T.E.D. Klein’s The Ceremonies and Dark Gods

At this stage, T.E.D. Klein is probably more famous for what he hasn’t written than what he has written. He put out a novel in 1984 and a collection of novellas in 1985. Both were well received, but he hasn’t released anything to speak of since before I was born. He’s not dead. He didn’t suffer a debilitating brain injury. He hasn’t been kidnapped. He just has writer’s block.

Despite his minimal output, Klein is considered by many to be one of the greatest horror writers of the latter 20th century. It was high time I checked him out.

The first thing I read by Klein was his story The Events at Poroth Farm. It’s about an academic who rents a room in the countryside during the summer to help him prepare for a course he’s going to be teaching on gothic horror. Some creepy parasite gets into his landlord’s cat, and things get nasty for everyone. I enjoyed the story plenty. Klein went on to expand this tale into a novel called The Ceremonies. After reading The Events at Poroth Farm, I deliberately waited half a year to move on to the novel, and although I saw certain parts coming, I feel like I put enough distance between the two stories to let them both really shine.

The Ceremonies
Bantam – 1985 (Originally published 1984)

The Ceremonies is awesome. I’ve read reviews that say it’s bloated and that the short story is better, but the people who wrote those reviews are wrong. This is 555 pages of deadly.

This time, the parasite isn’t just after the academic. It’s out to destroy the world. There’s a brilliant mix of folk and cosmic horror at play here. The writing is great too. The characters are all likeable in their own quirky ways, and some of the sequences here are genuinely creepy.

The fact that one of the central characters is a horror fiction nerd made this book especially enjoyable, and I reckon The Ceremonies will be the most influential book on my to-read this year. To my great shame, there’s a few books mentioned in here that I haven’t yet read. I think I’ll do a separate post on “The Ceremonies Reading List” after I get through those. The only text that I would recommend you read before reading this one would be Arthur Machen’s The White People. That particular story is referenced quite a few times in here.

Honestly, I loved this book. It was exactly what I needed in my life when I started reading it.

Dark Gods
Bantam – 1986 (Originally published 1985)

This is Klein’s second book, but 3 out of its four stories had been published before The Ceremonies came out. These four novellas are of the highest caliber. The stories are masterfully crafted, and the writing goes down real smooth. I have seen this described as “literary horror”, and while it is certainly very classy stuff, it’s also very, very readable. Aside from Lovecraftian themes, this has nothing to do with that other book with the same title.

Petey is the story of a housewarming party that turns sour when somebody busts out a deck of old tarot cards. I have seen a few people claim this is the weakest tale in the collection, but I really liked it.

Children of the Kingdom
This is almost like a modern sequel to Bulwer Lytton’s Vril. I thought it was great.

The Black Man with a Horn
I knew that this was supposed to be a tale of the Cthulhu Mythos, but I assumed that meant it had Lovecraftian elements. No. This is very much a continuation of Lovecraft’s work. It was awesome. It was a few weeks after finishing this story that I read all of the Cthulhu Mythos fiction of Frank Belknap Long. Not only was Franky the model for the narrator of this story, but this tale has some striking similarities to Long’s novel The Horror From the Hills.

Nadelman’s God
This story features heavy metal, blasphemy, an S&M club and a murderous golem made out of garbage and broken glass. If that doesn’t make you want to read it, I genuinely don’t know what you’re doing reading this blog. Go away.

I don’t think I have a favourite story from Dark Gods. They’re all really well written, and there’s horrifying moments in each. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Both The Ceremonies and Dark Gods are essential reading for horror fans. T.E.D, Klein is a masterful writer, but he needs to get the finger out.