A Wizard’s Henchman by Matthew Hughes (PS Publishing) | review by Stephen Theaker

For those readers who have had the immense pleasure of reading several of this author’s Archonate books, A Wizard’s Henchman is simply unmissable. Over many short stories, novellas and novels we have been shown a universe on the point of collapse, rapidly approaching the point at which reality will flip, from being based like ours (one hopes) on scientific principles to being ruled instead by magic, or, to be more precise, by the will. Some books have shown magic bleeding through, and others have even taken us into the future for a brief glimpse of what is to come, but this is where it actually happens! It is very abrupt. Flying cars fall out of the sky. Buildings collapse. People starve. But not our protagonist. Knowing a little bit about what is going to happen, he gloms on to a promising candidate for wizardship and keeps him safe while he prepares and later learns to use his new powers. Less pleasant magic users are also making their play, and the denizens of other dimensional planes are also ready to take advantage of the new status quo. The book offers a comfortingly familiar mix of science fiction, fantasy and mystery, while never being reluctant to offer a shocking image or idea when appropriate. It gives us a protagonist for whom self-preservation is at first a priority, but who grows in stature into a true hero, in large part thanks to his determination to adapt and learn. A brilliant book, probably my favourite new book of 2016. *****

Costume Not Included by Matthew Hughes, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

When last we left him, Chesney Arnstruther had set himself up as a superhero – The Actionary – found himself a nice girlfriend, Melda McCann, and caused significant problems for the bad guys, up to and including Lucifer himself. It was trouble twixt heaven and hell that got him his super-powers in the first place, a by-product of a negotiation between the two post-mortem destinations. That all happened in The Damned Busters, book one in the To Hell and Back series, reviewed in #37. Costume Not Included (Angry Robot, ebook, 4432ll) is book two, and it continues from the first book pretty much directly.

Chesney’s “weasel-headed, sabertooth-fanged” demon Xaphan is now much friendlier, having grown accustomed to the benefits that come with working for the Actuary. Chesney’s over-protective mother Letitia has taken up with the Reverend Billy Lee Hardacre, a top-rated television preacher who plans to announce The Actionary as the prophet of a new era. Crime rates are low, thanks to the city’s new superhero, and so Chesney ends up investigating a cold case, the disappearance of a journalism student nine years ago, which quickly blows hot.

As with the superheroics of the first book, the most entertaining element of Costume Not Included might be considered a spoiler, were it not shown in Tom Gauld’s excellent cover illustration. Yes, that’s Jesus typing on a laptop at the bottom (or at least one version of him), brought into the story by Chesney to write a new Bible. Hardacre thinks the universe is a book being written by God, and maybe he’s right – trouble is, this Jesus comes from an earlier draft. It’s amusing to see how the conversation between Jesus and a modern-day television evangelist might go.

If you’re a fan of the TV show Community, imagine how Abed might cope with almost infinite power in a world of angels and demons and you’ll have a good sense of this book. If the Actionary dangled me over the edge of a tall building, I’d say whatever he wanted me to say. If he created a safe environment for me to express my feelings honestly, I’d admit I prefer this writer’s far future science fantasy to these modern day superheroics, but I enjoyed this book more than the first, perhaps because all the pieces of the world were in place and the author could just start playing with them.

Template by Matthew Hughes, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

There are few things I find more enjoyable than a Matthew Hughes novel, and it’s a struggle to stop myself gorging on them at the expense of everything else. Template (self-published, ebook, 4865ll) is a book from 2008, new to me, recently republished. Like most of the Hughes books previously reviewed here, it is set among the Ten Thousand worlds of the Spray, under the subtle rule of the Archonate.

Conn Labro is an exceptional sportsman, brilliant at everything from fencing to chess, and he takes on all-comers at Horder’s Gaming Emporium – which owns him. Hallis Tharp has paid in advance for a lifetime of his services: a weekly two-hour game of paduay. On one occasion, Tharp is not ready for the game, and Conn goes to investigate.

