Search Results for: Soyka

David Soyka Reviews The Translated Man and Other Stores and Mr. Stitch

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The Translated Man and Other Stories Threat Quality Press (224; 11.99 USD; softcover 2007) Mr. Stitch Threat Quality Press (248; 11.99 USD; softcover 2010) Chris Braak Chris Braaks’s duology featuring Detective-Inpector Elijah Beckett demonstrates that you can tell a book by its cover.  These book jackets are dark, primitive and ugly; the novels are set in a steampunk Victorian metropolis called Trowth that is equally dark, primitive and ugly. It was early morning and the strained watery light that flickered…

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David Soyka Reviews Journal of a UFO Investigator

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Journal of a UFO Investigator David Halperin Viking (304 pp, $25.95, Hardcover February 2012) Reviewed by David Soyka The premise here is we’re reading a diary account of the titular UFO investigator who also happens to be a troubled teenager (though, arguably, “troubled teenager” is redundant).  What starts out as a geeky outlet for outcast middle schoolers to pretend to be something other than outcast middle schoolers metastasizes into a fantastic escapade involving a self-selective group of super smart teenagers…

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David Soyka Reviews Prince of Thorns

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Prince of Thorns (Book One of The Broken Empire) Mark Lawrence Ace (324 pp, $29.95, Hardcover August 2011) Reviewed by David Soyka This is pretty brutal.  Relentlessly brutal, right from the opening paragraphs: Ravens! Always the ravens. They settled in the gables of the church even before the injured became the dead. Even before Rike had finished taking fingers from hands, and rings from fingers. I leaned back against the gallows post and nodded to the birds, a dozen of…

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David Soyka Reviews Prospero in Hell

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Prospero in Hell L. Jagi Lamplighter Tor (347 pp, $25.99, August 2010) Reviewed by David Soyka As you might expect, L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Prospero in Hell, the second volume of her Propsero’s Daughter trilogy and follow up to Prospero Lost, is loosely based (very loosely) on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In Lamplighter’s retelling, Miranda, daughter of the magician Prospero, does not marry Ferdinand but instead becomes the virgin devotee of the Greek goddess Eurynome, which qualifies her for a life extension…

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David Soyka Reviews Is Anybody Out There

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Is Anybody Out There? Nick Gevers and Marty Halpern, eds. DAW (312 pp, $7.99, June 2010) Reviewed by David Soyka The $64 question of the modern era is not whether God exists. How you answer that depends on intangibles and inferences based more on faith than the scientific method. What is nearly as imponderable is the empirical evidence of a vast universe (and possibly co-existent multi-verses) within which conditions exist (or once existed) that may give rise to life as…

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Houses of Ill Repute: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix and Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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  Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (Berkley, January 14, 2025) andStarling House by Alix E. Harrow (Tor Books, October 3, 2023). Covers: uncredited, Micaela Alcaino No, not that kind of house of ill repute (though I confess I thought the semi-salacious implication of the headline might get some of you to read a bit further, though of course not you who are reading this now, just all those others). Rather the gothic trope of the creepy house, the…

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A Lot of Camelot: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

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The Bright Sword (Viking, July 16, 2024) With no disrespect to J.R.R Tolkien, the King Arthur legend is arguably the  inspiration of much post World War II medieval-based fantasy. You’ve got your out-of-nowhere claimant to the throne, a magic sword, court intrigue, some side stories, romance, sorcery, betrayal but yet a kind of redemption. All the key ingredients. Sure, Game of Thrones was based on the very real English Wars of the Roses, particularly the also very real violence and…

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We No Longer Need Aliens to Feel Alienated: State of Paradise by Laura Van Den Berg

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State of Paradise (Picador paperback reprint, July 8, 2025). Cover art: detail from Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau, 1891 When I was a kid there was a public service announcement on TV that went something like “Attention: Aliens. You are required by law to report by January 31st.” This was because of the Alien Act of 1940, otherwise known as the Smith Act. Basically, the legislation made it illegal to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S….

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Spies, Cowboys, Anarchists, O My: Polostan by Neal Stephenson

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    Polostan (William Morrow, October 15, 2024). Cover art uncredited If, like me, you are a Neal Stephenson fan, you know he has a tendency to get deep into the descriptive weeds. I sometimes imagine his editor suggesting, “Neal, do we really need all this detail?” And then Neal grouchily responds, “If I didn’t think the story needed it, I wouldn’t have written it.” Case in point from his latest novel, Polostan, a depiction of the 1933 Chicago World’s…

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Howard Andrew Jones, July 19, 1968 – January 16, 2025

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Howard Andrew Jones is dead. It’s hard to write those words. Howard has been a huge part of my personal and professional life since 2002, when I opened a submission to Black Gate magazine and found a long, rambling, and extremely enthusiastic cover letter from him, expressing his delight at finding a quality magazine devoted to heroic fantasy. The letter ended with “I want in, bad,” and was attached to a terrific tale featuring two adventurers named Dabir and Asim….

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