Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "hugh-matthews"

A couple of reviews of my old stuff popped up this week.

Blogger George Kelley took a look at Song of the Serpent, a Cugelesque novel written under my media-tie pseudonym Hugh Matthews and set in the Pathfinder role-playing game universe. He says, "If you’re looking for a fun novel with a Jack Vance flavor, try Song of the Serpent."

And Stephen Theaker, a reviewer/blogger who is administrator of the British Fantasy Awards (and who has invited me back onto the main jury this year), finally gave in and read Template, my stand-alone Archonate space-opera. He says, "[Hughes's] books make me feel like a mouse whose pleasure centres are being deliberately tripped in a scientific experiment upon its brain. That disclaimer aside, I thought this was excellent."

High praise, indeed, and from a knowledgeable source. You can read the entire review here. Template is available as an ebook and a POD paperback from the Archonate Bookstore and wherever such titles are sold.

I was googling around, looking for new reviews of old stuff (found a good one of my story in the cross-genre antho Rogues), when I found one of my alter egos, the media tie-in author Hugh Matthews, listed on the Tor site. Unbeknownst to me, Tor has taken over publication of Paizo Press's line of fantasy adventures set in the role-playing game world of Pathfinder.

My contribution to that line was Song of the Serpent, featuring a Cugel the Clever clone named Krunzle the Quick. It has dwarves, wizards, and a promising young troll named Skanderbrog, of whom I was quite fond. But I can't say it burned up the track, sales-wise. Maybe coming under the Tor aegis will help. They're republishing the existing line in trade paperback format, and some people really like those things.

As for that Rogues review, it was at the Fantasy Book Review blog and the reviewer, Joe Warren, singled out my story, "The Inn of the Seven Blessings," which introduced Raffalon the thief to the world, for special mention: "I particularly enjoyed The Inn of the Seven Blessings by Matthew Hughes. This short story was witty, original and punchy."

I also noticed a couple of nice new Amazon customer reviews for Majestrum and Template. I always encourage readers to put in those Amazon notices, at least if you've bought the book from Amazon. Apart from gladdening the author's heart, they do help sell books.

I don't have much to post about here lately because I'm generally beavering away on my historical novel -- 146,000 words now and should have the first draft done in a week or so. But I had an email from James Sutter, my editor at Paizo, to tell me that Song of the Serpent will be out as an Amazon Audible audio book in January.

That gives me an opportunity to mention the book to those of you who have started coming by since its release in May 2012. You won't find it listed under my usual fantasy-author name, Matthew Hughes, because it was a media tie-in. That means it was a for-hire job where I was hired to write a novel set in somebody else's trademarked universe. I write those kinds of books under the pen name Hugh Matthews.

The universe in this instance was that of the Pathfinder role-playing game, which has created a world called Golarion. Paizo Books publisher Erik Mona, a major Jack Vance fan who reprinted my stand-alone Vancean space opera, Template, asked me if I could do a Cugel the Clever-type story set in Golarion for their Pathfinder Tales imprint. I said, I'd be delighted, and out came Song of the Serpent.

I'm mentioning all of this because there might be amongst you some people who say to themselves, "Gosh, I wish Hughes would write a Cugel the Clever novel."

Well, I have. The character is called Krunzle the Quick. Like Cugel, he's a thief. He makes the mistake of trying to rob a plutocrat whose goods are guarded by a magician and finds himself sent on a life-threatening quest he can't quit because the mage put a semi-sentient bronze snake around his neck, and it will choke him if he departs from the assignment.

Of course, there's more to it than that. The story has levels, and the deeper Krunzle delves into those levels the more desperate the situation becomes. Oh, and it also has an exceptional young troll named Skanderbrog, who now has his own action figure in the Pathfinder store.

Here's a link to Amazon for the title. And, by the way, I don't get anything from sales of the book beyond the initial writing fee. I just thought fans of Vance's and mine might enjoy it.

If you'd like a free sample, I did a short story as a prequel that was published on the web. It's called "Krunzle the Quick," and you can find links to all five segments on the Pathfinder wiki.

While I’m waiting to be able to announce that the trade and ebook editions of A Wizard’s Henchman are available for order . . .

Back in 2008 at World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, I was in the bar when Erik Mona, publisher of Paizo Books, told me he was a great Jack Vance fan and that he liked my work. He asked me if I had a book for him. As it turned out, I was looking for a publisher for Template, my stand-alone Archonate space opera that had been brought out as limited collector’s editions by PS Publishing.

I sent it to him and he brought it out as part of the series, Planet Stories, which (like Template) were decidedly retro science fiction.

Later, Erik told me that he also published novels set in the Pathfinder RPG universe’s world of Golarion, and asked me if I would be interested in doing one. He also said he would really like it if I would do a Cugel the Clever story. I love the Cugel stories and said I’d be delighted.

So we made a deal and I wrote a novel originally called Out of the Blue that was retitled Song of the Serpent before publication in 2012. It told the tale of a thief named Krunzle the Quick who, like Cugel, is fast on his feet – he has to be because, again like Cugel, he’s not as smart as he thinks he is. Caught trying to rob a plutocrat, he ends up with a magical bronze snake around his neck that chokes him when he tries to deviate from a mission to bring back the rich man’s errant daughter. There are also dwarves, half-orcs, a pack of ne’er do wells running a gold-mining camp with slave labor, and a rather promising young troll named Skanderbrog. The more I wrote about Skanderbrog, the better I got to like him.

Song of the Serpent has not been the most successful of the Pathfinder novel series. I haven’t read any of the others, but I gather that a not very likeable Vancean anti-hero kind of stands out from the crowd. And not in a good way: a lot of head-scratching and two-star reviews on Goodreads.

But readers who are fans of both Vance’s work and mine tell me the book largely satisfies the appetite for a Cugelesque picaresque adventure. But there haven’t been as many of those readers as there might be, because the novel was published under my media tie-in pen name, Hugh Matthews. People who go looking for things I’ve written don’t usually find it.

So I thought I’d mention Song of the Serpent again so that people who might like it can give it a looking over. I don’t expect to make any money from fresh sales, since it will probably never pay out its advance. But I’d like to see Krunzle and Skanderbrog get more attention. I think they deserve it.

And if you really like my troll, Paizo produced an “action figure.”

 

I'd forgotten about it -- my memory is about as strong as your average kids treehouse -- but when Song of the Serpent was coming out, Paizo asked me to promote the book by writing a prequel short story, "Krunzle the Quick," which was published online in briefly weekly episodes.

Anyone who's interested can read it free at http://paizo.com/pathfinder/tales/ser...

Just click on (show post) in the upper right corner.

The story is also available as a 99-cent ebook from the Paizo store: http://paizo.com/products/btpy8tce/di...

Here's the ebook cover: