T.E.D. Klein

[eldritch00]

Reading My Work is Not Yet Done AND The Ceremonies for the first time (I'm assuming that the latter is also the case based on what you've posted)? An enviable readerly position to be in! Hope you enjoy them as much as we have!

And while the opening of The Ceremonies does take a bit of getting used to, with regard to its pace, it's definitely well worth the read. I had a bit of trouble initially myself, and so did several others.

[symbolique]

nil

[G. S. Carnivals]

I'm doing a leisurely reread of Klein's Dark Gods. I've just finished "Black Man with a Horn." Oh, yeah. Klein observes: "If the Necronomicon actually existed, it would probably be out in paperback with a preface by Lin Carter." Mr. Klein was all but 100% prophetic. He published this in 1980, mind you. Lin Carter, gap-filler and flesher-outer (and love or hate him as you may), published "The Necronomicon: The Dee Translation" some nine years later in Crypt of Cthulhu. When it was reprinted in 1996's Robert M. Price Chaosium anthology The Necronomicon: Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab, the introduction was by Price. Minor details, but points I missed the first time around. Perspective is everything. Well, almost....

[Stu]

Yeah, I laughed out loud at the Lin Carter reference. Then rushed to show it to a friend who is a HUGE Robert E Howard fan and who consequently hates Carter's Conan stories.

[G. S. Carnivals]

My third eye was itching, so naturally I rubbed it..

Quote Originally Posted by G. S. Carnivals";p=&quot

I'm doing a leisurely reread of Klein's Dark Gods. I've just finished "Black Man with a Horn." Oh, yeah. Klein observes: "If the Necronomicon actually existed, it would probably be out in paperback with a preface by Lin Carter."

The above excerpt was from the 1986 Bantam reprint of Dark Gods.

In the story's original appearance in Ramsey Campbell's 1980 New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, the sentence reads: "If the Necronomicon actually existed, it would be out in Bantam paperback with a preface by Lin Carter."

Yet another variant appears in the 1995 reprint in Jim Turner's Cthulhu 2000: "If the Necronomicon actually existed, it would probably be out in paperback with a preface by Colin Wilson."

I'm afraid to peek at my 1985 Viking Dark Gods at the moment. And my three or four different versions of "The Events at Poroth Farm" must be even more maddening....

My third eye doesn't itch anymore, but my mind does!

[G. S. Carnivals]

Quote Originally Posted by G. S. Carnivals";p=&quot

I'm afraid to peek at my 1985 Viking Dark Gods at the moment. And my three or four different versions of "The Events at Poroth Farm" must be even more maddening..

I've looked. Curiosity. Obsession. The Bantam reprint of "Black Man with a Horn" agrees with the Viking version. Well, at least that sentence does. The rest of the text is for someone else to examine....

My best determination is that at least five different versions of "The Events at Poroth Farm" exist. Klein himself from Dagon 18/19:

" 'The Events at Porth Farm' (story) in From Beyond the Dark Gateway, Vol. 1, No. 2 (December 1972), edited by Edward P. Berglund

Reprinted (slightly revised) in The Year's Best Horror Stories, No. 3 edited by Richard Davis (London: Sphere, 1973)

Reprinted (slightly revised again) in The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series II, edited by Richard Davis (New York: DAW, 1974)

Reprinted (slightly revised a third time) in First World Fantasy Awards edited by Gahan Wilson (New York: Doubleday, 1977)"

As for later printings, a fifth version is extant in the 1990 Necronomicon Press chapbook of the tale. This is replicated in the anthology Return to Lovecraft Country edited by Scott David Aniolowski (Triad Entertainments, 1997). Mr. Aniolowski's acknowledgements read: " ... and Marc Michaud at Necronomicon Press for providing me with a disk of T.E.D. Klein's excellent contribution, and allowing me to reproduce the Necronomicon Press edition of the story here..."

The story is also in Eternal Lovecraft edited by Jim Turner (Golden Gryphon, 1998). I have no idea what this version is. Five again, or six? I'm not checking. Honest.

In uprooting my house, I discovered yet another copy each of the Bantam Dark Gods and The Ceremonies that I didn't know I had. I've been gifting my extras. candy gets lucky.

[G. S. Carnivals]

The long-anticipated T.E.D. Klein collection due from Subterranean Press has been named. Ironically, the title is Reassuring Tales. I can't wait for this one!

[nomis]

Quote Originally Posted by G. S. Carnivals";p=&quot

The long-anticipated T.E.D. Klein collection due from Subterranean Press has been named. Ironically, the title is Reassuring Tales. I can't wait for this one!

I've been waiting three years already.

I'm tired.

[G. S. Carnivals]

I was informed by my procurer that Mr. Klein's Reassuring Tales would ship today. At long last. Both this and Teatro Grottesco within the same week or so is almost too much. Almost. I'll somehow put up with the burden of being overwhelmed...

[G. S. Carnivals]

I am pleased to announce that I own copy number 240 of T.E.D. Klein's signed and numbered Reassuring Tales published by my neighbors, Subterranean Press. Once again, Jason Eckhardt's excellent artwork complements Mr. Klein's work. The cover depicts a scene of the calmest domestic innocence; the exception is the posture and eyes of the family dog which betray a sense of foreboding. With the exception of "Renaissance Man" and a second instance of "Camera Shy," the contents agree with those listed above by Dr. Bantham way back in the Cretaceous Period. In light of what I discovered concerning the evolution of "The Events at Poroth Farm," I will consider this a completely new and original presentation of the stories. I look forward to reading both the stories I have read (in one form or another) and those which are new to me.