Cascor

by Matthew Hughes, Virtual Voice (Narrator)

In a far-future world of wizards and walled cities, Cascor is a bitter cashiered policeman who has built a new career as a freelance discriminator who occasionally dabbles in magic and hopes the wizards’ Guild never finds out.

This collection brings together all the Cascor stories, including four that began with the discriminator as a supporting character in the series about Raffalon the unlucky thief. It includes three more that ran in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, plus two original novelettes and a short novella about the sorceress Margolyam, who became one of Cascor’s strange “family” of operatives.

Audible Audio

Published March 25, 2025

About the author

Born in Liverpool, his family moved to Canada when he was five years old. Married since late 1960s, he has three grown sons. He is currently relocated to Britain. He is a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Writers.

A university drop-out from a working poor background, he worked in a factory that made school desks, drove a grocery delivery truck, was night janitor in a GM dealership, and did a short stint as an orderly in a private mental hospital. As a teenager, he served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians.

He has made his living as a writer all of his adult life, first as a journalist in newspapers, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and, since 1979, as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia.

His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Interzone, and a number of "Year’s Best" anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005.

He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, The Endeavour Award for his historical novel What the Wind Brings, and the Global Book Award in the dark fantasy category for The Ghost-Wrangler.

Reviews

[Richard Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent stories

I have not read a Matthew Hughes story I did not like, and this collection is no different.
Very gentle ending after a more robust beginning.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Matthew Hughes. I can’t even think of who I’d put in second place behind him.

[Evan Ladouceur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another strong Hughes collection. I enjoy his “Dying Earth” style tales and his interwoven stories of wizards, thieves, and enforcers are droll and well done.

[Alison C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cascor is a Discriminator whom we first encounter in a Raffalon story, set in Mr. Hughes’s version of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth; this anthology contains all of the Raffalon stories that feature Cascor, as well as about four stories in which Cascor himself is the main character and two new stories that center more on Margolyam, a sorceress who works with Cascor. The last two, “Tome-Tickler” and “The Touch,” are original to this volume; the others have been previously published in F&SF. I like Cascor - he’s often a pawn of the gods (or godlings), but manages to maintain a sense of himself most of the time and that self is quite committed to his work. He also, over the period of time covered in these stories, comes to see Margolyam and his other co-workers as a makeshift family of sorts, even having all of them live together. I especially liked the new stories, though, because the first provides a new side to Margolyam that we had not previously seen and the second gives her backstory, which is quite satisfying. In his introduction, Mr. Hughes says that these are the last stories that he will set in this world (he’s been writing historical fiction lately), but I hope he changes his mind because I for one would love to read more about these characters. You don’t need to be familiar with this universe before starting these stories and if you like them, you can be happy with the knowledge that there are a number of other books that are available so you can visit that world many more times in the future; recommended!

[JoeK · Rating 3 out of 5]

This set of short stories wasn't as enjoyable as the 9 Tales of Raffalon9 Tales of Raffalon 7/4/2017 Matthew Hughes or Baldemar stories. I thought the stories involving Ifgenio and the mirror/god while about Cascor, he was more an observer than an active participant. The last story didn't involve Cascor at all, but was more of an origin story for one of Cascor's minions than a Casco story per se.

Worth reading, but maybe just not what I was expecting.

[Robert Runte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cascor first appears in Hughes' stories about the thief Raffalon as the detective chasing him; now Cascor gets his own collection, including 3 never-before-published stories, so even if you've read some of these in F&SF magazine, the collection is still worth the price.
Cascor is the hard-boiled discriminator (private detective) in a world of grumpy wizards, strict guilds, walled cities and indifferent demons. The mysteries are well-developed (Hughes is also an award-winning mystery writer), the dying earth setting is thorough and logically consistent. If you liked the Nine Tales of Raffalon (and who didn't?) you'll enjoy these further adventures in Hughes' world of magic at the end of time.

[Daniel Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed all of these fantasy short stories, but especially the one featuring one of Cascor's operatives, Margolyam. Another story has a very logical character denouncing the very idea of a nonmagical world as hopelessly irrational. And his point of view makes sense in his world.

This book had a sobering introduction from the author saying this would be his last book of short stories. Because he had entered his eighth decade and wasn't expecting to see his ninth. Therefore he's spending his last years on a full novel. I hope he makes it.

[Rif A. Saurous · Rating 4 out of 5]

More delicious Matthew Hughes mindcandy. If you love everything about Jack Vance except the sexism, Hughes is your guy. I maybe didn't like this quite as much as the Henghis Hapthorn books but it's good times.