Matthew Hughes's Blog: barbarians of the beyond - Posts Tagged "luff-imbry"
Paul Di Filippo reviews The Yellow Cabochon
Noted SF critic Paul Di Filippo reviews my PS Publishing novella, The Yellow Cabochon in the current Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. He says, "Hughes's facility with ornate, roccoco language has never been more polished, and his plotting is sharp and twisty. His evocation of a faded age of wonders piles high the frissons of a factitious but effective nostalgia that is all the more piquant for being manufactured from mere allusions, rather than actual touchstones of our consensual past."
You can read the first few thousand words of the novella, featuring my corpulent master criminal of the far future, Luff Imbry, here.
I get nominated
My space-opera novel,
The Other
, featuring my corpulent far-future master criminal Luff Imbry, is on a short list of three for the inaugural A.E. Van Vogt Award.
The award is presented by the Winnipeg Science Fiction Association and is named for Canada's only SFWA grandmaster. I don't know when the final decision is made, nor by whom or what process. It was supposed to all have wrapped up in September but I guess there were some first-time glitches.
The award is presented by the Winnipeg Science Fiction Association and is named for Canada's only SFWA grandmaster. I don't know when the final decision is made, nor by whom or what process. It was supposed to all have wrapped up in September but I guess there were some first-time glitches.
Review of The Yellow Cabochon
Stephen Theaker, former administrator of the British Fantasy Awards, gives my Luff Imbry novella,
The Yellow Cabochon
, a warm review in his quarterly on-line magazine. He says, "The plot is clever, surprising with each twist, and the dialogue is sharp, witty, and infused with unusual ideas..."
Another space opera ebook
My space opera short story collection, The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories, is now available at the Archonate Bookstore, priced at US$2.99 (£2.02)
It's also working its way through the publishing process at Amazon and Kobo.
Here's the blurb:
In Old Earth’s penultimate age, the corpulent master criminal Luff Imbry moves through the halfworld like a full-fleshed shark. Thief, forger, confidence man, and sometimes go-between, he maps out his illicit operations with exquisite care then carries them out with courage and panache. But, often, things don’t go as Luff planned, and he must call upon a talent for improvisation and a ruthless will to survive.
This collection brings together seven short stories and novelettes previously published in Postscripts, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the anthology Forbidden Planets, plus two novellas formerly only available in limited editions. It offers Luff Imbry in all his moods and guises.
It's also working its way through the publishing process at Amazon and Kobo.
Here's the blurb:
In Old Earth’s penultimate age, the corpulent master criminal Luff Imbry moves through the halfworld like a full-fleshed shark. Thief, forger, confidence man, and sometimes go-between, he maps out his illicit operations with exquisite care then carries them out with courage and panache. But, often, things don’t go as Luff planned, and he must call upon a talent for improvisation and a ruthless will to survive.
This collection brings together seven short stories and novelettes previously published in Postscripts, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the anthology Forbidden Planets, plus two novellas formerly only available in limited editions. It offers Luff Imbry in all his moods and guises.
News roundup
I'm in the last twenty-four hours of the housesit I've been doing for the past six months, a rural property on Vancouver Island, looking after some horses and a cat. Tomorrow we upstakes for a short-term gig on the mainland, then by the end of the month we'll be in Athens for the start of a three-month sit.
Underland Press, the publisher of the Luff Imbry novel, The Other, has been bought by another house, Skyhorse Press. They've asked if I want to do a sequel, or any other books I might have in mind. Once I get settled in Athens, I'm going to write up a proposal for a sequel to The Other and we'll see what happens.
I've got a major project in prospect, but I can't announce anything until I see what level of interest it may stir in a major publisher that I've approached. I can say that it ought to be big news within the community of Jack Vance fans.
In the meantime, I've been writing another novelette featuring the archetypal thief Raffalon, who was the protagonist of "Wearaway and Flambeau," a story that ran in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction last year.
Sales of my self-published ebooks haven't pushed me into betsellerdom (yet), but it's gratifying to see people take them up in an age when reprints are largely disdained by the industry. To those of you who have bought copies, I'd appreciate it if you could pester your friends and associates until they do the same.
Underland Press, the publisher of the Luff Imbry novel, The Other, has been bought by another house, Skyhorse Press. They've asked if I want to do a sequel, or any other books I might have in mind. Once I get settled in Athens, I'm going to write up a proposal for a sequel to The Other and we'll see what happens.
I've got a major project in prospect, but I can't announce anything until I see what level of interest it may stir in a major publisher that I've approached. I can say that it ought to be big news within the community of Jack Vance fans.
In the meantime, I've been writing another novelette featuring the archetypal thief Raffalon, who was the protagonist of "Wearaway and Flambeau," a story that ran in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction last year.
