Gate 4: Terry M. West
Reviewed By Steve Stred
I first read Terry’s work just last year, which feels so odd to say that as 2019 was only 10 days ago at the time of writing this. I reviewed his novella Transfer and was stunned.
KR: You can read the Transfer Kendall Review HERE
At first when this was offered up, I was going to pass – I have so many on the go at the moment, but the looming brilliance of Transfer pulled me back in.
Gate 4: Volume One Episodes is the collection of the first batch of Terry’s Gate 4 serial novellas. Each one ranging between 20ish pages to 40ish pages, it packages them all together and with this he’s included a new introduction about the ‘why’ but also in between each story he gives us some author notes regarding where some of his characters have previously appeared which is neat.
The story is pretty straight forward – under a mysterious town in Texas a strange gate has been discovered. What’s behind it is unknown, but a covert group has been tasked with rounding up the ‘creatures’ of the world in order to find out what is there.
We are introduced to the main characters pretty quickly and as was mentioned in the introduction, most of these characters have been fully formed in other works, so if you haven’t read anything previous – which I haven’t – then some of the aspects the reader will just have to determine on their own. I didn’t find this a detriment, but there were a few spots where some of the dialogue felt clipped. I attributed this to not knowing the back story.
As the episodes progress, we get some background info on a few of the main players, which I really enjoyed and it gave the shorter page count a way to feel like a longer, more expansive read.
I did enjoy the ending and found that West was able to ramp up the action and create intrigue as things grew more and more unhinged. Anytime you have a strange gate in play, it creates suspense all on its own. Fantastic.
Overall, I enjoyed this one and it looks like we’ll be getting more episodes to continue moving the story along in the future, which I’ll definitely be checking out!
Gate 4
Beneath a dead, forgotten city in North Central Texas, an ancient evil strengthens. Guarded by a collection of monsters, demons, and freaks of nature, Gate 4 is our only defense. As long as its dark keepers remain on our side.
GATE 4: VOLUME ONE EPISODES collects the full first season of GATE 4, an ongoing horror serial. This collection features an introduction from the author. The episodes have been polished and are followed by extensive episode notes.
You can buy Gate 4 from Amazon UK & Amazon US
Steve Stred
Steve Stred writes dark, bleak horror fiction.
Steve is the author of the novels Invisible & The Stranger, the novellas The Girl Who Hid in the Trees, Wagon Buddy, Yuri and Jane: the 816 Chronicles and two collections of short stories; Frostbitten: 12 Hymns of Misery and Left Hand Path: 13 More Tales of Black Magick, and the dark poetry collection Dim the Sun.
On September 1st, 2019 his second collection of dark poetry and drabbles called The Night Crawls In will arrive. This release was specifically created to help fund the 1st Annual LOHF Writers Grant.
Steve is also a voracious reader, reviewing everything he reads and submitting the majority of his reviews to be featured on Kendall Reviews.
Steve Stred is based in Edmonton, AB, Canada and lives with his wife, his son and their dog OJ.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevestred
You can visit Steve’s Official website here
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