Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "jack-vance"
Desperate Days by Jack Vance
My review of the Jack Vance mystery omnibus, Desperate Days, is up on the SF Site.
Jack Vance is gone
This is my second day in Athens, and I woke up to find an email telling me that Jack Vance, the author I most admire, has died after a good, long life. The thought that keeps going through my mind is that I could have taken the time to get down to Oakland and meet him, to tell him how much his work has meant to me.
To those of you who have goals you want to fulfill someday, don’t let that day wait too long. Some doors close, never to reopen.
To those of you who have never read Vance, I envy you the discovery of one of the great, singular voices in literature. Note that I’m not saying “in science fiction or fantasy” — but the whole great megillah of the human experience laid down in letters over the centuries by the best minds the species has produced.
He was that good. And by his work he will be remembered, long after the rest of us are wandering among the shades.
To those of you who have goals you want to fulfill someday, don’t let that day wait too long. Some doors close, never to reopen.
To those of you who have never read Vance, I envy you the discovery of one of the great, singular voices in literature. Note that I’m not saying “in science fiction or fantasy” — but the whole great megillah of the human experience laid down in letters over the centuries by the best minds the species has produced.
He was that good. And by his work he will be remembered, long after the rest of us are wandering among the shades.
Template in POD paperback
Recently, Paizo Press reverted to me the paperback rights to Template: A Novel of the Archonate, a stand-alone space opera that is the book I most often recommend to new readers who want an introduction to my work. It also represents the only time I've consciously tried to write a "Jack Vance novel," although the themes and concerns embodied in the story are my own.
With the paperback rights returned to me, I've run the work through CreateSpace's print-on-demand system, so it's now available via my webpage bookstore for $12.99. It should start showing up on the various Amazons in the next few days. Down the road, it will even be orderable from brick-and-mortar bookstores all over the place.
With the paperback rights returned to me, I've run the work through CreateSpace's print-on-demand system, so it's now available via my webpage bookstore for $12.99. It should start showing up on the various Amazons in the next few days. Down the road, it will even be orderable from brick-and-mortar bookstores all over the place.
Writing blurbs for Jack Vance novels
It's no secret I'm a lifelong fan of the late Jack Vance. So it's been a real pleasure to have been asked by Jack's son, John, to write some promotional blurbs for some of his best-loved titles: the Demon Princes novels and the Tschai tetralogy. The blurbs will be produced as video clips, with art work from Vance aficionado Koen Vyverman and my words read by John Vance.
I never got to meet Jack to express my admiration, although I did dedicate my first novel, Fools Errant, to him. Helping his son to make his works known to new readers is the least I can do.
I never got to meet Jack to express my admiration, although I did dedicate my first novel, Fools Errant, to him. Helping his son to make his works known to new readers is the least I can do.
Back to life
It’s been a crappy few weeks. My wife went to Italy and brought back a coughing flu for my Christmas present. It keeps on giving because I’m still trying to shake it. Getting from our UK December housesit to our Brittany gig meant standing around British train stations on New Year’s Day listening to announcements about how the railway’s signal system had collapsed. Luckily we made our flight. Once we got to Bordeaux we had to collect the car we’d left there and drive six hours to Brittany.
But wait, there’s more. The flu and the traveling triggered a bout of pneumonia and the coughing got so bad I pulled three rib heads out of my spine and had to have them put back in by a chiropractor. Twice. All of which is really not as much fun as it sounds.
So I was very pleased yesterday to discover that the New York Review of Science Fiction has run a lengthy survey of my work by the British fantasy critic and aficionado, Mike Barrett. He connects a lot of the dots that I’ve laid down in my scattered oeuvre while focusing on the role of Luff Imbry, my corpulent master criminal of Old Earth in the penultimate age before Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth.
He sums up by saying: “Matthew Hughes has consistently produced well-written fiction that diverts and pleases. His creation, the world of the Archonate, is a well-crafted and evocative background for storylines that are consistently readable and which display much originality.”
If you’re interested in reading the whole piece, you can buy a PDF of the edition here for $2.99.
But wait, there’s more. The flu and the traveling triggered a bout of pneumonia and the coughing got so bad I pulled three rib heads out of my spine and had to have them put back in by a chiropractor. Twice. All of which is really not as much fun as it sounds.
So I was very pleased yesterday to discover that the New York Review of Science Fiction has run a lengthy survey of my work by the British fantasy critic and aficionado, Mike Barrett. He connects a lot of the dots that I’ve laid down in my scattered oeuvre while focusing on the role of Luff Imbry, my corpulent master criminal of Old Earth in the penultimate age before Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth.
He sums up by saying: “Matthew Hughes has consistently produced well-written fiction that diverts and pleases. His creation, the world of the Archonate, is a well-crafted and evocative background for storylines that are consistently readable and which display much originality.”
If you’re interested in reading the whole piece, you can buy a PDF of the edition here for $2.99.