Tharp is dead, and he has left Conn with enough money to buy his freedom, as well as the deed to a mysterious property, in the shape of a small bead. Troubled by feelings he does not understand, and after an attempt upon his own life, Conn leaves his homeworld Thrais and travels with Tharp’s concerned neighbour Jenore to Old Earth and beyond to solve the mystery.

These are the adventures of an innocent abroad, though in this case the innocent is not from some idyllic, magical paradise. He’s from a planet where no one does anything unless it benefits them financially, and is “pitched from its familiar confines into a wider universe that was rife with whole worlds ruled by mass delusion” – that is, the delusion that one should ever do anything without being paid.

When it serves to further his goals, Conn sometimes describes himself as a professional duellist. And that’s how he approaches every conversation, like a fencing match to be won or lost. A character who so unerringly finds the right phrase with which to run through his opponents is perhaps unrealistic, but it’s highly enjoyable. He has one blind spot: right over his heart.

My reviews of this author’s books must now come with the disclaimer that I’m a fan. His books make me feel like a mouse whose pleasure centres are being deliberately tripped in a scientific experiment upon its brain. That disclaimer aside, I thought this was excellent. Conn has a fascinating personality, his romance with Jenore is sweet, the mysteries intrigue and the action excites. Brilliant.

9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn / The Gist Hunter, by Matthew Hughes – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn (self-published, ebook, 4412ll) collects eight adventures that were not included in the superb trilogy of novels about that character – Majestrum, The Spiral Labyrinth and Hespira, all previously and gushingly reviewed in these pages – and one story that was. He is a detective of the far future, a Sherlock of the Old Earth, whose investigations invariably lead to entertaining banter with his integrator and his outspoken intuition, and direct him to the unavoidable conclusion that the rumours are true: the underlying principle of the universe is on the cusp of changing from science to magic. How can he eliminate the impossible from his investigations when he has seen the impossible happen with his own eyes? The stories interweave with the novels, and include crucial moments in Hapthorn’s life, making them essential (and very pleasurable) reading for his fans.

Six of those tales also appear in the earlier collection, The Gist Hunter (Night Shade Books, ebook, 5336ll), along with a series of three stories about Guth Bandar (who appears as an intriguing supporting character in the novel Black Brillion), and four unrelated tales: “Shadow Man”, “The Devil You Don’t”, “Go Tell the Phoenicians” and “Bearing Up”. Bandar is a noönaut, an explorer of humanity’s collective unconscious, the Commons, where he encounters archetypal Locations, Landscapes and Situations and has to deal with the figures that populate them, known (though not to themselves) as idiomats. Part of the fun here is in identifying the myths, memories and folk tales in which (despite the chanting which is supposed to keep him out of sight and out of trouble) he becomes embroiled.

The stories in both collections are excellent, each a clever little thought experiment performed with style, humour and action. One has to recommend 9 Tales over The Gist Hunter, if only because it’s self-published and so the proceeds go directly to the author, who indicates in its introduction that any success the book achieves may lead to further Hapthorn stories. Both collections have formatting imperfections: 9 Tales lacks a built-in contents, and underline is used for emphasis instead of italics, while The Gist Hunter has a line of space between each paragraph (at least for me; these issues can sometimes be device-specific), but neither problem is likely to harm your enjoyment. It may not be a surprise that I went straight on to another of Hughes’ novels after reading these collections.

The Yellow Cabochon, by Matthew Hughes – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The Yellow Cabochon (PS Publishing, hb, 93pp) is a novella in the far-future Archonate setting frequented by one of my favourite writers of the moment, Matthew Hughes (see issue TQF39 for an interview and reviews of three excellent novels). It follows on from the marvellous Quartet & Triptych (reviewed in TQF34), being a new adventure in the life of Luff Imbry, the master thief with the extra large waist – “the fat man”, as the narrator very frequently (and slightly upsettingly, for those of us on the wrong side of the scales!) chooses to call him.

