Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond

I've finished a new Dying Earth fantasy novel. A God in Hiding is set in the same milieu as my 2019 novel, A God in Chains, and features some of the same characters, as well as a few from other stories.

I'm going to get it formatted then send it out as a pdf ARC, to try to get reviews in places where self-publishers usually don't. So it might not be available until near the end of the year

I’ve written a new Cascor novelette—9,000 words—and sent it in to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The title is “Tome-Tickler,” which refers to a kind of person who has the same kind of ease with books of magic as horse whisperers do with horses.

Next week, I’ll put out my monthly emailed newsletter. New sign-ups to the mailing list receive a free ebook of 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn.

Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/cyNSA9

My new fantasy novel THE GHOST-WRANGLER, is now available as an ebook and POD paperback on Amazon for my usual prices of US$4.99/$14.99.

The ebook is also available on Kobo.

Here’s the blurb:

In a world of wizards and walled cities, Galabras Nachecko is a necromancer in the seaport metropolis of Golathreon, connecting the living with deceased relatives and associates to answer questions left unresolved at the time of death.

Then he is tasked by Duke Simisson’s conniving seneschal to capture the ghost of a notorious land pirate scheduled for execution. He snags the spirit but finds that the assignment has made him a man who knows too much.

Nachecko is propelled into a new career—secret agent segueing into diplomat—that leads him far from home, plunges him into perilous adventures, and brings him both true love and tragedy.

Ebook (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C833XCGN/

Ebook (Kobo): https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-...

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1927880246/

The professional association of science fiction and fantasy authors of America (SFWA) has launched a new StoryBundle – Magic and Mayhem – offering fourteen carefully chosen fantasy novels (one of them mine), that span the sub-genres of fantasy while showcasing magic-induced mayhem, from the hilarious to the horrible and everything in between.

If you haven’t encountered StoryBundle before, it’s a cool way to snag a passel of great genre reading at a bargain price. And you’ll almost certainly discover some authors new to you that you’ll want to read more of.

The basic deal is US$5 for FOUR NOVELS in any ebook format you like, to read on your laptop, tablet, e-reader, or smartphone.

But wait, there’s more! Boost your spending to $15 and you get TEN MORE books. That’s FOURTEEN full-length novels for basically a buck a book. Each title in the Magic and Mayhem bundle has been curated by SFWA’s pros out of a slew of books that came in after a call for submissions.

Some of the titles they particularly liked:

• Darkmage – ML Spencer's award-winning debut novel filled with epic battles, flawed heroes, and a brutal struggle

• Playing with Fire – R.J. Blain's snarky romantic comedy with a body count, featuring a fire-breathing unicorn on a mission of destruction

• Phaethon – Rachel Sharp's tech fantasy that weaves computer hackers, faeries, and corporate greed into a twisted tale

• Ragnarok Unwound – Kristin Jacques's story of a young woman tangled up in a prophecy that sets her off to save the world with the help of a brownie, a Valkyrie, and the goddess of death herself

• Cutie and the Beast – E.J. Russell's novel pairing a former Queen's Champion of Faerie's Seelie Court with a cheeky yet adorable human temp worker, as they prove, once again, that when fae consort with humans, it never ends well

•And my own 9 Tales of Raffalon – Matthew Hughes's intriguing mosaic novel combining nine stories of an enterprising thief as he grapples with crooked guild masters, ghosts, spies, ogres, and a talented amateur assassin

All the books are DRM-free. You can email them to your friends. And you can give Magic and Mayhem as a gift to that guy who’s always asking you, “What’s so great about fantasy?”

And you’ll be doing some good, supporting indie authors like me, plus part of the proceeds will go to the good works SFWA does, like helping out writers in need of health care and other worthwhile causes.

Good deeds and good reading. What more can you ask for?

It’s a limited time offer, so better not wait to check it out:

Link

Barbarians of the Beyond, the authorized companion novel to Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series, is now available as an ebook, for the reasonable price of US$5.99.

Here’s the back-cover blurb:

Twenty years ago, five master criminals known as the Demon Princes raided Mount Pleasant to enslave thousands of inhabitants in the lawless Beyond. Now Morwen Sabine, a daughter of captives, has escaped her cruel master and returns to Mount Pleasant to recover the hidden treasure she hopes will buy her parents’ freedom.

But Mount Pleasant has changed. Morwen must cope with mystic cultists, murderous drug-smugglers, undercover “weasels” of the Interplanetary Police Coordinating Company, and the henchmen of the vicious pirate lord who owns her parents and wants Morwen returned. So he can kill her slowly…

Barbarians of the Beyond is a return to “Jack Vance Space” and space-opera derring-do that follows in the science fiction Grandmaster’s footsteps.