Some recent reviews
At Black Gate, Fletcher Vredenburgh reviews “Prisoner of Pandarius” in the January/February Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, saying “I’m a sucker for Jack Vance-inspired stories, provided they’re done well. I’m quite happy to write that ‘Prisoner of Pandarius’ is one of those.”
At SF Crowsnest, Patrick Mahon also liked “Prisoner of Pandarius”: “This story provides a very enjoyable start to the magazine, romping along at a rapid pace with great wit and humour. Raffalon is a classic loveable rogue and I was more than happy to spend some more time with him here.”
And a late review of Majestrum from the gamers’ blog Sorcerer’s Skull also notes the Vancean influence: “Hughes's universe and his writing style are in a Jack Vance mode. His setting of the Archonate and the Spray resembles Vance's Oikumene and Gaean Reach. It makes his Hapthorn tales something like if Magnus Ridolph or Miro Hetzel was confronting the dawning of the Dying Earth.”
The latest George R.R. Martin/Gardner Dozois theme antho, Old Venus, is garnering some reviews before its release next week, and my Jeeves-and-Bertie homage is getting some approving nods. In Locus , Russell Letson says “‘’Greeves and the Evening Star’’ gets the Most Unexpected Mashup Prize with its goofy mix of cross-species sex and Wodehousean silly-ass-Englishman nonsense.”
And Publisher’s Weekly calls the story “a droll Wodehouse pastiche.”
Any time I get mentioned in the same breath as Jack Vance and P.G. Wodehouse (whom Vance adored), I’ll take it and ask for more.
At SF Crowsnest, Patrick Mahon also liked “Prisoner of Pandarius”: “This story provides a very enjoyable start to the magazine, romping along at a rapid pace with great wit and humour. Raffalon is a classic loveable rogue and I was more than happy to spend some more time with him here.”
And a late review of Majestrum from the gamers’ blog Sorcerer’s Skull also notes the Vancean influence: “Hughes's universe and his writing style are in a Jack Vance mode. His setting of the Archonate and the Spray resembles Vance's Oikumene and Gaean Reach. It makes his Hapthorn tales something like if Magnus Ridolph or Miro Hetzel was confronting the dawning of the Dying Earth.”
The latest George R.R. Martin/Gardner Dozois theme antho, Old Venus, is garnering some reviews before its release next week, and my Jeeves-and-Bertie homage is getting some approving nods. In Locus , Russell Letson says “‘’Greeves and the Evening Star’’ gets the Most Unexpected Mashup Prize with its goofy mix of cross-species sex and Wodehousean silly-ass-Englishman nonsense.”
And Publisher’s Weekly calls the story “a droll Wodehouse pastiche.”
Any time I get mentioned in the same breath as Jack Vance and P.G. Wodehouse (whom Vance adored), I’ll take it and ask for more.
Jack Vance YouTube Channel
Before he died, Jack Vance and his son, John, set up a webstore to sell Jack’s backlist. I was pleased to be asked to write some blurbs for the titles, some of which are favorites of mine from way back when.
More recently, John, together with Koen Vyverman, created a Jack Vance YouTube channel. Gradually, they are producing individual YT videos a minute or so long, to stimulate interest among the vast and fortunate throng who have never read Vance – I call them fortunate, because I envy them the experience of discovery.
The individual shorts feature artwork and music chosen by Koen and a blurb narrated by John. I’ve been writing quite a few of the texts – I’ve been told I have a knack for such wordsmithery, which is not surprising because I wrote PR materials of all sorts for forty years. More recently, John asked me if I would not only write but narrate the words I’d written. I said sure, and now I’ve done a dozen or so, with more to come.
The first of them promotes Mazirian the Magician, Jack’s preferred title for his seminal work originally released under the publisher’s choice of title: The Dying Earth. If you’re interested in hearing my oddly inflected mid-Atlantic accent trying to stimulate the world to read a Jack Vance classic, tune in here:
More recently, John, together with Koen Vyverman, created a Jack Vance YouTube channel. Gradually, they are producing individual YT videos a minute or so long, to stimulate interest among the vast and fortunate throng who have never read Vance – I call them fortunate, because I envy them the experience of discovery.
The individual shorts feature artwork and music chosen by Koen and a blurb narrated by John. I’ve been writing quite a few of the texts – I’ve been told I have a knack for such wordsmithery, which is not surprising because I wrote PR materials of all sorts for forty years. More recently, John asked me if I would not only write but narrate the words I’d written. I said sure, and now I’ve done a dozen or so, with more to come.
The first of them promotes Mazirian the Magician, Jack’s preferred title for his seminal work originally released under the publisher’s choice of title: The Dying Earth. If you’re interested in hearing my oddly inflected mid-Atlantic accent trying to stimulate the world to read a Jack Vance classic, tune in here:
For the Jack Vance fans
Over the past few months, I've been writing blurbs and then narrating them for a series of YouTube promotional videos extolling the works of Jack Vance, upon whose literary shoulders I teeter.
