Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond, page 21
March 2, 2014
New Kaslo episode in Lightspeed
The March
Lightspeed
magazine is out, containing "Phalloon the Illimitable," the fourth episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles. Hardboiled op Erm Kaslo and his new employer, the proto-wizard Diomedo Obron, go up against a stronger would-be thaumaturge, just as the universe is about to switch its rules of operation from rationalism to magic.
You can purchase the entire contents of this issue of Lightspeed as an ebook now, or read the Kaslo episode for free on the magazine's website on March 25th. The previous episodes are available online in Lightspeed's archives.
In other news, I've sold a reprint to the latest iteration of the prestigious Canadian sf anthology, Tesseracts 18 . The theme of this year's antho is "wrestling with gods -- faith in science fiction and fantasy."
My contribution, "So Loved" is a tale of the demiurge and offers an explanation of why the universe we inhabit appears to be only a rough draft of the real thing. It originally ran in Postscripts 24/25 .
You can purchase the entire contents of this issue of Lightspeed as an ebook now, or read the Kaslo episode for free on the magazine's website on March 25th. The previous episodes are available online in Lightspeed's archives.
In other news, I've sold a reprint to the latest iteration of the prestigious Canadian sf anthology, Tesseracts 18 . The theme of this year's antho is "wrestling with gods -- faith in science fiction and fantasy."
My contribution, "So Loved" is a tale of the demiurge and offers an explanation of why the universe we inhabit appears to be only a rough draft of the real thing. It originally ran in Postscripts 24/25 .
February 28, 2014
To Hell and Back in your ear
Word from my agent that Amazon Audible will launch the audio versions of my To Hell and Back trilogy -- The Damned Busters, Costume Not Included, and Hell To Pay -- on March 11.
The narrator is Tom Lawrence, who has spoken books for Ian McDonald and China Mieville, among others, so I'm in good company.
The narrator is Tom Lawrence, who has spoken books for Ian McDonald and China Mieville, among others, so I'm in good company.
February 18, 2014
Interview about old Growth
Lorina Stephens, proprietor of Five Rivers Publishing, has posted an interview we did last month in preparation for the release of
Old Growth
. I get to put on my old crime writer's hat (imagine a vintage 1940s fedora) and talk a little about my checkered past.
February 15, 2014
Compleat Guth Bandar coming soon
I've gone through all the Guth Bandar stories that appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction between 2004 and 2007, assembling them into a collection: The Compleat Guth Bandar. I've turned the text over to my excellent ebook designer, Bradley Schenck; I've arranged an ISBN; and I've asked the inestimable artist Ben Baldwin for a cover. If all goes well, by March, we should have an ebook. Like the others, it will sell for $2.99.
Guth Bandar was a key character in Black Brillion (Tor, 2004), but I didn't have enough room in that book to tell the full story of his career as a noönaut (an explorer of the collective unconscious). So I wrote a series of stories that told how he came to be an unwilling helper to the somewhat tragic hero of Black Brillion, Baro Harkless.
The stories were later stitched together to make the novel The Commons, but The Compleat Guth Bandar comprises the magazine stories in in their original form. The collection includes "The Helper and His Hero," which was shortlisted for a Nebula Award in the novella category.
One of the stories, "A Little Learning," is available for a free read in my excerpts.
Guth Bandar was a key character in Black Brillion (Tor, 2004), but I didn't have enough room in that book to tell the full story of his career as a noönaut (an explorer of the collective unconscious). So I wrote a series of stories that told how he came to be an unwilling helper to the somewhat tragic hero of Black Brillion, Baro Harkless.
The stories were later stitched together to make the novel The Commons, but The Compleat Guth Bandar comprises the magazine stories in in their original form. The collection includes "The Helper and His Hero," which was shortlisted for a Nebula Award in the novella category.
One of the stories, "A Little Learning," is available for a free read in my excerpts.
February 12, 2014
First chapter of Old Growth
The first chapter of Old Growth, a mystery novel, is now available for a free read.
It’s the sequel to Downshift, my 1997 mystery, published originally by Doubleday Canada and rereleased last year by Five Rivers Publishing. Both novels follow the trials and tribulation of Sid Rafferty, who is kind of an alter ego of mine — a freelance speechwriter living on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, though he gets into more trouble than I usually did.
Official publication date is March 1, but the ebook version is already available on Amazon.
It’s the sequel to Downshift, my 1997 mystery, published originally by Doubleday Canada and rereleased last year by Five Rivers Publishing. Both novels follow the trials and tribulation of Sid Rafferty, who is kind of an alter ego of mine — a freelance speechwriter living on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, though he gets into more trouble than I usually did.
Official publication date is March 1, but the ebook version is already available on Amazon.
February 2, 2014
Third Luff Imbry novella in September
Some years back, I made a deal with the excellent UK small press PS Publishing for a series of three novellas featuring my corpulent, far-future master thief and forger, Luff Imbry.
The first two, Quartet & Triptych and The Yellow Cabochon, appeared in 2010 and 2012 respectively. The third, Of Whimsies and Noubles, was turned in in the fall of 2011 and should have appeared sometime in 2013.
But it didn't. It now turns out that a computer crash eliminated the manuscript, the contract, and all emails relating to the third novella. However, order has now been restored, I have sent another copy of the ms to PS, and the little book will be published in two collectible editions in September of this year.
