Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond, page 3
February 25, 2019
Ask me anything
Here's a heads up. On Friday, March 1, I'll be the featured author at
Rock the Cauldron
, a Facebook site run by my SF Canada colleague, Shereen Vedam. I'll post a few thoughts about my work and answer any questions that others post.
I'm also seeing if I can arrange to give away an ebook as a free download from my webstore.
More to come, later in the week.
I'm also seeing if I can arrange to give away an ebook as a free download from my webstore.
More to come, later in the week.
February 12, 2019
Free reads reminder
Still snowed in, with nothing much to do except read a forthcoming novel and think about a blurb.
So I thought I'd remind people that every month, I put up a free read of a backlist story. Since last summer, I've been using Curious Fictions, in an experiment to see whether the site gets me more reads than my former practice of putting them up for a month on my website.
And so far it has worked out that way.
I've got two streams going on CF, my SF and fantasy stories, under my full name, Matthew Hughes. And my crime stories, as written by Matt Hughes.
So I thought I'd remind people that every month, I put up a free read of a backlist story. Since last summer, I've been using Curious Fictions, in an experiment to see whether the site gets me more reads than my former practice of putting them up for a month on my website.
And so far it has worked out that way.
I've got two streams going on CF, my SF and fantasy stories, under my full name, Matthew Hughes. And my crime stories, as written by Matt Hughes.
February 11, 2019
Plug for F&SF
I'm in between writing projects right now, and snowed in at a housesit in Shawnigan Lake, BC, so I'm going to take a few moments to plug The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and encourage you to subscribe.
First of all, you'd be getting a massive amount of first-rate speculative fiction from a venerable institution of science fiction and fantasy, the magazine that Stephen King called the "gold standard" for American short fiction. Not to mention stuff by Canadians like me and plenty of other folks from around the world whose writings grace F&SF's pages. And book reviews, SF cartoons, interesting items, and funny stuff called "Plumage from Pegasus."
Second, if you're a fan of my writing, F&SF is where you'd have come across a lot of it in recent times. I have it on good authority that I've sold more stories to the mag in recent years than any other author, and have filled more pages, too.
Third, and more immediate, the next issue (March/April) is scheduled to feature "The Plot Against Fantucco's Armor," a novelette carrying forward the career of Baldemar, my ambitious wizard's henchman. Then in the May/June issue, there is a reprise of Raffalon, the Dying Earth thief, in a story called "Sternutative Sortilege," previously only available in my self-published collection, 9 Tales of Raffalon.
And then the last of the Baldemar stories, "Air of the Overworld," will run in either the September/October or November/December issues. So that's about 40,000 words of my fantasy writing that you won't find anywhere else, at least not until I self publish the Baldemar stories in a year or two.
But wait, there's more. Last year, I sold an 11,000 Dying-Earthesque novelette to the late Gardner Dozois for his projected 2019 anthology, The Book of Legends. It now appears that that anthology will not go forward, which means the rights to the piece, "The Last Legend," will revert to me. And I will, of course, offer it to F&SF. So that might make 50,000 words of Hughes fantasy only available through my favorite magazine.
So go and take a look at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. A subscription gets you six double issues a year, comprising hundreds of thousands of words of first-rate speculative fiction, plus tons of interesting stuff, for about the price of two trade paperbacks.
First of all, you'd be getting a massive amount of first-rate speculative fiction from a venerable institution of science fiction and fantasy, the magazine that Stephen King called the "gold standard" for American short fiction. Not to mention stuff by Canadians like me and plenty of other folks from around the world whose writings grace F&SF's pages. And book reviews, SF cartoons, interesting items, and funny stuff called "Plumage from Pegasus."
Second, if you're a fan of my writing, F&SF is where you'd have come across a lot of it in recent times. I have it on good authority that I've sold more stories to the mag in recent years than any other author, and have filled more pages, too.
