T.E.D. Klein

I'd classify the less-than-prolific T.E.D. Klein as a fine writer in the Weird Tradition. I'm just now re-reading his 4-novellette (?) collection Dark Gods. It's been many years since I last read it, but the first story, "Children of the Kingdom", remains one of my very favorite short horror tales to come out of the late twentieth century.

Also in Dark Gods is "Black Man with a Horn", which is supposed to be a Lovecraftian tribute to Frank Belknap Long. I really don't remember this one very well, so I'm looking forward to starting it on my lunch break today!

Of course, this all might lead me to a re-read of The Ceremonies in the near future, too. I know Klein has one other collection of short stories, Reassuring Tales, from Subterranean Press, but I've never seen it. I'm hoping to come across a few stray T.E.D. stories in my magazine collection as I gradually go through it to add author-tagged issues to my LT catalog.

Great stuff! I my humble opinion, REASSURING TALES is not anywhere near as good as DARK GODS, but one tale in it, "The Events at Poroth Farm", is a must-read. It has been reprinted a bunch of places other than RT. The first few reprints were various revisions of the original, but the final version has been reprinted at least half a dozen times since 1990 or so, so you might prefer to find the story in one of these other places. I'm sure there's a bibliography somewhere on the net. Klein has many admirers.

You've given me a great idea. As I understand it, the long novel The Ceremonies is taken from the much shorter "The Events at Poroth Farm". Since I haven't read that version, and since I have it collected in the Peter Straub-edited American Fantastic Tales, I'll be stopping there next!

#3 - Yeah, you are right. the Events at the Poroth Farm became The Ceremonies. But I've been wanting to read the original short since forever.

I have a number of horror anthologies and I'm pretty sure I've seen Klein listed in a couple, though off the top of my head I can't remember which ones.

Your post was the first I've heard of American Fantastic Tales. I'll have to check that out.

The Ceremonies was so good that the horror aspects, although strong, were not the strongest aspects of the story. The protagonist's studies, his romance and the culture clash with the mennonites were all so well done that it might have been an even better novel without the explicit supernatural element.

#5: This is an interesting viewpoint. Some folks complained that THE CEREMONIES dissipated the impact of the short story, but your viewpoint seems fairer to the book, and I had not heard it put this way before.

TO be even more fair, I haven't read Poroth Farm. But I can't imagine the story without all that detail about the nerdy horror lover and his studies. That was some of my favorite stuff!

Finished "Black Man With a Horn" which I found to have a Fritz Leiber kind of vibe, especially as the first-person protagonist is a writer encountering the supernatural, as in Our Lady of Darkness. He's pretty obviously modeled on Frank Belknap Long, and Lovecraft himself is a definite offstage presence in the story. No real out-and-out scares but it's a nicely unnerving tale nonetheless. Now, on to "The Events at Poroth Farm"!

"The Events on Poroth Farm". Wow! This is a much leaner, meaner beast than that found in The Ceremonies. Don't get me wrong - I did enjoy the much longer novelized version, but the short story is far more effective in producing a creeping, paranoid terror. I enjoyed the protagonist's ongoing exploration of the history of gothic literature almost as much as the evocation of nature-gone-malevolent that runs throughout. And those spiders! The story is highly Lovecraftian, but it's one of the good ones that entirely avoids pastiche.