My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror [Hardcover]

Thomas Ligotti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2002

Second printing, 200 pages. Full color wrap-around cover and interior black & white frontis by Harry O. Morris. Contains the stories "I Have A Special Plan For This World" and "The Nightmare Network" and the unpublished novella "My Work Is Not Yet Done". Winner of the 2002 International Horror Guild and Horror Writer's Association awards.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The bureaucracy of the modern office and the dehumanization of workplace drones are fodder for surreal black comedy in this triptych of tales from horror master Ligotti (The Nightmare Factory). Each of the selections resonates with echoes of Kafka and Orwell in its elaboration of the daily work grind as a disturbingly credible metaphor for universal entropy. In "I Have a Special Plan for This World," worker discontent in the office setting becomes so toxic that it generates a cloud whose release into the external environment accelerates social decline of the surrounding city. "The Nightmare Network" is presented as a series of want ads and dispatches for Oneiricon, an all-consuming multinational corporation whose merger mania leads inevitably to hideous physical transformations of its work force. The title tale, a short novel, begins as the morbidly amusing narrative of Frank Dominio, a Dilbert type driven to psychotic paranoia by the seemingly senseless boardroom protocols enforced by his fellow supervisors and their superior. It soon morphs into a bizarre pas de deux between Frank and a department head nicknamed "The Doctor," who come to represent cosmic forces in a collision that draws the business and its employees into their vortex. As Ligotti depicts it, the modern workplace is an infernal realm where illogical demands are clues to an inscrutable malevolent scheme, and where terms like "reorganization," "relocation" and "product" have sinister talismanic meaning. There is little balm in these stories for the overworked, but enough dark satire to make the reader cringe in agreement.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Mythos Books (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965943372
• ISBN-13: 978-0965943376
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,026,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange and unsettling, August 28, 2002

By 

James Robert Smith (Matthews, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror (Hardcover)

Thomas Ligotti has carved out a unique place for himself in modern weird fiction. The power of his work comes from his ability to create a strange atmosphere that enables one to not so much suspend disbelief as actually become a part of the story. I always come away from reading Ligotti's work with a feeling of having been somewhere, sometime, not quite normal. His characters fit into these worlds, sometimes seeming to bleed over into that of the reader.

MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE continues this trend. This connected series of works (I decline to call them stories, exactly) concern themselves with corporate life (a timely enough topic) and the machinations of those who work within the corporate world. The bulk of the book is taken up with a fascinating monologue as told by a cog in a particularly devious and poisonous corporation. What this person does, what happens to this person, and how he comes to influence those around him can only be described as weird fiction at its finest. It's confusing, unsettling, disturbing. (And I have to admit that part of this work goes completely over my head, which didn't prevent me from enjoying it immensely.)

Once again, Ligotti has created fiction that takes the reader along, perhaps not completely willingly. He is an amazing talent.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ligotti's work not done, April 16, 2004

By 

Michael Koger "open minded listener" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror (Hardcover)

After reading Thomas Ligotti's latest opus, "My Work Is Not Yet Done", the author, once again, reinvents himself to show that he is a force to be reckoned with. This is exemplified in the first piece...the novella, "My Work Is Not Yet Done". This is basically the ultimate tale of revenge, and is Ligotti at his nihilistic best. The writing in this novella I had never seen before. The transitions and how it all flows together is amazing. Truly one of his best.

"I Have A Special Plan for this World" is alright...it kind of leaves the reader wanting more. I think it's kind of like an extension of the first piece (you can only do so much with the theme of "corporate horror"). The whole concept of the yellow haze and such is interesting.

"The Nightmare Network" I enjoyed. This had the most interesting concept of the three (and it's kind of hard to describe...people being used for nightmares?) Once again, Ligotti flexes his artistic muscles and some pieces are morbid and the others make you say to yourself, "What the hell?" I really liked this last piece.

All in all, yet another amazing work by Thomas Ligotti. This book is extremely hard to find. I checked it out from the Los Angeles Central Library and they had it. Ligotti needs to find a bigger publisher (he doesn't win those Bram Stoker awards for nothing). I would like to find his screenplay-er whatever it may be- entitled "Crampton" but that's even harder to come by.

Thomas Ligotti's work is not yet done.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the best horror novels in years, November 18, 2002

By 

John Allen (ny) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror (Hardcover)

thomas ligotti is, without a doubt, the greatest living horror writer today. although this one diverges significantly from his other work in setting and characterization, the sense of cosmic doom and pessimism is, as always, unrelenting and laid on wonderfully thick. in "my work is not yet done", a dissatisfied employee (to say the least), frank dominio, decides to quit his job and take vengeance on his equally bizarre and twisted co-workers. after being hit by a bus (without realizing it), he projects his bitter and hateful spirit on his fellow employees and takes them out in, eh, unconventional ways. this is oddly amusing in a way that "the nightmare factory" or "noctuary" is not, and strangely enough, the humor only serves to make the work more bleak. the atmosphere of misery and dehumanization never lets up, and the ending is even more crushing than the beginning--which is saying something. this is more kafkaesque than kafka. look especially for the really fascinating references to dominio's obsession with dilapidated and decayed houses. absolutely superb.