Imbry has a nice thing going with Nazur Filiatrot, the favourite mortician of the nobility. Imbry supplies the forged jewellery, Filiatrot swaps them with those of the noble about to be encased in amber for eternity. This time, a mysterious off-world customer desires the yellow cabochon of the title, an inscribed jewel the size of a child’s face which befuddles all who gaze upon it – a relic of a lost undersea civilisation. Unfortunately, the owner of the cabochon has not yet seen fit to die, and Imbry is persuaded to attempt a correction of fate’s oversight.

The target is Lord Frons, of the House of Elphrate, minder of the Archon’s formal dining spoon, a descendant of Old Earth nobles who underwent genetic modification to better suit life on a watery new world: imagine Bertie Wooster with webbed toes and access to a mind-control symbiote. Events do not run according to plan – or not, at least, according to Luff Imbry’s plan – and the fat man (now I’m doing it!) finds himself in an increasingly tight spot, nobles and the Archon on one side, the Green Circle mafia on the other, and somewhere, out there, the stranger who set all of this in motion.

Though this is all rather a trial for Luff Imbry, it is a treat for the reader, the book sharing the several strengths of earlier stories in this setting. The plot is clever, surprising with each twist, and the dialogue is sharp, witty, and infused with unusual ideas – as an example of all three, see Imbry’s warning upon encountering Wrython Herrither, a captain of the Green Circle: “If you offend this man, his code of conduct requires him to kill you without a pause for thought. Then he will surely kill me for having had the bad manners to witness the event.”

The integrators appear once again: intelligent, self-aware and often eccentric computers, some so ancient that they remember not only previous geological eras, but even a “period when another universal order of phenomality obtained”. Imbry’s incredulity at this idea receives the delicious response: “I have not the leisure to dismantle your understanding of reality and recast it in an alternate mode. If I did, you might not appreciate the result.” Another pleasure of the novella is its interest in food: one envies Imbry his visits to the finest of Old Earth’s restaurants.

In the run-up to our previous issue I ran out of time to write this review, and when I finally found the time to write it I was a bit fuzzy on the details (understandable when you consider that I’d read three long novels by the same author only a short time previously). How much I enjoyed The Yellow Cabochon is demonstrated by how happily I re-read the whole thing, a very rare experience for me, putting this book in motley company: The Enchanted Wood, Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks, Lyonesse, The Final Programme…

Like some of those, this was a book to whose flaws, if it had any, I might well have been blinded by an overwhelming affection, but never mind objectivity: most of my favourite writers are either retired or long dead, and I appreciate and cherish those times when I get the chance to be a fan of a writer who is still publishing. The ending leaves Imbry in a position to develop his understanding of “sympathetic association” and “axial volition” – in short, magic. Whatever happens next is sure to be amusing.

“Every Dialogue Scene Is a Duel” – Matthew Hughes, interviewed by Stephen Theaker

Hi Matt, thanks for agreeing to be our first interviewee.

I’m honoured to be here.

I’ve just finished reading the three Henghis Hapthorn novels, one after the other, and it was one of the most sheerly pleasurable reading experiences of my life. I’ve previously read The Damned Busters and Quartet & Triptych. Where would you recommend I head next? And is there one book of yours that you would recommend to first-time readers of your work?

Since you liked Quartet & Triptych, which is about my master thief and art forger, Luff Imbry, I would suggest The Other, from Underland Press in the US. It’s the first Imbry novel. It came out last month and it’s available in Kindle. You might also want to check with Angry Robot’s e-store in a little while. I’m just in the process of sending them the seven or eight Imbry stories that have appeared in various venues over the past few years.

But for someone coming to my work for the first time, the book I recommend is Template. It’s a stand-alone space opera, an Oliver-Twistish story about an odd fellow (all my protagonists are a little off the vertical) trying to find out who he is and why people are trying to kill him. It will give a first-timer a general introduction to The Ten Thousand Worlds and Old Earth, along with a rattling good read.

Does magic feature in your other novels of the Archonate, or is that unique to the Hapthorn books?

