Hughes, Matthew
Entry updated 20 February 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1949- ) UK-born author, in Canada from a very early age, who has also published, under slightly unfocused variations of his name, some non-fantastic work as Matt Hughes and as Hugh Matthews. He began to publish short crime fiction as early as 1982, publishing short work of genre interest only well after releasing the Fillidor Vesh series – one of the several groups of stories and novels making up the overarching Archonate sequence – and comprising Fools Errant (1994) and Fool Me Twice (2001), both assembled as Gullible's Travels (omni 2001). Like all the Archonate material, the sequence is set in a Dying Earth venue, with a very clear (and acknowledged) debt to the work of Jack Vance, and in this case with a further (but mildly invoked) debt to the work of Jonathan Swift: in the sequence, a dwarf is servant and mentor to a seemingly inept princeling, in adventures which transact various amiable, long-shadowed, baroque landscapes of Old Earth. The Archonate: Henghis Hapthorn sequence – comprising Majestrum (2005), The Spiral Labyrinth (2007) and Hespira (2008) – follows the more intellectual exploits of a "discriminator", a figure somewhere between a detective and a scryer and a sage. The Commons (2007) perhaps over-complicatedly connects the Vancian world of Old Earth to the eponymous region, psychically and physically underlying the world above, which contains cauldron-like the inherent stories of the species, in a manner mildly reminiscent of the immensely fiercer Mythago Wood sequence of Robert Holdstock. Black Brillion: A Novel of the Archonate (2004) and The Gist Hunter and Other Stories (coll 2005) variously explore Archonate terrains, testing the Equipoise Hughes hopes to maintain between sf and the wider fantastic; Template: A Novel of the Archonate (2007) broadens the geographical reach of the sequence, again in a manner directly evocative of quasi-anthropological Vancian tours of the planets. The To Hell and Back sequence (for titles see Checklist) is fantasy. [JC]
Matthew Hughes
born Liverpool, England: 27 May 1949
works
series
Archonate
- Fools Errant (Toronto, Ontario: Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1994) [Archonate: Fillidor Vesh: hb/Stephen Hutchings]
- Fool Me Twice (New York: Warner Aspect, 2001) [Archonate: Fillidor Vesh: pb/Tim White]
- Gullible's Travels (New York: Science Fiction Book Club, 2001) [omni of the above two: Archonate: Fillidor Vesh: hb/Tom Kidd]
- Black Brillion: A Novel of the Archonate (New York: Tor, 2004) [Archonate: hb/Tom Kidd]
- The Gist Hunter and Other Stories (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2005) [coll: Archonate: hb/Jason Van Hollander]
- Majestrum (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2005) [Archonate: Henghis Hapthorn: hb/Tom Kidd]
- The Spiral Labyrinth (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2007) [Archonate: Henghis Hapthorn: hb/Tom Kidd]
- The Commons (Calgary, Alberta: Red Deer Press/Robert J Sawyer Books, 2007) [Archonate: Guth Bandar: hb/Cory Ench and Catska Ench]
- Template: A Novel of the Archonate (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2008) [Archonate: hb/Chris Erkmann]
- Hespira: A Tale of Henghis Hapthorn (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2008) [Archonate: Henghis Hapthorn: hb/Tom Kidd]
- The Other (Portland, Oregon: Underland Press, 2011) [Archonate: Luff Imbry: pb/Peter Sallai]
- The Yellow Cabochon (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2012) [Archonate: hb/Ben Baldwin]
- 9 Tales of Hengist Hapthorn (Maple Ridge, British Columbia: Published by the Author, 2013) [coll: Archonate: Henghis Hapthorn: pb/Ben Baldwin]
Archonate: Luff Imbry
- The Farouche Assemblage (Seattle, Washington: Payseur and Schmidt, 2007) [novelette: chap: first appeared Winter 2005 Postscripts Magazine: Archonate: Luff Imbry: pb/Jason Van Hollander]
- Quartet & Triptych (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2010) [novella: chap: Archonate: Luff Imbry: hb/Ben Baldwin]
- The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories (no place given: Published by the Author, 2014) [coll of linked stories: Archonate: Luff Imbry: pb/uncredited]
- Of Whimsies & Noubles (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2014) [novella: chap: Archonate: Luff Imbry: hb/Ben Baldwin]
- Epiphanies (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2016) [novella: chap: Archonate: Luff Imbry: hb/Ben Baldwin]
- Forays of a Fat Man (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: Drugstore Indian Press, 2019) [coll: omni of the above four: pb/Ben Baldwin]
To Hell and Back
- The Damned Busters (London: Angry Robot, 2011) [To Hell and Back: pb/Tom Gault]
- Costume Not Included (London: Angry Robot, 2012) [To Hell and Back: pb/Tom Gault]
- Hell to Pay (London: Angry Robot, 2013) [To Hell and Back: pb/Tom Gault]
Kaslo Chronicles
- A Wizard's Henchman (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2016) [Kaslo Chronicles: hb/Ben Baldwin]
individual titles
- Downshift (Toronto, Ontario: Doubleday Canada, 1997) as Matt Hughes [Sid Rafferty: pb/]
- Wolverine: Lifeblood (New York: Pocket Books, 2007) as Hugh Matthews [pb/David Mack]
- Song of the Serpent (Redmond, Washington: Paizo Publishing, 2012) as Hugh Matthews [pb/Adrian Smith]
- One More Kill (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2018) as Matt Hughes [hb/Ben Baldwin]
- What the Wind Brings (Langley, British Columbia: Pulp Literature Press, 2019) [hb/]
- A God in Chains (Calgary, Alberta: Hades Publications/Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2019) [pb/]
- Ghost Dreams (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2022) [hb/Ben Baldwin]
- Barbarians of the Beyond (Walnut, California: Spatterlight Press, 2021) [in Jack Vance's Demon Princes universe: pb/Tiziano Cremonini]
collections
- Devil or Angel & Other Stories (no place given: Published by the Author, 2014) [coll: pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry