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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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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Bookriot on 5 Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazines You Should Be Reading

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Over at Bookriot, Amy Diegelman sheds some light on a handful of top-notch magazines that deserve more attention. The old science fiction and fantasy magazines whose over-the-top covers and bizarre ads we often chuckle at were some of the first to publish names like Heinlein, [Asimov], and Butler. Today, some of the best new writers are being published in science fiction and fantasy magazines, which take chances on women, authors of color, and genre innovators who have more trouble breaking…

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Patrick Swenson on Talebones, Fairwoods Press, and the Bad Old Days of Print on Demand

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Patrick Swenson has been a major figure in speculative fiction for decades, first as the editor of Talebones, and now as the editor in chief of Fairwood Press. Many still remember his semi-pro magazine as the market to send to if you had a story that fit nowhere, but was nevertheless amazing. He has an eye for such things. Nowadays, getting published by Fairwoods requires more than a good agent or query letter. It is by invitation only, and to be…

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