Yes and no. Back when I was writing what became Fools Errant, the first—though I didn’t know it at the time—Archonate story, I put in a mention of how the universe periodically alternated between rationalism and magic as its fundamental operating principle. At the time, I was interested in how Isaac Newton had started out as a full-weight medieval alchemist but then switched mid-career to rationalism and became essentially the founder of the Enlightenment. It was as if the rules of the game had abuptly switched one day, and he had stepped off one wave and onto the other without missing a beat.

Years later, when I found myself developing the idea of the Archonate universe, I thought it would be interesting to explore the culture at the time when the change was about to happen again, although virtually nobody knew it. So, in every subsequent tale, including the Imbry stories, the impending cataclysm is the background to the foreground events. It’s a bit like the first half of 1914, when there is a great, highly articulated civilization that does not know—although a few suspect—that it’s about to come to an abrupt and tragic end. “The lamps are going out all over . . . we will not see them lit again in our lifetime.” That kind of thing.

Henghis Hapthorn’s problem is that he is forced to accept that it’s going to happen in his time, horrifying though the prospect is to him, and he is trying to decide how he will ultimately respond to it. Luff Imbry, if there is ever a sequel to The Other, may make the conceptual leap and begin to become a thaumaturge.

One of the strengths of the Hapthorn novels is their even-handedness; the reader appreciates how Henghis feels, as a Sherlock who can no longer eliminate the impossible, but also shares the excitement of his intuitive alter ego regarding the age of magic to come. Would you secretly side with one of them? In which of the two ages would you prefer to live?

His alter ego is also, although this is not stressed, a complete egotist. Henghis is detached, Osk is engaged, which makes sense because the thing that counts in the coming age is not intellect but will (or axial volition, to use the technical term).

I think it should be clear to the discerning reader that I would side with Henghis—not that I consider him an epitome, but he is, at least, a civilized being. What comes after him is definitely a rough beast. In The Spiral Labyrinth, we see the world after the first few centuries of the world’s ultimate age that will culminate in Jack Vance’s Dying Earth: a decadent, amoral Old Earth of rogues, monsters, and self-involved sorcerers.

I am sure there are worlds among the Ten Thousand during the penultimate age where I would be happy to live out a life. What would those rich and mellow places become once will begins its reign as the be-all and end-all? I don’t know, but for most of them I doubt if it would be an improvement.

I read Majestrum after reading The Spiral Labyrinth and Hespira, and I was a bit surprised to find it wasn’t the beginning of the Henghis Hapthorn story (although it works perfectly well as a standalone novel). Similarly, you mentioned earlier the Luff Imbry novel, which follows on from short stories and novellas. That’s quite an unusual approach, reminding me in a way of how indie bands like Stereolab and New Order would leave singles off their albums; it encourages a certain kind of fan. Was that approach the result of a deliberate decision, or is it just how it’s worked out?

It’s just how it worked out, but it’s a long story.

In 2001, I had two books out from Warner Aspect (Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice) that did not do well enough for them to ask for a third. But an editor at Tor, David Hartwell, said he’d like to see an Archonate novel. So I wrote Black Brillion. While I was waiting for it to come out, I thought it might be a good idea to get into the digest mags to raise my profile (I had no idea how their circulation had declined). So I looked through my file of story ideas and found a premise: suppose you came to realize that you were living in a world that resulted from someone’s three wishes going, as they always do, wrong?

I thought I’d be cagey and set it in the Archonate universe. A detective seemed to be the right kind of character to solve the puzzle, so I created Henghis Hapthorn and set him loose. The story was called “Mastermindless”. I sent it to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, not knowing that it was really hard to sell to him, and he bought it within a week. He told me later it was the first thing he’d received in two years that made him laugh out loud.

I formed the impression that he’d buy another one, so I wrote more Hapthorn. All told, over the next year or so he bought six stories, the last one of novelette-length. Rather than just write stand-alones, I decided to give them a continuing story arc, and I used the impending magic/rationalism switch as the frame.