“I really enjoyed Barbarians of the Beyond. Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself.” George R. R. Martin

“Lock the door, turn off the phone, get into a comfy chair, and deep-dive into a marvelous continuation of Jack Vance's Demon Princes series. Matthew Hughes is a treasure and Barbarians of the Beyond is a terrific adventure.” David Gerrold

“Matthew Hughes follows nimbly in Jack Vance's footprints, then breaks some fresh trail. First-class space opera.” Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids

“Engaging and enchanting…a fine companion adventure to Jack Vance’s The Demon Princes series, told with Matthew Hughes’s excellent sense of charm, ethical complexity and exotic worldbuilding. Let’s hope this is just the beginning!” Kurt Busiek

“Barbarians of the Beyond is just plain old-fashioned space opera fun with a relatable heroine who is sometimes fallible, rather than some Shaolin Temple kung fu megamaster. I enjoyed it a lot.” Glen Cook

“…a tale that captures that special ‘golden age’ feel in which mankind has travelled far into the stars yet still behaves as though it’s the Wild West.” David White, RNR Magazine

“Deeply enjoyable and entirely delivers on its promise.” Andrew Wheeler, Science Fiction Book Club

Here are links to Amazon and Kobo. Apple Books takes a little longer.

I’ve finished the first draft of The Pelerin’s Eye, a Dying Earth novel about a necromancer who stumbles into a career as a diplomat for the Duke of Golathreon, the city on the south shore of the Sundering Sea where Baldemar retired after his stint as a wizard’s henchman.

The draft topped out at 82,000 words, which I consider a comfortable length for a fantasy novel. I’m going to let it sit for a little while because the characters mutated as I wrote them, so there will be some need for shoring up in the early chapters to cohere with what happens later.

In the meantime, I will turn my attention to writing the third in the series of novelettes about Cascor the discriminator.

This makes three novels I have now have “in inventory.” The other two are the Baldemar stories, which were consciously written as an episodic novel, and Passengers and Perils, a space-opera sequel to my 2008 novel Template.

I’m not doing anything with these properties while I wait to see what effect Barbarians of the Beyond, the authorized sequel to Jack Vance’s The Demon Princes, has on my ability to sell to publishers. If it makes enough of a splash, I may be able to break out of the small-press ghetto and sell to larger outfits (although having been to The Show twice before, I have mixed feelings about that).

In regard to both my space-opera and Dying Earth settings, I ought to mention: I have no idea what the geography of the lands I’m writing really looks like. Please don’t ask me to draw any maps. These are, after all, realms of the imagination and therefore, by definition, always somewhat hazy.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, to support Ed Willett’s Kickstarter campaign for his Shapers of Worlds, Volume II anthology.

With four days to go, the campaign is less than $1300 CAD (a little more than US$1k) from completion. Since it’s an all-or-nothing venture, if it doesn’t make the target of $15,000 CAD (about US$12k), it won’t happen.

That means “The Ghost Wrangler,” a 6500-word coda to the Baldemar saga, won’t appear until I can submit it to a magazine (probably F&SF), sell it, then we all wait until it’s scheduled for publication. Lately, it has taken three months or more for one of my stories to make it through the Moksha submissions process at F&SF, and then it’s usually six months or more before it runs.

On the other hand, if Ed’s antho funds, his book will be out a lot sooner. And backers will not only get to read “The Ghost Wrangler,” but a lot of other high-quality science fiction and fantasy from some pretty spiffy authors.

BTW, anyone who pledges CAD$75 (about US$60) not only gets the antho, and your name in the acknowledgements, but also a cornucopia of ebooks from some of those same authors, and including all of my Raffalon and Luff Imbry stories.

Here's a link

I've written an authorized sequel to Jack Vance's iconic series, The Demon Princes

Barbarians of the Beyond is not the further adventures of Kirth Gerson, but a companion novel that takes place during the time frame of the first two DP novels, The Star King and The Killing Machine.

Here's the draft back-cover blurb:

Twenty-some years ago, the five master criminals known as the Demon Princes raided the peaceful community of Mount Pleasant to carry off its five thousand inhabitants into bondage in the lawless Beyond. Now Morwen Sabine, daughter of slaves, has escaped her cruel master and returns to Mount Pleasant to recover the hidden treasure that can buy her parents’ freedom.

But things have changed and Morwen finds she has to cope with mystic cultists, murderous drug-smugglers, undercover “weasels” of the Interplanetary Police Coordinating Company, and the henchmen of the vicious pirate lord who owns her parents and wants Morwen returned – so he can kill her slowly.

Barbarians of the Beyond is a return to “Jack Vance Space” and space-opera derring-do that follows in the science fiction grandmaster’s footsteps.

John Vance and I have been sending out an ARC and already have laudatory blurbs from George R.R. Martin, David Gerrold, Robert J. Sawyer, Glen Cook, and Kurt Busiek.

We're looking to interest a larger-than-small press in taking on the novel. If not, it will be published by John's Spatterlight Press as a POD paperback and ebook.

A reminder: the hardcover limited edition of What the Wind Brings will be on sale at a 20 per cent discount -- C$39.95 in Canadian dollars -- for another ten days. On September 1, the price goes up to the regular C$49.95.

Here’s where to go to pre-order.

A God in Chains (Edge SF & Fantasy Publishing), my new Dying Earth adventure fantasy novel, has only been available for purchase for less than three weeks, but it has already garnered seven four- and five-star reviews on Amazon.com.

It usually takes longer than that for the reviews to build up. I'm interested to see what professional critics have to say about it.

Here's a link.