Sales of my self-published ebooks haven't pushed me into betsellerdom (yet), but it's gratifying to see people take them up in an age when reprints are largely disdained by the industry. To those of you who have bought copies, I'd appreciate it if you could pester your friends and associates until they do the same.
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.
Hapthorn and Imbry Paperbacks Coming
As part of my new venture into self-publishing my backlist, I'm taking advantage of the CreateSpace/Amazon connection to turn some of my ebooks into Print-On-Demand paperbacks. Amazing to me, these POD titles will not only be available from online bookstores, but can be ordered by actual brick-and-mortar bookstores in North America and Europe.
The first titles out will be the short story collections 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn and The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories, which have been selling pretty well as ebooks. They should be through the production process before the end of May.
Doing the paperbacks has slowed down bringing out the Guth Bandar story collection and one of my trunk books. But I'll probably get to that after I've relocated to Athens at the end of the month.
The first titles out will be the short story collections 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn and The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories, which have been selling pretty well as ebooks. They should be through the production process before the end of May.
Doing the paperbacks has slowed down bringing out the Guth Bandar story collection and one of my trunk books. But I'll probably get to that after I've relocated to Athens at the end of the month.
Hapthorn and Imbry Collections Now in Paperback
As I posted here recently, I'm using Amazon's CreateSpace subsidiary to offer some of my self-published ebooks as print-on-demand paperbacks. The first two titles are the short story collections 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn and The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories.
They're now available from Amazon and directly from CreateSpace's estore. Through the wizardry of my excellent webmaster, Bradley W. Schenck, if you go to the new paperbacks section in the bookstore on my website, the listed titles will appear. If you then click "add to cart," you'll be taken directly to CreateSpace's estore (they pay me a higher royalty than does Amazon).
Most amazing to me, though, is that recent changes in the book distribution industry mean that you could also walk into any brick-and-mortar bookstore in North America or Europe, order the titles, and they'll come in just like any other published book. Plus your bookseller will make a little.
I like booksellers. Anything that keeps them in business is all right with me.
They're now available from Amazon and directly from CreateSpace's estore. Through the wizardry of my excellent webmaster, Bradley W. Schenck, if you go to the new paperbacks section in the bookstore on my website, the listed titles will appear. If you then click "add to cart," you'll be taken directly to CreateSpace's estore (they pay me a higher royalty than does Amazon).
Most amazing to me, though, is that recent changes in the book distribution industry mean that you could also walk into any brick-and-mortar bookstore in North America or Europe, order the titles, and they'll come in just like any other published book. Plus your bookseller will make a little.
I like booksellers. Anything that keeps them in business is all right with me.
Third Luff Imbry novella in September
Some years back, I made a deal with the excellent UK small press PS Publishing for a series of three novellas featuring my corpulent, far-future master thief and forger, Luff Imbry.
The first two, Quartet & Triptych and The Yellow Cabochon, appeared in 2010 and 2012 respectively. The third, Of Whimsies and Noubles, was turned in in the fall of 2011 and should have appeared sometime in 2013.
But it didn't. It now turns out that a computer crash eliminated the manuscript, the contract, and all emails relating to the third novella. However, order has now been restored, I have sent another copy of the ms to PS, and the little book will be published in two collectible editions in September of this year.
The original deal also called for all three novellas to be published in an omnibus edition. That, too, will happen, sometime after Of Whimsies and Noubles has sold through.
The first two, Quartet & Triptych and The Yellow Cabochon, appeared in 2010 and 2012 respectively. The third, Of Whimsies and Noubles, was turned in in the fall of 2011 and should have appeared sometime in 2013.
But it didn't. It now turns out that a computer crash eliminated the manuscript, the contract, and all emails relating to the third novella. However, order has now been restored, I have sent another copy of the ms to PS, and the little book will be published in two collectible editions in September of this year.
The original deal also called for all three novellas to be published in an omnibus edition. That, too, will happen, sometime after Of Whimsies and Noubles has sold through.
Third Luff Imbry novella
I've just gone through the copy edit for "Of Whimsies and Noubles," the third Luff Imbry novella in a limited edition series from PS Publishing, the highly regarded UK small press run by Pete and Nicky Crowther. With any luck, there will be copies available in time for a launch at WorldCon (LonCon) in mid-August.
A reminder: tomorrow Amazon.com and Amazon.ca will put all three of the To Hell and Back ebooks on sale for $0.99 each as a Kindle daily deal.
A reminder: tomorrow Amazon.com and Amazon.ca will put all three of the To Hell and Back ebooks on sale for $0.99 each as a Kindle daily deal.