Henghis turned out to be popular with the F&SF readership, and the agent that I had then suggested I should outline some novels. So I thought up Majestrum as the next element in the story arc and wrote it up as an outline, with sketchy ideas for Spiral Labyrinth and Hespira. Night Shade Books, which had already brought out my story collection The Gist Hunter and Other Stories (containing all the Hapthorn F&SF stories), bought into the concept and the novels duly appeared.

Which comes down to this: I needed a story to promote myself, and it turned into eight or nine plus three novels.

Meanwhile, Black Brillion came and went. Tor wouldn’t let me write the whole story I wanted to tell (I was limited to 80,000 words), so I wrote a companion novel, The Commons, in episodes that I sold one at a time to Gordon, then put the whole thing together and sold it to Robert J. Sawyer’s Canadian sf imprint.

Luff Imbry was another invention who grew in the telling. He began as a supporting character in Black Brillion. After it came out, I got a nice review of my early books from Nick Gevers, Jack Vance aficionado and co-editor of Postscripts, and when I got in touch he said he’d like to see a story from me. We talked about it a little and decided that Imbry had legs. I originally set out to be a crime writer, and only fell into writing science fantasy by accident (people kept telling me they’d buy novels or stories if I wrote them), and Imbry was an opportunity to create a real noir baddie. I think of him by the way, as much like Sydney Greenstreet’s character Kaspar Gutman in The Maltese Falcon, with a little Peter Ustinov stirred in.

I eventually sold a half-dozen Imbry tales to Postscripts, which led its publisher, Pete Crowther, to ask me for three novellas about him. They would come out once a year. The second, The Yellow Cabochon, should appear soon. I’ve just proofed the typescript.

So, to summarize, were there some deliberate decisions? Yes. Or did it all just work out that way? Yes to that, too. Years ago, I described my writing career as a succession of desperate hops from one ice floe to another, like Pearl Pureheart fleeing across the black and white river. Hapthorn and Imbry tales are just more ice floes.

You seem to love conversation, especially the verbal duels between your protagonists and their snarky subordinates, such as Henghis Hapthorn and his integrators, and Chesney and his demon in The Damned Busters. Is that something you enjoy about your own books?

It must be. I do a lot of it. It comes naturally, I suppose, because when I was growing up verbal repartee was what went on around the kitchen table, some of it close to vicious (maybe it’s a Liverpool thing). We honed our knives on each others’ hides.

But beyond that, I believe the fictioneer’s indispensible tool is conflict, and that means that every dialogue scene is a duel.

Do you draw on your experience in political speechwriting, which (going on The West Wing, at least) I imagine might have involved crafting perfect replies to difficult questions, as well as the speeches themselves?

Speechwriting, as I practised it, was the art of creating impressions in the minds of the listeners. You soon come to realize that no one actually remembers speeches, but everyone remembers the impression a speech made upon them. The other key thing is that you need to create a carrier wave of shared emotion between the speaker and the listeners, which is why speeches contain very few new facts but are full of old ones—especially the beliefs and assumptions that the speaker and listeners have in common.

It’s actually the very opposite of dialogue in fiction, because conflict is what the speechwriter (and speaker) are trying to avoid.

The first time I read your work, I think, was in the Jack Vance tribute, Songs of the Dying Earth: the brilliant “Grolion of Almery”. How was it to get the email inviting you to take part?

Gardner Dozois sent me an email describing the project and asking me if I wanted to put in a story. My response was: “Try and stop me!” I was overjoyed, not least because I actually revere Jack Vance. He is the only author I knowingly reread (I’m at an age when I can be a chapter into a novel before I’m fully certain I’ve read it before).

And did you feel any pressure to live up to the expectations of Jack Vance’s fans?

No. I don’t think of the readers when I’m writing. I’m an intuitive writer who starts with a character and a situation and a vague idea of where it all goes. Then I see what happens. It’s a very insular business, just me and the guy in the back of my head who does the heavy lifting.

Thanks for such fascinating answers. I’m very happy to know there’s so much more on the way from you (and so much out there already that I’ve yet to read). Coming very soon is Costume Not Included, your second novel from Angry Robot. What should readers expect?

