Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond, page 24
August 8, 2013
First review of Old Mars
A couple of months before its scheduled October release, here's the first early-bird review of Old Mars, the theme anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois beringing together fifteen stories about the red planet that could have appeared in the old pulp mags.
About my story in he antho, reviewer Mel Odom says, “The Ugly Duckling” by Matthew Hughes reminded me a lot of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles with all its psychological trappings and intrigues".
Which is exactly the effect I was aiming for.
About my story in he antho, reviewer Mel Odom says, “The Ugly Duckling” by Matthew Hughes reminded me a lot of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles with all its psychological trappings and intrigues".
Which is exactly the effect I was aiming for.
August 5, 2013
I'll be at World Fantasy Convention
I bought a membership in the 2013 World Fantasy Convention as soon as they went on sale, but I haven't been sure that my world-wandering, housesitting ways would put me within range when the time came. But now I'm pretty sure I'll be there come the end of October.
I'm in the last three weeks of a three-month sit in Athens, which has been just fine. I like the Greeks, I like the weather (although when it hit 40C last week it was a bit of a strain), and I like the food and the wine. And, of course, the antiquities.
But at the end of August, we're off to Paphos in Cyprus for eight weeks, followed by a three-month sit in northern Italy. I should be able to catch a cheapie flight from Venice to London and take the train down to Brighton.
If anybody wants to meet up there for a drink or a dinner, let me know.
I'm in the last three weeks of a three-month sit in Athens, which has been just fine. I like the Greeks, I like the weather (although when it hit 40C last week it was a bit of a strain), and I like the food and the wine. And, of course, the antiquities.
But at the end of August, we're off to Paphos in Cyprus for eight weeks, followed by a three-month sit in northern Italy. I should be able to catch a cheapie flight from Venice to London and take the train down to Brighton.
If anybody wants to meet up there for a drink or a dinner, let me know.
July 29, 2013
Old Venus ToC Announced
George R.R. Martin has announced that Old Venus, a theme anthology he has co-edited with Gardner Dozois, has been turned in to the publisher, Bantam Spectra. It should be out next year.
It's an anthology of stories set in that swampy, dinosaur-ridden Venus-of-the-mind that used to exist before we sent probes that revealed it to be a sulphurous hell-hole.
The antho brings together some stellar names. My contribution is a Jeeves and Bertie Wooster romp, with the names changed to protect the innocent (me) from lawsuits.
Here is the Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION, by Gardner Dozois
FROGHEADS, by Allen M. Steele
THE DROWNED CELESTRIAL, by Lavie Tidhar
PLANET OF FEAR, by Paul McAuley
GREEVES AND THE EVENING STAR, by Matthew Hughes
A PLANET CALLED DESIRE, by Gwyneth Jones
LIVING HELL, by Joe Haldeman
BONES OF AIR, BONES OF STONE, by Stephen Leigh
RUINS, by Eleanor Arnason
THE TUMBLEDOWNS OF CLEOPATRA ABYSEE, by David Brin
BY FROGSLED AND LIZARDBACK TO OUTCAST VENUSIAN LEPERS, by Garth Nix
THE SUNSET OF TIME, by Michael Cassutt
PALE BLUE MEMORIES, by Tobias S. Buckell
THE HEART'S FILTHY LESSON, by Elizabeth Bear
THE WIZARD OF THE TREES, by Joe R. Lansdale
THE GODSTONE OF VENUS, by Mike Resnick
BOTANICA VENERIS: THIRTEEN PAPERCUTS BY IDA COUNTESS RATHANGAN, by Ian McDonald
It's an anthology of stories set in that swampy, dinosaur-ridden Venus-of-the-mind that used to exist before we sent probes that revealed it to be a sulphurous hell-hole.
The antho brings together some stellar names. My contribution is a Jeeves and Bertie Wooster romp, with the names changed to protect the innocent (me) from lawsuits.
Here is the Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION, by Gardner Dozois
FROGHEADS, by Allen M. Steele
THE DROWNED CELESTRIAL, by Lavie Tidhar
PLANET OF FEAR, by Paul McAuley
GREEVES AND THE EVENING STAR, by Matthew Hughes
A PLANET CALLED DESIRE, by Gwyneth Jones
LIVING HELL, by Joe Haldeman
BONES OF AIR, BONES OF STONE, by Stephen Leigh
RUINS, by Eleanor Arnason
THE TUMBLEDOWNS OF CLEOPATRA ABYSEE, by David Brin
BY FROGSLED AND LIZARDBACK TO OUTCAST VENUSIAN LEPERS, by Garth Nix
THE SUNSET OF TIME, by Michael Cassutt
PALE BLUE MEMORIES, by Tobias S. Buckell
THE HEART'S FILTHY LESSON, by Elizabeth Bear
THE WIZARD OF THE TREES, by Joe R. Lansdale
THE GODSTONE OF VENUS, by Mike Resnick
BOTANICA VENERIS: THIRTEEN PAPERCUTS BY IDA COUNTESS RATHANGAN, by Ian McDonald
SF Signal plug for Archonate series
Jeff Patterson, one of the “Three Hoarsemen” talking about sf on the latest SF Signal podcast, gave a major plug to my Archonate stories after getting into Black Brillion while doing laundry at his local laundromat: “I will probably be spending the next couple of weeks looking for other books in the series… I am now a Matthew Hughes fan.”