The videos are produced by Koen Vyverman, Vance aficionado and one of the forces behind the Vance Integral Project, which restored all of Jack's novels and stories to their original form, removing edits which were often crudely performed by editors whose only concern was the space available in their magazines.
Spatterlight Press is run by Jack's son John, who has become a long-distance friend. If you wnt to read Vance -- and everybody should -- it's the place to go for ebooks. And you'll be reading Vance as he wanted to be read.
Here's a link to the YouTube channel.
The videos are produced by Koen Vyverman, Vance aficionado and one of the forces behind the Vance Integral Project, which restored all of Jack's novels and stories to their original form, removing edits which were often crudely performed by editors whose only concern was the space available in their magazines.
Spatterlight Press is run by Jack's son John, who has become a long-distance friend. If you wnt to read Vance -- and everybody should -- it's the place to go for ebooks. And you'll be reading Vance as he wanted to be read.
Here's a link to the YouTube channel.
Reviews of "Curse of the Myrmelon" in Locus
In the current edition of Locus, there are a couple of good reviews of “Curse of the Myrmelon,” my latest Raffalon/Cascor story in the July/August issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
Gardner Dozois says, “Matthew Hughes gives us another entertaining Vancian sword and sorcery adventure.”
And Rich Horton says, “This is, as with most of Hughes’s work, very good fun in a quite plausible version of one aspect of Jack Vance’s voice.”
I’ll take comparisons to Jack Vance any day.
And for anyone who's counting, I'm back at work on the historical novel and am just past 130,000 words.
Gardner Dozois says, “Matthew Hughes gives us another entertaining Vancian sword and sorcery adventure.”
And Rich Horton says, “This is, as with most of Hughes’s work, very good fun in a quite plausible version of one aspect of Jack Vance’s voice.”
I’ll take comparisons to Jack Vance any day.
And for anyone who's counting, I'm back at work on the historical novel and am just past 130,000 words.
Sold a crime story
Besides fantasy and science fiction, I've also written crime fiction -- even won an award from the Crime Writers of Canada some years ago. I had one little short story -- "Sealed with a Kiss" -- on my hard drive that I had never sold. I sent it out to Hitchcock's and Ellery Queen years ago and got no nibbles, and after that it just sat there. I would notice it every few months and think, "I ought to do something with that one."
Today I got an acceptance on it from an editor who is putting together an anthology of Canadian crime fiction. When I checked my emails I found out I'd submitted it in November of 2013. I'd completely forgotten. Now I can truthfully say that I've sold every crime short story I ever wrote, which is gratifying.
I'd sold all the sf stories, too, except for a 500-word flash fiction piece called "Ant Farm" that, as with "SWAK," I sent out to only a couple of places. I included it in the sf collection "Devil or Angel and Other Stories," so there's no place sending it anywhere else now.
The crime fiction antho will be out in the next few months. I'll announce it when I know the publication date.
John Vance, son of Jack, runs Spatterlight Press, which has been producing ebooks of his father's works, using the authoritative Vance Integral Edition texts which restored all the good bits cut by pulp magazine editors obsessed by page counts. I've mentioned that I've been writing and narrating the promotional copy for videos produced by Koen Vyverman for the Jack Vance YouTube channel.
Well, now Spatterlight is expanding into the publishing of print-on-demand paperbacks. The first title is Emphyrio which, by coincidence, is the Vance work I usually recommend for those who haven't read him yet. And I've just written the back-cover "About the Author" blurb and an enthusiastic preface which was a great pleasure to write.
Today I got an acceptance on it from an editor who is putting together an anthology of Canadian crime fiction. When I checked my emails I found out I'd submitted it in November of 2013. I'd completely forgotten. Now I can truthfully say that I've sold every crime short story I ever wrote, which is gratifying.
I'd sold all the sf stories, too, except for a 500-word flash fiction piece called "Ant Farm" that, as with "SWAK," I sent out to only a couple of places. I included it in the sf collection "Devil or Angel and Other Stories," so there's no place sending it anywhere else now.
The crime fiction antho will be out in the next few months. I'll announce it when I know the publication date.
~~~~~
John Vance, son of Jack, runs Spatterlight Press, which has been producing ebooks of his father's works, using the authoritative Vance Integral Edition texts which restored all the good bits cut by pulp magazine editors obsessed by page counts. I've mentioned that I've been writing and narrating the promotional copy for videos produced by Koen Vyverman for the Jack Vance YouTube channel.
Well, now Spatterlight is expanding into the publishing of print-on-demand paperbacks. The first title is Emphyrio which, by coincidence, is the Vance work I usually recommend for those who haven't read him yet. And I've just written the back-cover "About the Author" blurb and an enthusiastic preface which was a great pleasure to write.
~~~~~
For those keeping track, I'm 136,000 words into the historical novel. Two more chapters should see the first draft finished, then it will be time to pull it all together. Should be done by Christmas.
