Post by cloudhurler on Apr 17, 2023 6:31:12 GMT
The great T.E.D. Klein gave us the collection Dark Gods in 1979 and the novel The Ceremonies in 1984. There's been some publications since, but outside of the story "The Ladder" in 1990, most of the later work doesn't have the same ambition and execution. And yet, there was to be a second novel, Nighttown.
The old rumors were that Klein was disheartened by some similarities with the 1987 Martin Sheen vehicle The Believers.
Additional rumors had it that he was blocked with the ending, but that the book was otherwise nigh-complete.
Having retired from the magazine trade, Klein communicated to both S.T. Joshi and Scott Edelman that he was going to return to the novel.
But, the latest rumor is that the novel has been abandoned.
Now, rumors are rumors. But it makes a certain amount of sense. Such a novel would likely need a great deal of updating; or simply be presented as something of a period piece. It would be a shame if he did abandon it, but regardless, I'm hoping for some late period Klein to enjoy in years to come. It happened with Bester (who also spent his prime years in the magazine trade), so it's not unthinkable.
But David has read Nighttown; or, at least, the version of it that existed three-and-a-half decades previous. So I'm curious how he thought it worked; what his impressions were. I'm guessing it was something closer to Children of the Kingdom than The Ceremonies.
And the mention of paranoia, combined with Klein's admiration for Ramsey Campbell, makes me curious if the novel was Klein's take on the Campbellian.
David, do you recall much of it? Anything you'd care to share?
And along those same lines, any other lamented lost/unfinished/unpublished works of Horror/Weird fiction that you can think of? Matheson's Come Fygures, Come Shadowes; Morrell's The Intruder; King's The Plant; Harry Kressing's The Dentist; David Skal's Eat Me; whatever the second Joan Samson novel was to be called; et cetera . . .
Scheduled by Viking for publication in 1989, pushed back and eventually rescheduled for 1995, et cetera. Described by Klein as a paranoid, supernatural horror novel set entirely in New York. The protagonist, Larry Tucker, a fugitive, witnesses a woman pushed in front of an oncoming subway train and is thereafter hunted by the murderer.
The old rumors were that Klein was disheartened by some similarities with the 1987 Martin Sheen vehicle The Believers.
Additional rumors had it that he was blocked with the ending, but that the book was otherwise nigh-complete.
Having retired from the magazine trade, Klein communicated to both S.T. Joshi and Scott Edelman that he was going to return to the novel.
But, the latest rumor is that the novel has been abandoned.
Now, rumors are rumors. But it makes a certain amount of sense. Such a novel would likely need a great deal of updating; or simply be presented as something of a period piece. It would be a shame if he did abandon it, but regardless, I'm hoping for some late period Klein to enjoy in years to come. It happened with Bester (who also spent his prime years in the magazine trade), so it's not unthinkable.
But David has read Nighttown; or, at least, the version of it that existed three-and-a-half decades previous. So I'm curious how he thought it worked; what his impressions were. I'm guessing it was something closer to Children of the Kingdom than The Ceremonies.
And the mention of paranoia, combined with Klein's admiration for Ramsey Campbell, makes me curious if the novel was Klein's take on the Campbellian.
David, do you recall much of it? Anything you'd care to share?
And along those same lines, any other lamented lost/unfinished/unpublished works of Horror/Weird fiction that you can think of? Matheson's Come Fygures, Come Shadowes; Morrell's The Intruder; King's The Plant; Harry Kressing's The Dentist; David Skal's Eat Me; whatever the second Joan Samson novel was to be called; et cetera . . .