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brnineworms's review
dark
medium-paced
2.0
In The Dust of This Planet is the first book in the “Horror of Philosophy” trilogy, though the name of the series is a little misleading. It isn’t really about the horror of philosophy, or the philosophy of horror for that matter – the book mostly discusses mysticism and demonology. These are subjects I find fascinating though, so I won’t complain too much about that.
One thing I did appreciate was the creative structuring of each chapter. The first chapter, for example, is presented as three quæstio, each broken down into articulus, sed contra, and responsio. I thought this approach was innovative and added some medieval flavour to the otherwise dry material.
When I say dry, I mean dry. Unfortunately, interesting subject matter does not guarantee an interesting book. The author doesn’t seem to really understand the topics he’s talking about, or want to engage with them in detail. It’s all very vague and handwavy and though some of Thacker’s points are repeated ad nauseam, none is properly explained or explored in-depth. Assertions and tenuous links are pretty much all he has to offer.
I have deleted my 250-word rant about bourgeois demons (you’re welcome) so allow me to skip to the final chapter. It’s about “The Subharmonic Murmur of Black Tentacular Voids” which is, according to Thacker, “an anonymously authored poem that has been circulating on blogs, forums, and even in a number of scholarly journals.” For an example of the latter he cites an issue of the “Journal of Literary Psychoplamsics [sic]” edited by Sonia Haft-Greene. I can find absolutely no record of either the poem or the journal prior to the publication of this book, and Sonia Haft-Greene was H P Lovecraft’s wife who died in 1972 so I doubt she ever wrote articles about internet phenomena.
So it’s a hoax, then. I have to assume Thacker wrote the poem himself and tried to pass it off as some kind of spooky creepypasta-esque meme.
The worst thing is it’s not even a good poem. Genuinely one of the worst I’ve read.
I can safely say I will not buy anything else published by Zer0 Books after having read Capitalist Realism (mostly “kids these days” bellyaching), Babbling Corpse (which veered off into some rather fashy territory at the end), and now this. I won’t be reading the rest of the “Horror of Philosophy” trilogy.
As you can probably tell, In The Dust of This Planet is not a book I would recommend. If you’re interested in horror or occultism, there are better books out there.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Gore, Mental illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Cannibalism, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Drug use, Murder, Suicide, Torture, and Xenophobia
Much discussion of catastrophic events like natural disasters and pandemics, as well as potential human extinction
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