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

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.

"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.

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 . . ."

"Sleeper," the second episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, is now available for free reading online at Lightspeed Magazine.

Erm Kaslo is a hardboiled confidential operative in the far-future civilization of The Ten Thousand Worlds. In the first episode, "And Then Some," he was hired to help wealthy magnate Diomedo Obron deal with a con man, and discovered that there might be some basis to Obron's belief that the operating principle of the universe will soon switch from rationalism to magic.

Now, returning from another assignment, he gets interested when the space liner he's traveling on stops to pick up an interstellar hitchhiker who turns out to be dying of an incurable disease. And, once more, magic slips into Kaslo's life.

"His Elbow, Unkissed," the third episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, is now available for a free read online at Lightspeed Magazine. Hardboiled confidential operative Erm Kaslo is trying to come to terms with the idea that the underlying rulebook of the universe is about to be rewritten, with rational cause-and-effect giving way to sympathetic association -- i.e., magic.

The two previous episodes in the novel, "And Then Some" and "Sleeper," are available in Lightspeed's archives.

Two of my novelettes have made the Locus recommended reading list for 2013.

"The Ugly Duckling" is a Bradburyesque tale, inspired by The Martian Chronicles. It appeared in Old Mars , the retro-anthology, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, of stories set in the Mars that science fiction and fantasy authors imagined before robots began to explore the surface of the red planet.

"And Then Some" originally ran in Asimov's, then was reprinted in Lightspeed. It became the first episode in a serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, about Erm Kaslo, a hardboiled confidential operative in a space-opera universe whose fundamental operating principle abruptly switches from rationalism to magic. The new order is not a good fit for Kaslo, who signs on to become chief henchman to a budding wizard who's long been preparing for the big change.

Two more episodes of the Kaslo story have since appeared -- "Sleeper" and "His Elbow, Unkissed" -- and they can be read for free in the Lightspeed archives (follow the links).

The March Lightspeed magazine is out, containing "Phalloon the Illimitable," the fourth episode in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles. Hardboiled op Erm Kaslo and his new employer, the proto-wizard Diomedo Obron, go up against a stronger would-be thaumaturge, just as the universe is about to switch its rules of operation from rationalism to magic.

You can purchase the entire contents of this issue of Lightspeed as an ebook now, or read the Kaslo episode for free on the magazine's website on March 25th. The previous episodes are available online in Lightspeed's archives.

In other news, I've sold a reprint to the latest iteration of the prestigious Canadian sf anthology, Tesseracts 18 . The theme of this year's antho is "wrestling with gods -- faith in science fiction and fantasy."

My contribution, "So Loved" is a tale of the demiurge and offers an explanation of why the universe we inhabit appears to be only a rough draft of the real thing. It originally ran in Postscripts 24/25 .

The lastest episode in The Kaslo Chronicles, "Phalloon the Illimitable," is now available for a free read on the Lightspeed magazine website. Erm Kaslo, the hardboiled confidential operative turned wizard's assistant, gets drawn into a duel between two thaumaturges.

"The Ba of Phalloon," the latest episode in The Kaslo Chronicles serialized novel, is now available for a free read on the Lightspeed Magazine site.

There's also an Author Spotlight interview with me, about the novel and other things.

Lightspeed would like me to encourage you to buy the ebook version of the entire issue or become a subscriber. I do. It's a good mag.

"A Hole in the World," the latest chapter in the serialized novel, The Kaslo Chronicles, is now available in Lightspeed magazine. If you can't wait to read it, you can purchase the whole magazine now as an ebook, which gets you fiction by Gene Wolfe, Jo Walton, Howard Waldrop, Theodora Goss, and other classy writers.

Or you can wait until July 15, when the episode will be posted online for a free read.

If you're just coming to the serialized novel, all of the previous episodes are archived for free reading on the Lightspeed site.