The segent begins at 45:34.
The segent begins at 45:34.
July 21, 2013
Excerpt from Paroxysm
I’ve posted an excerpt from Paroxysm, my slightly sfnal thriller that’s now available as an ebook ($2.99) and a print-on-demand paperback ($12.99) from my website bookstore, Amazon, Kobo, and plenty of other places. You can even go into a brick-and-mortar bookstore and order the paperback, such are the wonders of modern self-publishing.
I’m still offering a free ebook to anyone who promises to blog or post about the book – and an Amazon review counts – so all you have to do is send me an email telling me the format you prefer. This offer will go on for a while, but once the book’s honeymoon is over, I will end it.
Here's the book's blurb:
Ruthless mercenaries, hired by an ex-Pentagon chemical-weapons designer turned rogue, take over a small town in Oregon. The plan: use the citizenry as guinea pigs in a test-run of a bootlegged bio-agent for an Islamist terror organization.
But something goes wrong and the mercs and their clients find themselves surrounded by townsfolk who have turned into hyper-coordinated killing machines.
Paroxysm is an action-packed tale about the seductive power of righteous violence, about how ordinary people can explode when fate gives them the power to hit back.
And once they’ve gone down that road, there’s no turning back.
I’m still offering a free ebook to anyone who promises to blog or post about the book – and an Amazon review counts – so all you have to do is send me an email telling me the format you prefer. This offer will go on for a while, but once the book’s honeymoon is over, I will end it.
Here's the book's blurb:
Ruthless mercenaries, hired by an ex-Pentagon chemical-weapons designer turned rogue, take over a small town in Oregon. The plan: use the citizenry as guinea pigs in a test-run of a bootlegged bio-agent for an Islamist terror organization.
But something goes wrong and the mercs and their clients find themselves surrounded by townsfolk who have turned into hyper-coordinated killing machines.
Paroxysm is an action-packed tale about the seductive power of righteous violence, about how ordinary people can explode when fate gives them the power to hit back.
And once they’ve gone down that road, there’s no turning back.
July 10, 2013
Costune Not Included shortlisted for Endeavour Award
Costume Not Included, the second novel in the To Hell and Back urban fantasy series, has been shortlisted for the Endeavour Award.
The award is named for the ship captained by the great navigator James Cook when he explored and mapped the Pacific Northwest from Oregon up to Haida Gwai (the Queen Charlotte Islands). It's a juried award, given for a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors and published in the previous year.
It's been established to the satisfaction of the Endeavour's governors that, although I wander the world as a homeless housesitter, I remain an author of the Pacific Northwest.
The winner will be announced at OryCon, the Oregon sf con, in November.
The award is named for the ship captained by the great navigator James Cook when he explored and mapped the Pacific Northwest from Oregon up to Haida Gwai (the Queen Charlotte Islands). It's a juried award, given for a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors and published in the previous year.
It's been established to the satisfaction of the Endeavour's governors that, although I wander the world as a homeless housesitter, I remain an author of the Pacific Northwest.
The winner will be announced at OryCon, the Oregon sf con, in November.
July 4, 2013
Heads-up: trunk book coming soon
I'm gearing up, with the help of my webmaster Bradley Schenck and cover artist Ben Baldwin, to self-publish the first of my trunk novels in the next couple of weeks.
For those who don't know the term, a trunk novel is a book that the author couldn't sell. That doesn't always mean the book is not publishable; sometimes things go wrong in other parts of the forest. The book I'm bringing out, Paroxysm, was written in 1996 when I had a Canadian agent in Toronto. For reasons I've never been able to understand, the agent (who gave me notes on the original draft and helped me ready it for submission), never sent the book out. It sat on her shelf, along with a second novel, for months until I fired her.
In 2001, it was in the hands of a New York agent who did send it out to at least one editor who said good things about it without making an offer. Then the agent suffered a near-tragedy in her family and went into a tailspin that lasted months. I took the book back and moved on.
But here's the rub: because Paroxysm had "been out" from an agent and hadn't sold, it was dead. No other agent would touch it. So it went back into the trunk and there it has remained ever since.
It's a perfectly serviceable present-day thriller, with just a tinge of science fiction to the premise. Rob Sawyer told me that if it had had a little more sfness to it, he would have taken it for his imprint (instead, he took The Commons , for which I am grateful).
Paroxysm could be shelved next to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except that it involves military-industrial rogues and a mad scientist instead of seed-pod aliens. And it has a "Keep watching the skies!" message to it, except that it's not the skies we need to watch -- it's the people who keep inventing interesting new ways for us to kill each other.
Nuff said to make a teaser. Check back here before the end of the month, and it ought to be available as a $2.99 ebook and a $12.99 POD paperback. I'll also put up an excerpt.