Please note the comment above about seeing where it goes. In Costume Not Included, I bring in the historical Jesus and proceed with Chesney’s development as a crimefighter and, for the first time in his life, somebody’s boyfriend. Things get more complicated, which is problematical for someone who is a high-functioning autistic. Soon I have to start the third in the series, and at the moment I have only the vaguest idea where it will go.

Speaking of things on the way, I’ve just received the final typescript for The Yellow Cabochon and thought you might like to see it. You’ll note how Imbry brushes up against the return of magic.

Thank you very much for doing this. It’s been a pleasure.

This interview originally appeared in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #39, along with reviews of Majestrum, Hespira and The Spiral Labyrinth. Reviews of Quartet & Triptych and The Damned Busters appeared in TQF34 and TQF37. A review of The Yellow Cabuchon—thanks, Matthew!— should appear in our next issue.

Majestrum, by Matthew Hughes – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

This is the first of the Henghis Hapthorn novels. Having just read the second and third in the series I was surprised at how late in the story this one begins: already, Hapthorn is aware of magic, his intuition has developed a distinct personality, and his integrator has been turned into a grinnet. That is because the novel follows on from a series of short stories about the same character (collected in The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, now safely ensconced on my Kindle), but like novels two and three it stands perfectly well alone.

The opening of the book sees him deciding to ignore all that he has learnt about the imminent overthrow of rationality and get on with his work, which takes him to The Braid, the country house of Lord Afre, an aristocrat so refined he cannot focus on members of the lower classes unless they strike appropriate poses or wear the insignia of rank. His daughter, the Honorable Chalivire, has formed a relationship with “a person of indeterminate circumstances”, which leads Hapthorn to investigate the first annual convening of the Derogation, organised by the Grass Tharks Lodge on Great Gallowan. A second thread sees Hapthorn engaged by the Archon to investigate secret plots and mysterious disappearances from the Great Connaissarium.

Despite the freelance detective’s best intentions, these discriminations will once again bring him into contact with magic and its users.

The Kindle version of this Hapthorn novel is not set up quite so well as the other two, with a contents page that doesn’t work and text throughout that should presumably be in italics left underlined, but that barely affected my enjoyment. I’ll try not to duplicate here what I’ve said about books two and three, but it was a sheer pleasure to read, full of sharp, clever dialogue, novel ideas and characterful personages (such as Old Confustible, an integrator so old he remembers the last age of magic), and to that it added the most terrifying antagonist of the series, Majestrum, whose very name is enough to knock Hapthorn’s intuition unconscious.

It’s been quite a while since I read so much fiction by a single author in a row. At school I read all ten volumes of David Eddings’ Belgariad and Mallorean during the mock exams fortnight, but I barely remember a word of those. I doubt I’ll ever say that about The Spiral Labyrinth, Hespira and Majestrum. Reading all three together like this was one of the most pleasurable reading experiences of my life.

Majestrum, by Matthew Hughes (Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Kindle, 4487ll).

Hespira, by Matthew Hughes – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Like the previous Hapthorn novel I had read, Hespira declares its intention to be interesting from the very first page, in this case by introducing the concept of retrospectants. Collecting significant items such as buttons and twigs over the course of their lives, devotees of this spiritual path choose a day to die, and gather their friends together in order to “explain the hidden meaning and structure” of their existences, “as revealed by the seemingly random milestones” collected in their soul boxes. After the final revelation “the adherent would then be quickly killed and cremated”, leaving their boxes to become, with the passage of centuries, highly collectible. One could pick almost any page of this book and find an equally interesting idea.

Hespira is the name chosen by a young woman who has lost her memory, encountered accidentally (or so it seems) by Henghis Hapthorn in the course of what should have been a simple transaction on behalf of wealthy maniac (when emotions run high, the “muscles in his jaw moved as if small animals were burrowing under his skin”) Irslan Chonder: the recovery of his favourite soul boxes from a thief. Finding Hespira strangely attractive, though she possesses “the complete combination of feminine attributes” that he finds least appealing, Hapthorn takes her off-world to investigate her past—and also to steer clear of the violent consequences of his recent work.