Third, and more immediate, the next issue (March/April) is scheduled to feature "The Plot Against Fantucco's Armor," a novelette carrying forward the career of Baldemar, my ambitious wizard's henchman. Then in the May/June issue, there is a reprise of Raffalon, the Dying Earth thief, in a story called "Sternutative Sortilege," previously only available in my self-published collection, 9 Tales of Raffalon.
And then the last of the Baldemar stories, "Air of the Overworld," will run in either the September/October or November/December issues. So that's about 40,000 words of my fantasy writing that you won't find anywhere else, at least not until I self publish the Baldemar stories in a year or two.
But wait, there's more. Last year, I sold an 11,000 Dying-Earthesque novelette to the late Gardner Dozois for his projected 2019 anthology, The Book of Legends. It now appears that that anthology will not go forward, which means the rights to the piece, "The Last Legend," will revert to me. And I will, of course, offer it to F&SF. So that might make 50,000 words of Hughes fantasy only available through my favorite magazine.
So go and take a look at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. A subscription gets you six double issues a year, comprising hundreds of thousands of words of first-rate speculative fiction, plus tons of interesting stuff, for about the price of two trade paperbacks.
January 31, 2019
Last chance for StoryBundle
The Bundoran StoryBundle bargain ends today. Twelve SF ebooks (11 novels, one short story collection) by Canadian specfic authors, for US$15. Includes my Archonate space opera, Template, the book I most often recommend to people who want to read me for the first time.
The books are all DRM free, so you can lend them to friends. And the deal offers support for two charities, one that encourage girls and women to write and another that promotes literacy in disadvantaged communities.
Great books, great price, good causes. But it's going, going, and soon to be gone.
The books are all DRM free, so you can lend them to friends. And the deal offers support for two charities, one that encourage girls and women to write and another that promotes literacy in disadvantaged communities.
Great books, great price, good causes. But it's going, going, and soon to be gone.
January 14, 2019
Interview re TEMPLATE
To help promote the Bundoran Press StoryBundle -- a dozen Canadian SF ebooks for $US15 -- I've done an interview about how I came to write my most deliberately Vancean space opera. And why so many of my protagonists -- like TEMPLATE's Conn Labro -- are social and psychological outliers.
There's also some advice for aspiring authors.
The StoryBundle deal has 17 days left to run. Some good stuff there by established Canadian authors and the up-and-comers who may well be tomorrow's new stars.
There's also some advice for aspiring authors.
The StoryBundle deal has 17 days left to run. Some good stuff there by established Canadian authors and the up-and-comers who may well be tomorrow's new stars.
January 9, 2019
great deal on ebooks
Bundoran Press is offering a StoryBundle bargain: four classic SF ebooks for US$5.
And if you up your payment to $15, you get eight more books by established stars and up-and-comers.
The basic four includes my standalone Archonate novel, Template, my only serious attempt to write a Jack Vance space opera.
Buy the whole package and you get novels by greats like Tanya Huff, Robert J. Sawyer, Edward Willett (some of whose books I’ve edited), and a never-before-available short story collection by James Alan Gardner.
Great books at great prices. Here’s where to go.
This is a time-limited offer, with three weeks to go. Get ’em while they’re going, because by the end of the month, they’ll be gone.
And if you up your payment to $15, you get eight more books by established stars and up-and-comers.
The basic four includes my standalone Archonate novel, Template, my only serious attempt to write a Jack Vance space opera.
Buy the whole package and you get novels by greats like Tanya Huff, Robert J. Sawyer, Edward Willett (some of whose books I’ve edited), and a never-before-available short story collection by James Alan Gardner.
Great books at great prices. Here’s where to go.
This is a time-limited offer, with three weeks to go. Get ’em while they’re going, because by the end of the month, they’ll be gone.
January 1, 2019
What the Wind Brings
Looks as if I’ll be starting the new year on a promising note. I’m going to make a deal with Pulp Literature Press, an up and coming Canadian small publisher, for my big historical novel (with slipstream elements), What the Wind Brings.
This is a big deal for me, in that the novel is pretty much a life’s work.
