Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "erm-kaslo"
Asimov's offers a freebie
Asimov's is running the first half of my space opera novelette, "And Then Some," as a free sample.
Review of "And Then Some"
At the Tangent Online review blog, Colleen Chen likes "And Then Some," my novelette in the February Asimov's. She says it's "skillfully told, with a lovely rhythm to the writing that makes it a pleasure to read and imagine."
Another review of "And Then Some"
Another review of "And Then Some," my novelette in the current Asimov's Science Fiction. Terry Weyna says, "Hughes has been constructing a fascinating universe for years now, and each new entry gets slotted into a future history as complex as anything invented by Heinlein or Asimov."
My thanks
A while back, I said here that I would be helpful if satisfied readers expressed themselves in the form of Amazon customer reviews. The response has been very gratifying: reviews of Template, Hespira, and the short story collections 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn and The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories have been very supportive.
Those of us who do not sit high enough up the ladder in this business of fiction writing don't get to meet all that many of our readers. We don't merit book tours or collect invitations to be Guest of Honor at a big con. So when you care enough to send an email or to post a review somewhere, it helps.
As I usually respond to readers who email me: I appreciate the encouragement.
It helps keep me productive, too. I've sent another Raffalon story off to F&SF, and I'm working on another involving Erm Kaslo, the confidential op who first appeared in "And Then Some" in a recent Asimov's. I think Kaslo is going to be the first of my characters who actually goes through the universe's wrenching transition from rationality to sympathetic association -- or to use the vulgar term, magic.
My intent, as with the Guth Bandar stories that eventually became The Commons, is to write a Raffalon and a Kaslo novel in episodes, then string the elements together to make two ebooks.
Those of us who do not sit high enough up the ladder in this business of fiction writing don't get to meet all that many of our readers. We don't merit book tours or collect invitations to be Guest of Honor at a big con. So when you care enough to send an email or to post a review somewhere, it helps.
As I usually respond to readers who email me: I appreciate the encouragement.
It helps keep me productive, too. I've sent another Raffalon story off to F&SF, and I'm working on another involving Erm Kaslo, the confidential op who first appeared in "And Then Some" in a recent Asimov's. I think Kaslo is going to be the first of my characters who actually goes through the universe's wrenching transition from rationality to sympathetic association -- or to use the vulgar term, magic.
My intent, as with the Guth Bandar stories that eventually became The Commons, is to write a Raffalon and a Kaslo novel in episodes, then string the elements together to make two ebooks.
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.
Update on my unusual life
I’ve settled into a seven-week sit in the little village of Tala, just outside Paphos in the Republic of Cyprus. The population is a mixture of Greek Cypriots and British expats. The scenery is stunning, the architecture is generic eastern-Mediterranean, and the climate is hot and relatively humid. They not only grow olives and figs, but little sweet bananas.
I’m looking after two rescue dogs – that is dogs that have been abandoned and rescued, not St Bernards with brandy casks, although one of them is coincidentally named Brandy. The other one, Bailey, had a spinal break late last year that has left her back legs mostly paralyzed. Still, I take them for a walk every morning, before the heat gets too heated. Bailey has a custom-fitted pair of wheels that take the place of her back legs, and she rattles along like Ben Hur.
She also has no bladder or bowel control, so there’s a certain amount of cleaning up to be done – although I’ve learned how to position her over an enamel chamber pot and squeeze her abdomen to express urine before she leaves a puddle.
And you thought being a world-wandering author/housesitter was all beer and skittles. Actually, the beer here is good and cheap, a euro or so for a half-liter bottle and I’m still trying to figure out how they can sell a liter bottle of Jim Beam bourbon for less than it retails for in the States.
In authoring news, before I finished the last sit in Athens – three months in Exarchia, the anarchists’ quarter – I wrote a 15,000-word novelette featuring my Dying Earth-era thief, Raffalon, and sent it to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He’s just sent me a note to say that he’s buying it. When it runs, it will be my twenty-fifth appearance in F&SF, which when I think about how I used to buy used copies of the mag to read in the early sixties (couldn’t afford a subscription, and we were always moving house), always amazes me.
During the week since I arrived in Tala, I have done the first draft of the fifth episode of The Kaslo Chronicles, the serialized novel about my hardboiled PI who becomes a wizard’s assistant when the universe’s operating system abruptly switches from rational cause-and-effect to will-powered magic.
The first Kaslo episode, “And Then Some,” originally ran in Asimov’s and is now appearing as a reprint in Lightspeed Magazine. Future episodes will run every two months. I’m going to be very interested to see where the story goes (I can’t outline; I just start and out it comes, a thousand words a day).
A week or so ago, I set the price for my 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn story collection ebook to zero, just to see if it leads to more sales of the other ebooks. If you’d like to pick one up for nothing, check Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, or the Archonate bookstore.
