New Releases

The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his […]

To my mind, Bernard Wolfe remains one of the most remarkable, original writers of the twentieth century When no less a judge than Harlan Ellison – himself certainly one of the most remarkable, original writers of the twentieth century – offers such heady praise, it would be wise to listen. So listern we did, and […]

Way back in the mists of time, when SF Gateway was taking its first tentative digital steps into the world, I wrote about the first half of Gene Wolfe’s epic The Book of the New Sun – Shadow and Claw – which had just been voted one of the top ten Gollancz titles over our […]

Our current SF Masterworks Spotlght is Maureen F. McHugh’s extraordinary debut novel, China Mountain Zhang. Shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula Awards and winner of the James Tiptree Memorial Award, the Locus Award for best first novel, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award and the Lambda Award, China Mountain Zhang is a stunning piece of science fiction. […]

Our latest SF Masterwork spotlight is a favourite of many at Gateway Towers: John Wyndham’s classic tale of strange alien children in our midst. The Midwich Cuckoos is a masterpiece of paranoia and suspense . . . In the sleepy English village of Midwich, a mysterious silver object appears and all the inhabitants fall unconscious. […]

It is the single most popular topic for alternative histories: what if the Nazis had won the Second World War. It usually turns upon the Jonbar Point of Hitler not committing suicide in 1945 – although, in Stephen Fry‘s excellent Making History, the Nazi victory is brought about by Hitler’s birth being prevented entirely. From […]

When J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was published, reviewers saw that there was only one book with which it could legitimately be compared: E.R. Eddison‘s classic fantasy adventure The Worm Ouroboros. Set on a distant planet of spectacular beauty and peopled by Lords and Kings, mighty warriors and raven-haired temptresses, Eddison’s extravagant story, […]

We are delighted to be featuring another wonderful piece of SF from the masters of Soviet-era SF, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky!  Best known for the wonderful Roadside Picnic – memorably filmed as Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky  the Strugatsky Brothers are responsible for some of the most incisive science fiction to come from behind the Iron […]

Neglected masterpiece. Unsung classic. Unjustly-overlooked genius. We live in a time of ridiculous hyperbole. A time when terms such as ‘classic’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘genius’ have become so overused as to be almost meaningless. A time when films garner four stars for being competent and five for being better than average. A time when politicians demand […]

Back in January, we opened 2016 by welcoming Vernor Vinge‘s Hugo Award-winning space opera epic A Fire Upon the Deep to the SF Masterworks list. Now, we’re delighted to add Vinge’s prequel, set thirty millennia earlier, A Deepness in the Sky, which went its predecessor one better, winning the Hugo Award for best novel and […]

Our second SF Masterwork spotlight this week, is Walter Tevis’s remarkable novel that was the basis for Nicolas Roeg‘s cult film, starring the late David Bowie. Thomas Jerome Newton is an extraterrestrial from the planet Anthea, which has been devastated by a series of nuclear wars, and whose inhabitants are twice as intelligent as human […]

Nothing at all should be read into the fact that our two current SF Masterworks spotlights are a post apocalyptic tale driven by fear and hatred of those that are different, and the story of an alien visitor to Earth who brings knowledge but is greeted with fear and suspicion. That’s just how the publishing […]