For those who don't know the term, a trunk novel is a book that the author couldn't sell. That doesn't always mean the book is not publishable; sometimes things go wrong in other parts of the forest. The book I'm bringing out, Paroxysm, was written in 1996 when I had a Canadian agent in Toronto. For reasons I've never been able to understand, the agent (who gave me notes on the original draft and helped me ready it for submission), never sent the book out. It sat on her shelf, along with a second novel, for months until I fired her.
In 2001, it was in the hands of a New York agent who did send it out to at least one editor who said good things about it without making an offer. Then the agent suffered a near-tragedy in her family and went into a tailspin that lasted months. I took the book back and moved on.
But here's the rub: because Paroxysm had "been out" from an agent and hadn't sold, it was dead. No other agent would touch it. So it went back into the trunk and there it has remained ever since.
It's a perfectly serviceable present-day thriller, with just a tinge of science fiction to the premise. Rob Sawyer told me that if it had had a little more sfness to it, he would have taken it for his imprint (instead, he took The Commons , for which I am grateful).
Paroxysm could be shelved next to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except that it involves military-industrial rogues and a mad scientist instead of seed-pod aliens. And it has a "Keep watching the skies!" message to it, except that it's not the skies we need to watch -- it's the people who keep inventing interesting new ways for us to kill each other.
Nuff said to make a teaser. Check back here before the end of the month, and it ought to be available as a $2.99 ebook and a $12.99 POD paperback. I'll also put up an excerpt.
July 3, 2013
Review of Hell to Pay
There's an insightful review of Hell to Pay, the third novel in the To Hell and Back trilogy, over at the 42 Webs blog. It's nice when people say they enjoyed a book; it's much more satisfying when they really get it.
June 29, 2013
Template in POD paperback
Recently, Paizo Press reverted to me the paperback rights to Template: A Novel of the Archonate, a stand-alone space opera that is the book I most often recommend to new readers who want an introduction to my work. It also represents the only time I've consciously tried to write a "Jack Vance novel," although the themes and concerns embodied in the story are my own.
With the paperback rights returned to me, I've run the work through CreateSpace's print-on-demand system, so it's now available via my webpage bookstore for $12.99. It should start showing up on the various Amazons in the next few days. Down the road, it will even be orderable from brick-and-mortar bookstores all over the place.
With the paperback rights returned to me, I've run the work through CreateSpace's print-on-demand system, so it's now available via my webpage bookstore for $12.99. It should start showing up on the various Amazons in the next few days. Down the road, it will even be orderable from brick-and-mortar bookstores all over the place.
June 21, 2013
Erm Kaslo, hardboiled wizard's assistant
Last year, I introduced a new character in the Archonate universe. Erm Kaslo is a “licensed confidential operative” (combination private detective, bounty hunter, bodyguard), who lives on Novo Bantry, one of the long-settled worlds of The Spray. He’s a hardboiled version of Henghis Hapthorn who faces the same dilemma as Old Earth’s foremost freelance discriminator: he discovers that the fundamental operating principle of the universe is about to switch from rational cause and effect to sympathetic association, or to use the vulgar term, “magic.”
I took Hapthorn up to the point where the change was just about to happen, and left him to decide whether he wanted to live in a universe ruled by wizards. I’m going to take Kaslo right through the transition and into the collapse of technological civilization and the beginnings of the age that Jack Vance described in his seminal work, The Dying Earth.
I’m writing Kaslo’s story as an episodic novel. I’ve now written four episodes. The first, “And Then Some,” appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction last year. The other three – “Sleeper,” “His Elbow, Unkissed,” and “Phalloon the Illimitable” – have now been bought by John Joseph Adams for the on-line magazine Lightspeed. He’s also bought the reprint rights to “And Then Some,” which will kick off the serial (because that’s what it is) in September.
Eventually, when the story’s been told and all the episodes have run in Lightspeed, I’ll put them all together and self-publish them as an ebook and a POD paperback.
I’m looking forward to this. I like writing hardboiled crime fiction, and taking a guy like Kaslo through an apocalypse ought to offer plenty of scope.
I took Hapthorn up to the point where the change was just about to happen, and left him to decide whether he wanted to live in a universe ruled by wizards. I’m going to take Kaslo right through the transition and into the collapse of technological civilization and the beginnings of the age that Jack Vance described in his seminal work, The Dying Earth.
I’m writing Kaslo’s story as an episodic novel. I’ve now written four episodes. The first, “And Then Some,” appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction last year. The other three – “Sleeper,” “His Elbow, Unkissed,” and “Phalloon the Illimitable” – have now been bought by John Joseph Adams for the on-line magazine Lightspeed. He’s also bought the reprint rights to “And Then Some,” which will kick off the serial (because that’s what it is) in September.
Eventually, when the story’s been told and all the episodes have run in Lightspeed, I’ll put them all together and self-publish them as an ebook and a POD paperback.
I’m looking forward to this. I like writing hardboiled crime fiction, and taking a guy like Kaslo through an apocalypse ought to offer plenty of scope.
