Bookish and self-referential, 'Black Man with a Horn' is similar to the works of Thomas Ligotti it is both a sly, ironic meditation on the art of horror as well as a creepy, satisfying story on its own.

After a chance meeting with a nervous missionary returning from Malaysia on an international flight, the narrator learns the true meaning of a horrific bogeyman from ancient myth - myth he thought was made up entire by Lovecraft and his fellow circle of Weird Tales writers.

'Black Man with a Horn' (1980), one of Klein's most lauded stories, has as its narrator an old horror fiction writer who once knew Lovecraft himself.

The sewers of New York, it turns out, harbor more than just baby alligators, and roving gangs might not be from the next block over. Slowly and surely Klein builds the atmosphere, dropping hints and clues throughout, mixing vague supernatural dread with real-life threats caused by the blackout. The first novella, 'Children of the Kingdom' (originally published in the game-changing anthology Dark Forces in 1980), takes place in the midst of the infamous New York City blackout of summer 1977 at an old folks' home where the narrator's grandfather lives. The covers are larded with the kinds of blurbs from reviews any young writer would kill for. I quite like the Bantam cover of Dark Gods at top: out of a vast stormy sky an inchoate face, raging, fanged, demonic, a living darkness threatening a solitary rural house (it's from 'Petey). These writers pride themselves on creating moods and atmospheres, a sense of awe, mystery, providing chilling intimations of fear and dread rather than, as Stephen King once put it, 'going for the gross-out.' Grant and Dennis Etchison are all familiar names in this sub-genre. Modern purveyors of this style work in what has been dubbed 'quiet horror.' Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, Charles L. James, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Sheridan Le Fanu, Lovecraft, etc. Although all of his fiction is set in the modern era, its care and subtlety hearken back to late 19th/early 20th century masters like M.R. He was, however, editor of Twilight Zone magazine, which published well-respected short horror stories until its demise in 1989. 1984! His second book, a year later, the collection Dark Gods, is comprised of novellas written the decade prior. Klein published his only novel, The Ceremonies, in 1984.

The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein