Search Results for: Soyka

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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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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Celebrate 10 Years of the Black Gate Blog!

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The Black Gate website was launched several months before the release of our first print issue at the World Fantasy Convention in Corpus Christi, Texas in October 2000. It was updated once a week (or so), until the site was completely revamped as a regular blog in 2007, shortly before the release of issue #11 in Summer 2007 (cover at right). The architect of that redesign, Howard Andrew Jones, assembled a crack team of bloggers over the next few months — including…

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Black Gate Wins World Fantasy Award

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I’ve just returned from the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio, where I got the chance to meet up with several of our talented and far-flung contributors, including Bob Byrne, Patty Templeton, C.S.E. Cooney, Matthew Wuertz, Sarah Avery, Fred Durbin, Ellen Klages, Amal El-Mohtar, Derek Künsken, Brandon Crilly, Marie Bilodeau, David B. Coe, Jeffrey Ford, and many others. But the highlight of the weekend — by a pretty wide margin — was receiving the World Fantasy Special Award in the Nonprofessional category….

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New Treasures: The Best of Amazing Stories, The 1926 and 1927 Anthologies, edited by Steve Davidson and Jean Marie Stine

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While I was wandering the aisles of the Windy City Pulp and Paper Show here in Chicago last month, I came across a delightful find… the second volume of Steve Davidson and Jean Marie Stine’s The Best of Amazing Stories, covering 1927 (above right). I snatched it up immediately, and hunted up the first volume online (above left). My fascination with Amazing Stories began with Isaac Asimov’s biographical anthology Before the Golden Age, in which he collected his favorite pulp…

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