The original deal also called for all three novellas to be published in an omnibus edition. That, too, will happen, sometime after Of Whimsies and Noubles has sold through.
The first two, Quartet & Triptych and The Yellow Cabochon, appeared in 2010 and 2012 respectively. The third, Of Whimsies and Noubles, was turned in in the fall of 2011 and should have appeared sometime in 2013.
But it didn't. It now turns out that a computer crash eliminated the manuscript, the contract, and all emails relating to the third novella. However, order has now been restored, I have sent another copy of the ms to PS, and the little book will be published in two collectible editions in September of this year.
The original deal also called for all three novellas to be published in an omnibus edition. That, too, will happen, sometime after Of Whimsies and Noubles has sold through.
February 1, 2014
Two of mine make Locus list
Two of my novelettes have made the Locus recommended reading list for 2013.
"The Ugly Duckling" is a Bradburyesque tale, inspired by The Martian Chronicles. It appeared in Old Mars , the retro-anthology, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, of stories set in the Mars that science fiction and fantasy authors imagined before robots began to explore the surface of the red planet.
"And Then Some" originally ran in Asimov's, then was reprinted in Lightspeed. It became the first episode in a serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, about Erm Kaslo, a hardboiled confidential operative in a space-opera universe whose fundamental operating principle abruptly switches from rationalism to magic. The new order is not a good fit for Kaslo, who signs on to become chief henchman to a budding wizard who's long been preparing for the big change.
Two more episodes of the Kaslo story have since appeared -- "Sleeper" and "His Elbow, Unkissed" -- and they can be read for free in the Lightspeed archives (follow the links).
"The Ugly Duckling" is a Bradburyesque tale, inspired by The Martian Chronicles. It appeared in Old Mars , the retro-anthology, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, of stories set in the Mars that science fiction and fantasy authors imagined before robots began to explore the surface of the red planet.
"And Then Some" originally ran in Asimov's, then was reprinted in Lightspeed. It became the first episode in a serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, about Erm Kaslo, a hardboiled confidential operative in a space-opera universe whose fundamental operating principle abruptly switches from rationalism to magic. The new order is not a good fit for Kaslo, who signs on to become chief henchman to a budding wizard who's long been preparing for the big change.
Two more episodes of the Kaslo story have since appeared -- "Sleeper" and "His Elbow, Unkissed" -- and they can be read for free in the Lightspeed archives (follow the links).
January 22, 2014
Hespira now in paperback
Hespira: A Tale of Henghis Hapthorn, the third novel in the Hapthorn trilogy, is now available as a POD paperback.
Here's the blurb:
Hapthorn decides to leave Old Earth, seeking to solve the mystery of Hespira, an ungainly off-world woman who has lost her memory. The investigation takes him down The Spray to the rank-obsessed world of Ikkibal and the rustic Shannery, where he unravels Hespira's role in a deadly feud between aristocrats. But behind the scenes an unseen antagonist is plotting the discriminator's destruction.
At the moment, the paperback is only available in Amazon's CreateSpace estore, but in a week or so it will work its way through into the whole Amazon system. And at some point, probably weeks from now, you could actually walk into a bricks-and-mortar bookstore and order a copy.
I'd prefer it, though, if you bought it from CreateSpace, since they pay a far better royalty than I would receive after everybody else has taken a cut.
I want to thank my excellent book designer, Bradley W. Schenck, Hero of the Archonate, for producing such a fine piece of work.
Here's the blurb:
Hapthorn decides to leave Old Earth, seeking to solve the mystery of Hespira, an ungainly off-world woman who has lost her memory. The investigation takes him down The Spray to the rank-obsessed world of Ikkibal and the rustic Shannery, where he unravels Hespira's role in a deadly feud between aristocrats. But behind the scenes an unseen antagonist is plotting the discriminator's destruction.
At the moment, the paperback is only available in Amazon's CreateSpace estore, but in a week or so it will work its way through into the whole Amazon system. And at some point, probably weeks from now, you could actually walk into a bricks-and-mortar bookstore and order a copy.
I'd prefer it, though, if you bought it from CreateSpace, since they pay a far better royalty than I would receive after everybody else has taken a cut.
I want to thank my excellent book designer, Bradley W. Schenck, Hero of the Archonate, for producing such a fine piece of work.
January 14, 2014
Third Kaslo Chronicles episode online
"His Elbow, Unkissed," the third episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, is now available for a free read online at Lightspeed Magazine. Hardboiled confidential operative Erm Kaslo is trying to come to terms with the idea that the underlying rulebook of the universe is about to be rewritten, with rational cause-and-effect giving way to sympathetic association -- i.e., magic.
The two previous episodes in the novel, "And Then Some" and "Sleeper," are available in Lightspeed's archives.
The two previous episodes in the novel, "And Then Some" and "Sleeper," are available in Lightspeed's archives.
January 11, 2014
Raffalon rides again
I've sold a novelette to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction: "Prisoner of Pandarius" is another episode in the adventures of my archetypal thief, Raffalon. And, yes, there is wizardry involved. I've teamed him up again with Cascor, the ex-cop turned wizard who came aboard in "Stones and Glass".
I think this represents my twenty-fifth sale to F&SF. I'm starting to feel like a regular.
I think this represents my twenty-fifth sale to F&SF. I'm starting to feel like a regular.
