It is here that Ligotti’s ambitions as a storyteller become clear. His goal is not to soothe our existential unease through catharsis or assurances that evil can be defeated; rather, it is to reveal the fundamental disorder of reality—what he described to Peter Bebergal in The New Yorker as “the derangement of creation.”

Ligotti’s vision of disorder is uncompromising. In a deranged universe, where mere existence is a nightmare, consciousness is a double curse, granting not only an awareness of one’s mortality but also the capacity to discover the utter insignificance of the self. What keeps us from going insane with terror is the collective illusion (Ligotti might prefer delusion) of “a reality ordered to our advantage.” And yet, for all the defenses we build to preserve this illusion, we can’t escape an innate sense of being surrounded by the unknown—what the author calls “the invisible.” In a deranged universe, true horror comes when our secret suspicions of disorder are confirmed, when we are forced to confront the unknown, when we suffer the misfortune of beholding even a fleeting glimpse of the invisible. Our illusions crumble, leaving us doomed and alone in a dark abyss. It is this horror—the horror of consciousness itself—that Ligotti’s fiction evokes without reprieve, and without equal.

One need not agree with Ligotti’s bleak worldview to be affected by his stories. The finitude of human bodies and human consciousness is not a matter of debate, nor is the fact that, to us, the universe will always be more unknown than known. Ligotti speaks to these truths without attempting to resolve the fundamental questions they pose. His fiction is not a philosophical search for answers, because in his reckoning, answers are irrelevant.

If your instinct is to step back from the brink, if you prefer to be entertained rather than to contemplate the horror of consciousness, Professor Nobody will not begrudge your choice to forego his lectures in favor of “stories that are just stories.” There are many writers in the genre eager to make you squirm and quake, and many who do it well. And for those who find themselves leaning forward to peer into the void, those who would travel in dark realms and lurk in shadows, those who would dare to be transformed by encounters with the unknown, there is Thomas Ligotti.