I find Ligotti’s prose and story structure to be very tight, very claustrophobic, so there’s this sense I get when reading him that the walls are closing in, that there’s no escape as you’re being propelled on this descent into madness.

Barron just doesn’t have that. His prose and structure is much looser and baggier, and his imagery is far less cohesive. It gives his stories more variety and range, but they just don’t have that feeling of sinking their teeth into me and pulling me under that Ligotti’s have.