Gallagher, Matt
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1983- ) US former soldier and author whose military experiences are reflected in a blog, Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal (2007-2008), which was shut down by his superiors; in his first book, Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (2010), a memoir; and in his first novel, Youngblood (2016), a complex nonfantastic rendering of America's intimate involvement in Iraq. Gallagher is of sf interest for his second novel, Empire City (2020), set in an Alternate History version of America whose Jonbar Point is the Republic's pyrrhic victory in Vietnam. The protagonists of the tale are three Superheroes whose Superpowers are similar to those found in Comics, and whose complicated and conflicted relationship to their native land evokes Alan Moore's Watchmen (graph 1987). The fate not only of Empire City (which is to say New York) but of America at large hangs in the balance, for the country is riven by terrorism and the presidential campaign of the populist Major General Jackpot Collins, a war-lover. [JC]
Matt Gallagher
born Reno, Nevada: 24 February 1983
works
- Youngblood (New York: Simon and Schuster/Atria, 2016) [hb/]
- Empire City (New York: Simon and Schuster/Atria, 2020) [hb/]
nonfiction
- Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2010) [nonfiction: hb/]
works as editor
- Fire & Forget: Short Stories from the Long War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2013) with Roy Scranton [anth: hb/]
links
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