Latest posts filed under 'News'
Barbarians of the Beyond in SFWA StoryBundle
A heads up:
Barbarians of the Beyond, my authorized sequel/companion novel to Jack Vance’s iconic series, The Demon Princes, will be part of a SFWA StoryBundle offering that will launch on February 2. The theme is “Scoundrels in Space.”
Not familiar with StoryBundle? Here’s the basics: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is assembling more than a dozen ebooks, all of them space-opera novels that feature spacefaring bad guys (they specifically mentioned pirates, which Barbarians has in spades). They’ll pick four of the titles to be the basic offering you can buy for five bucks.
But if you spend $15, you’ll get all of the rest. The last StoryBundle I was part of included fourteen titles, so that was about a buck a book for professionally written and published novels by members of SFWA, so there should be some well established authors in the mix.
You’ll probably find something by one of your favorites. You’re sure to find a book by somebody new to you that you’ll want to read more from.
Some of the money goes to the authors and some goes to a charity chosen by SFWA. So you get good books and do a little good for your fellow humans.
When the StoryBundle launches, I’ll post a link.
“Funny, poignant, and thoughtful” — review of The Damned Busters
An unexpected review of The Damned Busters, the first volume in my urban fantasy, To Hell and Back, about an autistic actuary who accidentally summons a demon from Hell and ends up as a costumed crimefighter with a weasel-headed demon as his Robin.
The reviewer says, “Mixing a great concept about personal and societal culpability with a bone dry wit, this book is just a fun ride through an alternative world where it turns out, the devil really does have the best tunes!”
That’s fair comment. Angry Robot Books reissued the trilogy a few months ago. I recommend it.
https://www.rachelreadit.co.uk/12angryrobotsofchristmas-the-damned-busters-by-matthew-hughes/
Ed Willett interview redux
Ed Willett, noted Canadian science fiction and fantasy author, is promoting his new anthology, Shapers of Worlds, Volume II, with an advent calendar that features each day one of the authors he’s interviewed for his award-winning podcast. All of the authors in the antho are interviewees, and my contribution was “The Cat and the Merrythought,” a coda to the Baldemar series that ran in F&SF.
Today is my turn. The interview ran almost a year ago. If you missed it then and have some time on a Sunday, you could check it out now.
Ed is a comprehensive interviewer, so there’s a lot in there about my early years, how I became a reporter and a speechwriter. We also cover how I write (no outlining), and I talk about my magnum opus, What the Wind Brings, that I waited more than forty years to write and which I consider the best work I’ll ever do.
It’s downloadable as an audio file or you can read the transcript.
Newsletter time again
I’ve just sent out my monthly newsletter. If you’re not on the mailing list, here’s a link:
https://mailchi.mp/c5da71e6be31/news-from-matthew-hughes-author
Good news for Vance fans
Good news for Jack Vance fans who like audiobooks.
A few weeks ago, I approached Skyboat, a firm that produces high-quality audiobooks, to see if they were interested in producing a version of Barbarians of the Beyond, my authorized companion novel to Vance’s The Demon Princes series.
They were, indeed. We made a deal and the audiobook will be out on February 22 for a price of US$5.95.
But while we were talking, Skyboat’s principal, Stedan Rudnicki, asked if the audio rights to the DP books might be available. I put him in touch with john Vance and Koen Vyverman, the principals of Spatterlight Press.
And another deal was made. Skyboat will make it possible for Vance fans to listen to the classic space opera novels of revenge on their phones, tablets, computers, and everywhere else the sound of literature is heard.
Will there be more Vance titles rendered ear-friendly? Time will tell.
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