Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "f-sf"

Sam Tomaino reviews “Devil or Angel,” my Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction novelette for SF Revu: “. . . the most pure fun I’ve had in a while.”

I had an email from Gardner Dozois today to say that ROGUES, the latest cross-genre anthology he has co-edited with George R.R. Martin, has been turned in to the publisher. A publication date will be announced soon.

I have a story in it called "The Inn of the Seven Blessings" about a thief named Raffalon, who made his first appearance in "Wearaway and Flambeau" in last year's July/August issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Gordon van Gelder, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, tells me that "Stones and Glass," a novelet featuring my Dying Earth-era thief, Raffalon, will run in the November/December issue.

And now for something completely different: I have a piece in today's online Globe & Mail about a sneaky way to abolish the corrupt and largely unuseful Canadian Senate.

Lots of things to report, since I've been off-line almost two months:

"Enter Saunterance" is the latest installment in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, now up for a free read at Lightspeed Magazine.

This month also saw the reprinting of the first Rafffalon tale, "Wearaway and Flambeau," in Sean Wallace's anthology, THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF WARRIORS AND WIZARDRY.

I've turned in the last episode of Kaslo, so Lightspeed will be running the remaining chapters through to the end of the novel sometime in 2015.

"Prisoner of Pandarius," another tale of Raffalon, my archetypal journeyman thief, should run in the January/December issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Gordon van Gelder has two more Raffalon stories in inventory, which should run in 2015.

I'll do at least a couple more Raffalons to make sure I have a collection's worth. Then I'll self-publish them as an ebook and POD paperback, once they've all run. I'll include the actual first-written Raffalon story, written for George R.R. Martin's and Gardner Dozois's cross-genre anthology, ROGUES, which made the bestseller lists and is a bargain at Amazon where it's discounted about forty percent.

Something I'm particularly proud of is a Jeeves and Wooster pastiche in OLD VENUS, the next Martin/Dozois antho coming out in March.

And I'm thinking of reviving my corpulent master criminal of the Archonate, Luff Imbry, in a few stories and offering them to John Joseph Adams at Lightspeed. BTW, my self-pubbed Imbry collection, THE MEANING OF LUFF AND OTHER STORIES, did not win the Endeavour Award earlier this month, but making the shortlist of five out of a longlist of forty-five is not bad.

For Imbry fans, "Of Whimsies and Noubles," the third in the trio of novellas published by PS Publishing in the UK, is now available in two limited editions, one of them signed.

I've proofed the typeset for "Curse of the Myrmelon," the next Raffalon story in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. New editor C.C. (Charlie) Finlay tells me it will run in either the July or September issues. In "Curse," Raff's sometimes client Cascor, the cop turned private eye-cum-sorcerer, takes the lead role.

Correction on my recent post about the current episode of The Kaslo Chronicles in Lightspeed : the free read will commence on March 10, not March 7.

Nothing much to report except that I've passed 90,000 words on the historical novel and it's coming along well. I expect to have a finely polished draft of some 150,000 words by the end of the year and then we'll see what happens. It looks as if the title will be What the Wind Brings.

 

The only other news is a couple of nice reviews of "Curse of the Myrmelon," the new Raffalon/Cascor story in the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Lois Tilton reviewed it for Locus online and Martha Burns did so for Tangent Online, adding "the banter was delightful."

 

It's true. I do give good banter.

 

"Curse" is my twenty-sixth appearance in F&SF (twenty-seventh if you make allowances for my Neb-nominated Guth Bandar novella, "The Helper and his Hero) having been serialized over two issues). If you'd told me fifty years ago, when I was sixteen and dreaming of being an sf writer, that I'd become one the magazine's regulars, I would have been over the moon. Hell, even at the fully ripened age of sixty-six, I'm still pretty chuffed.

I've just heard that I've sold another reprint. "Petri Parousia" ran in F&SF back in 2008. In January, I submitted it to a Kickstarter-funded indie anthology to be called Arcane Arts, edited by Kai Herbertz.

"Petri Parousia" spun off from the then popular novel The Da Vinci Code, to the extent that it was about a research scientist who discovered he could recreate the DNA of anyone's ancestors so you could clone your great-grandfather. Or Napoleon. Or anybody you thought deserved a second coming.

As with the recent sale of "Nature Tale" to Tesseracts 20, the acceptance came as a complete surprise because I did not remember submitting the story (I have an increasingly unreliable memory which may turn out to be a precursor to Alzheimers).

Still, it's very nice to receive acceptances for submissions I don't remember. Like an unexpected birthday present.

I've done an interview on The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction blog about the genesis of my new character, Baldemar, a poor widow's son who grows up to become a wizard's henchman.

I've done another interview with Stephen Mazur on the Fantasy & Science Fiction blog. It's about my new series character Baldemar, who appears in "The Prognosticant," a second story in the current issue. It also inspired the majorly skookum cover art.

I've got a Dying Earthesque story in the July/August issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I've done an interview with Stephen Mazur about the story's unusual genesis.