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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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My Three Problems with the Three-Body Problem

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The Three-Body Problem (Tor Books, November 11, 2014). Cover by Stephan Martiniere In the middle of trying to explain quantum mechanics to me, my physicist friend stopped in frustration and said, “This would all make a lot more sense if you understood math.” Alas, I am one of those recovering English majors who never could wrap their heads around anything more basic than simple arithmetic (and not so good at even that). Intellectually, I can intuit how mathematical prowess unleashes…

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The Martian Chronicles Meet True Grit: The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

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The Strange (Saga Press, March 21, 2023). Cover uncredited I wish I could take credit for the headline of The Martian Chronicles Meet True Grit for Nathan Ballingrud’s terrific novel, but according to the author, Karen Jay Fowler came up with it. I hope she won’t mine me stealing it because it is as spot on as any description I could come up with. The more prosaic version is that The Strange is a Western riff on Ray Bradbury’s vision…

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Revealing the Cover — and an Excerpt — from Robert V. S. Redick’s Sidewinders

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We’re big fans of Robert V. S. Redick here at Black Gate. I’ve lost count of how many of his books our staff has enthusiastically reviewed over the years but… whew, it’s a lot. That’s why we’re so excited at the impending release of Sidewinders, the second volume in The Fire Sacraments series (following Master Assassins, which we covered — you know it! — right here back in 2018). As if we weren’t excited enough already, Black Gate website editor…

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Birthday Reviews: Joseph H. Delaney’s “Survival Course”

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Joseph H. Delaney was born on February 5, 1932 and died on December 21, 1999. He worked as an attorney before he began publishing in 1982 with the story “Brainchild.” Delaney was a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1983 and 1984. He was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella three years in a row, beginning in 1983 for “Brainchild,” “In the Face of My Enemy” the following year, and finally for…

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Exploring the Subterranean

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I founded Black Gate in 2000, and we published the first issue at the World Fantasy Convention in Corpus Christi, Texas in October of that year. We produced the print magazine for 11 years (the last issue, #15, was published in May 2011), and during that decade-plus I was keenly observant of other print magazines, especially new ones. A handful of new zines popped up during that period, but I think my favorite was William Schafer’s Subterranean magazine, which produced eight print…

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