This third and so far final Henghis Hapthorn novel presents a level of invention and effort that is almost too generous to the reader, though of course some apparently incidental pleasures prove crucial to the denouement, which includes a revenge worthy of Kirth Gersen. One feels for Hapthorn, a detective in a universe that makes less sense by the minute, but enjoys his gentle frustration with the universe and admires his determination to keep trying. This is a highly amusing book full of mysteries and discoveries; there is always more to think about, always a reason to keep reading. People often say that they didn’t want a book to ever end; in this case upon discovering an epilogue my reaction was literally to shout “Yes!” (Embarrassing as it is to admit that.) Very much recommended.

Hespira, by Matthew Hughes (Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Kindle, 4990ll).

The Spiral Labyrinth, by Matthew Hughes – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

This is the second novel in the Henghis Hapthorn series, but the first I read; the Amazon listings weren’t clear what the order should be, I downloaded the preview of this one to find out, and having read a page I refused to stop until I’d read the whole book. And what a fantastic and intriguing first page it was: by its end it had promised mysteries, thaumaturges, fancy words, an “intuitive inner self” called Osk Rievor, offworld travel, and that magic would “regain its ascendancy over rationalism”. I paid my eight pounds well before finishing the Kindle preview.

In the course of earlier adventures, Hapthorn has learnt that there are magical dimples on Old Earth, where the coming age of magic is starting to seep through. Upon visiting the deserted Arlem estate, at the intersection of two ley lines, he discovers to his discomfort that in such places his “intuition” Osk Rievor is able to take control of his body. Rievor is ensorcelled and takes them to the ruins of a hunting lodge in Hember Forest; they are thrown into the future, but separated. Thus much of this novel takes place in the period after sympathetic association has replaced rationality as the guiding principle of the universe.

Despite gaining the sympathy of one Pars Lavelan, wizard’s assistant, Hapthorn seems unlikely to survive; he is a pigeon thrown among cats. As his new friend warns, “the more expert the practitioner, the less he or she partakes of morality as you or I might frame it”, and the five great wizards of Bambles have already taken an interest in this new piece upon the board of their game. Hapthorn’s only advantages are his grinnet (a former electronic assistant—an integrator—transformed by a previous brush with magic), his wits, and the fact (though he doesn’t know it) that he is not the only new piece.

I appreciate that readers may be tired of the mention of his name in my reviews, but it’s impossible to review this book without reference to Jack Vance, in that it melds two sides of his work—the fantasies of the Dying Earth (as represented here by Bambles and the wizards) and the science fiction adventures of the cluster (paralleled here by the Ten Thousand Worlds of The Spray)—into a satisfying and coherent whole. Both futures are fascinating, as are the interconnections between them, and all mysteries have satisfying and surprising conclusions.

Though this isn’t a novel of gritty realism, there is psychological verisimilitude in its portrayal of a person trying to keep his life free of the chaos that surrounds it: who doesn’t feel like that sometimes? But it is escapism too, in that Henghis is generally able to sort things out, and if Hapthorn can’t, his intuition or his grinnet can. Despite the threats to his life, the route to success for Henghis often lies through the tangled knots of a difficult conversation with his allies: the battling dialogue is a constant pleasure, Olympic-level fencing with words.

I wish there were more novels like this; reading not one but three of them was the sweetest literary treat of my year.

The Spiral Labyrinth, by Matthew Hughes (Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Kindle, 4565ll)

Quartet & Triptych on Kindle – for free!

Readers with Kindles (or Kindle apps) may be interested to know that Matthew Hughes' very fine novella Quartet & Triptych is in the current issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Take them up on a 14-day trial subscription and you can read one of my very favourite novellas of the last couple of years for free.

My review is here ("I loved every word of it, and if this is typical of Hughes' work I expect I'll read every novel he ever writes"), and you can get the trial subscription here.

The original hardback from PS Publishing (pictured) has sold out, but a signed edition is still available.

