The British Fantasy Society Forum

[allybird]

Introducing Matt Hughes to the board.

'The name I answer to is Matt Hughes. I write fantasy and suspense fiction. To keep the two genres separate, I now use my full name, Matthew Hughes, for fantasy, and the shorter form for the crime stuff.

I was born sixty years ago in Liverpool, England, but my family moved to Canada when I was five. I’ve made my living as a writer all of my adult life, first as a journalist, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and – from 1979 until a few years back – as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia. I am a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Writers and I used to belong to Mensa Canada, but these days I’m conserving my energies to write fiction.

I’m a university drop-out from a working poor background. Before getting into newspapers, I 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, I served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians (something like VISTA in the US). I’ve been married to a very patient woman since the late 1960s, and I have three grown sons.

I have of late taken up the secondary occupation of housesitter, so that I can afford to keep on writing fiction yet still eat every day. These days, I’m in Northern Ireland but any snail-mail address of mine must be considered temporary. I’m always interested to hear from people who’ve read my work.'

http://www.archonate.com/bibliography

HESPIRA: A TALE OF HENGIS HAPTHORN




NIGHTSHADE BOOKS

Angry Robot books are publishing the following...

To Hell & Back volumes 1-3
The Damned Busters – 2 September 2010 (UK/Aus), October 2010 (US/Can)
Costume Not Included – August 2011 (UK/Aus), Sept 2011 (US/Can)
Hell to Pay – Spring 2012 (UK/Aus/US/Can)

Covers to follow....

[ColinHarvey]

Welcome, Matt! I've been a fan for years of your short fiction, and picked up 'Majestrum' at Worldcon. It's a great book as well.

[hapthorn]

Thank you, Colin.

There's a slight update to my bio above.  I'm now on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, USA, writing a novella for Pete Crowther and petsitting nine standard poodles.  In June I start a three-month sit (dogs, chickens, ten sheep, two horses) near enough to Melbourne that I'll be able to attend WorldCon.  Then who knows where?

One little bit of news: my contribution to the Songs of the Dying Earth Jack Vance tribute antho, "Grolion of Almery", has been longlisted for a BFA in the novella category.

Matt

[Stephen Theaker]

It's a terrific story - I'll certainly be looking out for your other work.

[hapthorn]

Thank you, Stephen.  For those who are intrested, my bibliography is at http://ww.archonate.com

[hapthorn]

I've had a couple of warm reviews lately:

Former Science Fiction Book Club editor on Hespira:  http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2010/03/book-day-2010-43-318-hespira-by-matthew.html

And noted SF reviewer John Ottinger III on The Spiral Labyrinth:  http://www.graspingforthewind.com/2010/03/30/book-review-the-spiral-labyrinth-by-matthew-hughes/

Matt

[hapthorn]

Since this is a place for self-promotion, let me draw your attention to the samples first chapters of almost all of my novels on my web page at http://www.archonate.com  Just click on the links beneath the logotype at the top.

Matt

[hapthorn]

My latest, Hespira, has been reviewed in both the April and May issues of Locus magazine, a first for me.

In April, critic and Jack Vance aficionado Russell Letson said:  "The voice at the center of this book is quite recognizable, a performance of the Vancean sensibility and prose style. I also found it to be the center of the book’s appeal. (There should be no complaints about basing a book’s voice on a predecessor – compare the voice of hard-boiled fiction that originates with Hammett and especially Chandler, or the Forester-out-of-Austen prose of Patrick O’Brian.) Hughes’s command of the irony, understatement, and detachment of Vancean language is unstrained (an Archonate prison is a ‘‘contemplarium’’), as is his grasp of the Vancean-ramble approach to narrative. The various puzzles are allowed to accumulate, theories are proposed and tested, and above all places are visited and savored – hotels, rustic inns, country estates, tourist overlooks, restaurants plain and fancy, ferry boats, space yachts. The puzzles are solved, their connections (or lack thereof) revealed, and a dramatic struggle finishes the whole tale in a satisfactorily gaudy manner. But the getting there is as much fun as the fireworks at the climax, which I take to be the crucial lesson that Hughes has taken from the master."

In April it was novelist Paul Witcover's turn.  He said, "[Hespira] is not so much an homage to Vance as it is an outright impersonation. Hughes channels with astonishing fidelity Vance’s elegant if cool prose, his sharp, Swiftian ironies, his picaresque plots, his delightfully droll dialogue, and his affection for heroes who are not quite as clever as they like to imagine themselves to be. I admit to loving this book because of its Vancian aspects, and I tip my hat in admiration and even awe to Hughes, who carries this off better than anyone since Michael Shea."

The first chapter's on my web page at http://www.archonate.com/hespira

Matt Hughes

[hapthorn]

Because of the change of ownership/distribution at Angry Robot Books -- see http://angryrobotbooks.com/ for details -- the release of my first book for AR, To Hell and Back:  The Damned Busters, has been set back to May 2011 in the UK and June 2011 in North America.

Matt Hughes

[hapthorn]

In the next few weeks, Pete Crowther will publish Quartet and Triptych, the first of three novellas featuring one of my favourite recurring characters:  Luff Imbry, a corpulent master thief and forger in Old Earth's penultimate age.  I see Imbry as a cross between Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca and Peter Ustinov in one of his darker roles. 

To stir some interest, I've put up the first 5,000 words for a free read on my website at http://www.archonate.com/qt

Matt Hughes

[hapthorn]

Here's a review of Quartet & Triptych (PS Publishing) from the SF Signal site:  http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/07/quartet-triptych-by-matt-hughes/

[hapthorn]

To help me generate interest in the US trade paperback release of Template by Paizo Publishing, John Denardo at the SF Signal blog is hosting a contest, starting now and ending August 30.

The grand prize consists of two books: the first is my personal copy of the PS Publishing 2008 slipcased and signed limited edition of the novel. That edition, of which only a hundred were printed, retailed for 40 pounds. My copy is actually rarer, though, being one of only a few unnumbered "publisher's copies" that are produced as extras.

The other part of the grand prize is my author's copy of the Luff Imbry novella, Quartet & Triptych, also from PS Publishing. Again, this is a rare, unnumbered "publisher's copy" of a limited edition that retails for 25 pounds.

I've also contributed two copies of the Paizo Publishing edition of Template. I couldn't sign them and get them to SF Signal in time for the contest, but I've sent John Denardo some signed labels to stick in them.

Here are the contest rules:

Read the introductory chapter on my website at http://www.archonate.com/template and answer this question: "What is the usual weather forecast where Conn Labro lives?"

Send an email to contest at sfsignal dot com.

In the subject line, enter "Matthew Hughes".

In the message body, give the answer to the question above.

Please include your postal address so the prize can be shipped out immediately when the contest is over.

Only one entry per person allowed. Duplicate emails will be sold to Horder's Gaming Emporium.

The contest will end Monday, August 30th, 2010 (10:00 PM U.S Central time). The winners will be selected at random, notified and announced shortly thereafter.