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

Lois Tilton, Locus Magazine's on-line reviewer of short fiction, says some kind words about "Devil or Angel," my novelette in the January/February Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Although she mistakenly takes the story for an episode in my To Hell and Back series of books, she says: "This is fun. Total nonsense, of course, and a certain amount of gorpiness, as there is so much True Love involved, but sufficiently clever not to cloy."

Always the balance I strive for.

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.

Well, I didn't score too highly in the Locus Magazine poll of the best sf and fantasy novels of the twentieth and (so far) twenty-first centuries . . .

. . . but I did make the top five in the Superhero Novels blog's retrospective of 2012, with this comment about Costume Not Included : "Of all the writers on this list, Hughes is the most puckish of the lot. And we love him for it. In our opinion he’s done the impossible; he’s returned Jesus and Satan to the Garden of Eden and he’s given them both a sense of humor. Also: the superhero is kind of funny too."

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.

Another review of "Devil or Angel," my novelette in the current Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Eamonn Murphy of SF Crowsnest calls it ". . . one of those afterlife fantasies which seem to be very popular with Americans . . . It was very inventive and good fun, with enough plot twists to maintain one’s interest."

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.”

At the Tangent Online review blog, Colleen Chen likes "And Then Some," my novelette in the February Asimov's. She says it's "skillfully told, with a lovely rhythm to the writing that makes it a pleasure to read and imagine."

Locus Magazine's online short-fiction reviewer, Lois Tilton, calls "And Then Some" recommended reading in her review of the February Asimov's, and notes that the universe in which it's set is "complex and fascinating."

The first half of the story is available for free on the Asimov's site

I’ve posted on my web site the first chapter of Downshift , my 1997 crime novel that was reissued in 2012 by Five Rivers Press in POD paperback and ebook editions.

Another review of "And Then Some," my novelette in the current Asimov's Science Fiction. Terry Weyna says, "Hughes has been constructing a fascinating universe for years now, and each new entry gets slotted into a future history as complex as anything invented by Heinlein or Asimov."