A selection of quotes from recent reviews in print and on the web
  • Hughes has made a name for himself as heir apparent to Jack Vance — Booklist
  • Hughes serves up equal measures of wit, intrigue, and seat-of-the-pants action and even dabbles a little in Jungian psychology — Booklist
  • If you like vivid adventure science fiction and fantasy, of the sort written by Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, and Roger Zelazny, you’ll like Matthew Hughes too. — Gardner Dozois
  • A tremendous amount of fun — George R.R. Martin
  • Matthew Hughes writes contemporary science fiction and fantasy with a classic sensibility–driven by adventure and thrills, and chock full of sense of wonder. — John Joseph Adams, Series Editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy
  • Superlative.  A droll narrative voice, dry humor, and an alternative universe that’s accessible without excessive exposition — Publishers Weekly 
  • Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable — Publishers Weekly
  • Hughes has been the best-kept secret in science fiction for too long:  he’s a towering talent — Robert J. Sawyer
  • If you’re an admirer of the science fantasies of Jack Vance, it’s hard not to feel affection for the Archonate stories of Matthew Hughes — Locus Magazine
  • Matthew Hughes stands out as a success. If droll dialogue, curious customs, exotic scenery, clever plotting and wry cosmopolitanism are your bag, then Matthew Hughes is your man — Paul DiFillipo for SciFi.com
  • Fans of Jack Vance will not be disappointed by this incursion of Matthew Hughes into Vance’s science-fantasy territory — Science Fiction Weekly
  • Hughes’s boldness is admirable — New York Review of Science Fiction
  • There’s an undercurrent of humor in every sentence, but Hughes writes with a literary sensibility that brings a feeling of depth and quality — The Agony Column
  • …a solid addition to the canon of Dying Earth literature. The Archonate is a well-conceived and evoked setting, and should generate many more stylish and ingenious entropic romances —Locus
  • Hughes’s writing is both subtle and supple . . . his dialogue is allusive and amusing in that dry understated style that he shares with Vance, and his descriptions are precise and specific . . . we need more Hughes novels, and a world with a legion of Hughes fans would be a wonderful thing — Andrew Wheeler, editor, Science Fiction Book Club
  • . . . brimming with lovely ideas and spirited language . . . never settles for the obvious when it can offer the superb.. Marvelous. — Stephen Theaker, Administrator, British Fantasy Awards
  • The Damned Busters . . . is a funny and surprisingly endearing book. – Keith Brooke, The Guardian
  • Hughes has effectively captured Vance’s colorfully ironic way of portraying an exotic society and its inhabitants in a few strokes . . . Paul DiFillipo in Asimov’s
  • Matthew Hughes has consistently produced well-written fiction that diverts and pleases. His creation, the world of the Archonate, is a well-crafted and evocative background for storylines that are consistently readable and which display much originality. New York Review of Science Fiction