It’s based on incidents I first heard about in 1971 or 1972, as a footnote in a university textbook. The core gist: shipwrecked African slaves melded with the indigenous peoples of coastal Ecuador in the mid 1500s, and together they fought the Spanish colonial power to a standstill, to remain independent, basically, for centuries.
After more than forty years of thinking about the story, I was lucky enough to receive a C$25,000 Canada Council grant to write the book. I did five drafts, which is three more than I usually do. It’s a hell of a story, my magnum opus, the one I want to be remembered for.
We’re probably looking at a summer 2019 release. I’ll keep updating on the process and trying to stimulate pre-orders. As I say, it’s a meaningful event for me — not financially, but in terms of my being able to think I’ve done something worthwhile.
This is a big deal for me, in that the novel is pretty much a life’s work.
It’s based on incidents I first heard about in 1971 or 1972, as a footnote in a university textbook. The core gist: shipwrecked African slaves melded with the indigenous peoples of coastal Ecuador in the mid 1500s, and together they fought the Spanish colonial power to a standstill, to remain independent, basically, for centuries.
After more than forty years of thinking about the story, I was lucky enough to receive a C$25,000 Canada Council grant to write the book. I did five drafts, which is three more than I usually do. It’s a hell of a story, my magnum opus, the one I want to be remembered for.
We’re probably looking at a summer 2019 release. I’ll keep updating on the process and trying to stimulate pre-orders. As I say, it’s a meaningful event for me — not financially, but in terms of my being able to think I’ve done something worthwhile.
December 22, 2018
Welcome to Pacific City
I hang around on a website called SFF World, handing out advice on writing and publishing, because the site draws a number of aspiring specfic authors.
Every now and then, the members get together and do a theme anthology, the latest of which is Welcome to Pacific City, a collection of stories all set in a fictional Oregon coast metropolis whose name I'm sure you can infer. The theme of the antho is superheroes.
I contributed the origin tale, borrowing liberally from the true-life history of how Vancouver was founded by a man who paddled up from New Westminster with a barrel of whisky and talked the workers at a sawmill into building him a saloon.
The ebook version of the anthology is now available for pre-order, dirt cheap at an introductory price. Down the road there will be a paperback, and I'll draw attention to that when it comes.
But for now you can pre-orderW2PC from Amazon as a bargain. Here's where to go.
Every now and then, the members get together and do a theme anthology, the latest of which is Welcome to Pacific City, a collection of stories all set in a fictional Oregon coast metropolis whose name I'm sure you can infer. The theme of the antho is superheroes.
I contributed the origin tale, borrowing liberally from the true-life history of how Vancouver was founded by a man who paddled up from New Westminster with a barrel of whisky and talked the workers at a sawmill into building him a saloon.
The ebook version of the anthology is now available for pre-order, dirt cheap at an introductory price. Down the road there will be a paperback, and I'll draw attention to that when it comes.
But for now you can pre-orderW2PC from Amazon as a bargain. Here's where to go.
December 15, 2018
Podcast interview
When I was at VCon in Vancouver a few weeks ago, I did an interview with Robin Shantz for his Invaders from Planet 3 podcast. I may have said more than I should about my colorful past, but, hey, I can be garrulous.
December 11, 2018
SF Gateway publishing my backlist ebooks
A few months ago, I made a deal with SF Gateway an online offshoot of the UK publisher Gollancz, to bring out e-versions of 13 titles in my backlist of novels and short story collections. They've started appearing over the past few days and will continue to do so through January.
They're only available in the UK, the Commonwealth (not including Canada) and some odd non-Cwealth markets like Ireland, Egypt and Israel. At £4.99 each, they're a little pricier than in my own webstore and on Amazon, but still cheaper than Gollancz would sell them if they were new.
They're only available in the UK, the Commonwealth (not including Canada) and some odd non-Cwealth markets like Ireland, Egypt and Israel. At £4.99 each, they're a little pricier than in my own webstore and on Amazon, but still cheaper than Gollancz would sell them if they were new.
