligotti book and chose this one since it won the Bram Stoker. I really didn't understand the appeal. The main short story was very slow in pace, especially for a Novella and the second and third were too fragmented to make any sense to me. I later read reviews from his fans that have stated that this book isn't a favorite of theirs. I completely understand why. Maybe I'll give him a second shot by reading one of his cult favorites.

Two of these "three tales of corporate horror" will fascinate many of those who have spent time as symbol manipulators in the offices of large corporations.

The collection's titular short novel and "I Have a Special Plan for This World" expand on the themes of "Our Temporary Supervior" and "The Town Manager", two of the best stories in Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco. The narrators here work for companies whose ultimate goal is to produce nothing or baleful somethings and undertake a literally inhuman replacement of their workforce, the logical end to all this being a structure that is more shaped by an invisible tentacle than capitalism's invisible hand.

The narrator of "My Work Is Not Yet Done" is a supervisor, Dominio by name though his boss Richard keeps calling him Domino. Said boss and six fellow supervisors become the target of Dominio's revenge after getting him fired from the company. But on the way back from the gun store in preparation for his upcoming rampage - and Ligotti has the narrator wryly and concisely sum up all the reasons usually given for such rampages, something mysterious happens. Dominio's vengeance takes an increasingly bizarre and supernatural turn, the world literally darkening with each killing. The novel ends with a surprising confrontation with Richard and attendant revelations.

The company employing the narrator of "I Have a Special Plan for This World" specializes in "manipulating documents", and its founder undertakes an ambitious plan to become a "dominant presence in the world marketplace" via a radical restructuring. And, soon, supervisors and employees show up dead - all unremarked upon under the yellowing skies of Golden City, formerly known as Murder Town before Chamber of Commerce rebranding.

Both these stories are told with Ligotti's precision prose with its deliberate, incantory repetitions. Besides sinister companies, these stories have other characteristic Ligotti images: doppelgangers of a sort, puppets and mannequins, settings specifically described but tied to nothing in the real world, and abandoned buildings. In these stories, cosmic horror touches us in the work place, the horror of a meaningless existence underpinned by dark, malevolent forces. Ligotti's world is dark, nihilistic to the core. These stories are not tragedies since that implies competing goods. There is no good in these stories, no joys shortened by the encroaching horror. But Ligotti's style makes them palatable. As well as the rage and isolation, there is dark wit in "My Work Is Not Yet Done". However, I think he makes a slight plot misstep by introducing a too banal motive for the Seven, and Dominio's frequent use of the derogatory "swine" seems too antiquated for a narrator, unlike many of Ligotti's, who inhabitants an explicitly contemporary setting.

The third story, "The Nightmare Network", is a fairly radical departure in Ligotti's style. It reminded me somewhat of the condensed novels of J. G. Ballard. Frankly, I found the story of two megacorporations seemingly warring across time, largely incomprehensible. However, I did like the ending with the companies allegedly merging at end, but it really being a cover for espionage, subversion, and double agentry - another Ligotti parable for life I suspect. An interesting failure.