I was also really pleased to see that his Henghis Hapthorn novels have just been published to Kindle too, because I've been looking forward to reading them: The Spiral Labyrinth, Hespira and Majestrum. At eight quid they're a little pricey for ebooks, but the previews are extensive, so you can have a good read of them before deciding whether to buy.

The Damned Busters, by Matthew Hughes – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The universe of The Damned Busters (I haven’t quite figured out that title, to be honest) is one familiar from the quirkier sf of the fifties, one where there is an order to the cosmos, but it’s an order that reflects the muddled way things are done here on Earth. There’s a heaven and a hell, but both sides talk and act rather like lawyers, and the crafty hero can always find a loophole. It's a crazy universe, but one with rules that can be learnt, mastered and circumvented. And so, a fifth of the way in, having been caught in the crux of an infernal union dispute, introverted Chesney Arnstruther wangles himself a career as buffed-up superhero The Actionary (the name a clever play on the mild-mannered alter-ego’s work as an actuary), and gains Xaphan, a weasel-headed sidekick with a Jimmy Cagney patter and powers that are near-infinite – so long as Chesney’s requests stay within the terms of the deal that he’s made.

This remarkable transformation came as quite a surprise (reviewing from an epub ARC, I hadn’t spent much time looking at the (excellent) cover – and if the superhero angle wasn’t shown on the front cover I would have avoided mentioning it here as a spoiler), but it came at just the right time, that is to say, just when I was about ready, in my impatient way, to give up on the book. Though I’d quite enjoyed the early chapters – they had some interesting thoughts on the potential consequences of hell’s minions going on strike, for example – a few hundred pages more of the same would have been too much for me. When Chesney becomes a superhero the novel doesn’t move past the contractual wrangling that dragged a little in those early pages, but it all becomes much more fun. The idea of a superhero whose powers have contractual limits is, I think, a fairly novel one, and the book explores it well, with a good deal of charm; imagine a Robert Sheckley take on decompressed superheroics.

Further volumes are planned; it doesn’t feel like a novel that requires a sequel, but the battle is after all never-ending. Though a thread marks the trail to the next book, the reader with no plans to read on will not be unsatisfied by the conclusion. Or at least not for that reason; the drama of the climactic game of poker was pretty much lost on me, since I had no idea whether the players should be glad of the cards they received or not. (And why didn’t either party, once they were ahead, just fold all remaining hands?)

I didn’t adore The Damned Busters the way I did this author’s Quartet & Triptych – the books couldn’t have been more different – but by the end it had won me over, and I’ll remember it fondly.

The Damned Busters, Matthew Hughes. Angry Robot, pb/ebook, 416pp. Reviewed from epub ARC. Amazon UK. Amazon US.

Quartet and Triptych, by Matthew Hughes

"Long, long ago, near the very beginning of the present Aeon, it was a custom of Old Earth's elite to preserve the animating essences of its members as they approached the inevitable end of existence." On special occasions the essences would be "placed into a device that projected a simulacrum of the deceased". This superb novella records the consequences of one such device, that containing the remnant of socialite Waltraut Voillute, falling into the hands of Luff Imbry, gentleman thief. With her reluctant assistance he attempts to recover the treasures concealed by her cruel father Lord Syce in a mutable maze under the Summer Pavillion on the estate of Grand Minthereyon.

The only thing I've read by Matthew Hughes before this was "Grolion of Almery", his wonderful contribution to Songs of the Dying Earth, and though this novella (not a collection of seven stories, despite the title) is not an outright tribute, Jack Vance's influence looms just as large, in its delicious language, dry humour, casual cruelty and elegant flourishes. But it's much more than a pastiche, and if you were to suggest that it surpasses Vance I would struggle to find counter-arguments. I loved every word of it, and if this is typical of Hughes' work I expect I'll read every novel he ever writes. It's brimming with lovely ideas and spirited language, and never settles for the obvious when it can offer the superb. Marvellous.

Quartet and Triptych, Matthew Hughes, PS Publishing, hb, 90pp.