I’m looking after two rescue dogs – that is dogs that have been abandoned and rescued, not St Bernards with brandy casks, although one of them is coincidentally named Brandy. The other one, Bailey, had a spinal break late last year that has left her back legs mostly paralyzed. Still, I take them for a walk every morning, before the heat gets too heated. Bailey has a custom-fitted pair of wheels that take the place of her back legs, and she rattles along like Ben Hur.
She also has no bladder or bowel control, so there’s a certain amount of cleaning up to be done – although I’ve learned how to position her over an enamel chamber pot and squeeze her abdomen to express urine before she leaves a puddle.
And you thought being a world-wandering author/housesitter was all beer and skittles. Actually, the beer here is good and cheap, a euro or so for a half-liter bottle and I’m still trying to figure out how they can sell a liter bottle of Jim Beam bourbon for less than it retails for in the States.
In authoring news, before I finished the last sit in Athens – three months in Exarchia, the anarchists’ quarter – I wrote a 15,000-word novelette featuring my Dying Earth-era thief, Raffalon, and sent it to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He’s just sent me a note to say that he’s buying it. When it runs, it will be my twenty-fifth appearance in F&SF, which when I think about how I used to buy used copies of the mag to read in the early sixties (couldn’t afford a subscription, and we were always moving house), always amazes me.
During the week since I arrived in Tala, I have done the first draft of the fifth episode of The Kaslo Chronicles, the serialized novel about my hardboiled PI who becomes a wizard’s assistant when the universe’s operating system abruptly switches from rational cause-and-effect to will-powered magic.
The first Kaslo episode, “And Then Some,” originally ran in Asimov’s and is now appearing as a reprint in Lightspeed Magazine. Future episodes will run every two months. I’m going to be very interested to see where the story goes (I can’t outline; I just start and out it comes, a thousand words a day).
A week or so ago, I set the price for my 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn story collection ebook to zero, just to see if it leads to more sales of the other ebooks. If you’d like to pick one up for nothing, check Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, or the Archonate bookstore.
Another two stories sold
A couple of sales to report:
"Avianca's Bezel," a 15,000-word novelet, is another in a series of tales about Raffalon, my Dying Earthesque thief, sold to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction;
"The Village," the fifth episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, sold to John Joseph Adams at Lightspeed magazine.
"Avianca's Bezel," a 15,000-word novelet, is another in a series of tales about Raffalon, my Dying Earthesque thief, sold to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction;
"The Village," the fifth episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, sold to John Joseph Adams at Lightspeed magazine.
"And Then Some" podcast on StarShip Sofa
"And Then Some," the opening episode of The Kaslo Chronicles, my science-fantasy novel now being serialized in
Lightspeed Magazine
, is also the main fiction in the latest edition of StarShip Sofa's podcast.
The narrator is Barry J. Northern, whose accent belies his name by being definitely from the south of England. That makes the podcast an interesting experience for me, because the voices I hear in my head when I'm writing Kaslo episodes (I've done five so far) come straight out of 1940s American noir -- Humphrey Bogart, Van Heflin, Dan Duryea -- with that flat, mid-west intonation. Hearing it done in "English" English adds a dfferent element.
I was quite taken with it.
The narrator is Barry J. Northern, whose accent belies his name by being definitely from the south of England. That makes the podcast an interesting experience for me, because the voices I hear in my head when I'm writing Kaslo episodes (I've done five so far) come straight out of 1940s American noir -- Humphrey Bogart, Van Heflin, Dan Duryea -- with that flat, mid-west intonation. Hearing it done in "English" English adds a dfferent element.
I was quite taken with it.
"Sleeper" now in Lightspeed's November issue
"Sleeper," the second episode in the serialized novel The Kaslo Chronicles, is now appearing in
Lightspeed Magazine
. Hardboiled confidential operative Erm Kaslo is drawn deeper into the machinations of a clutch of proto-wizards murderously competing with each other in anticipation of the universe's impending sudden shift from rational cause and effect to sympathetic association (i.e., magic).
The mag is donwloadable now as a $3.99 ebook, wherever epubs and mobis are sold. Or you can wait until late in the month and read "Sleeper" for free on-line.
The mag is donwloadable now as a $3.99 ebook, wherever epubs and mobis are sold. Or you can wait until late in the month and read "Sleeper" for free on-line.
A couple of short story reviews
Lois Tilton reviews a couple of my short stories for Locus online. About "The Ugly Duckling," a Bradburyesque tale in
Old Mars
, the retro-anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, she says,"The descriptions of the Martian ruins and the recordings of Martian life they hold are truly wondrous neat."
And then she looks at "Sleeper," the second episode in The Kaslo Chronicles, the science-fantasy novel I'm serializing in Lightspeed Magazine . She says, "The combination of character, setting, narrative voice and twisty plot make for the sort of entertaining tale that readers familiar with the author will expect . . ."
And then she looks at "Sleeper," the second episode in The Kaslo Chronicles, the science-fantasy novel I'm serializing in Lightspeed Magazine . She says, "The combination of character, setting, narrative voice and twisty plot make for the sort of entertaining tale that readers familiar with the author will expect . . ."
