What I've been up to lately . . .
One for the completists: the first story I ever sold was “Fishface and the Leg,” and it appeared in the supplement to a weekly farmers’ newspaper out of Saskatchewan called
The Western Producer. It’s never been seen again until now, when it shows up in the Table of Contents of
Pulp Literature’s Issue number 13. Because it’s a crime story, it will have the byline “by Matt Hughes.”
In the same issue is “The Devil You Don’t,” a little time-travel yarn that ran in
Asimov’s several years ago. The byline on that one is “Matthew Hughes.”
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I’ve started writing hardboiled space-opera short stories featuring Erm Kaslo, a “confidential operative” whose investigations take him to many of the Ten Thousand Worlds. I did the first one, a novelette called “Thunderstones,” for editor Nick Gevers who was putting together an anthology called
Extrasolar for PS Publishing and needed to fill a gap. Now I’ve placed a second story, “The Bicolor Spiral,” with
Lightspeed Magazine and have started a third.
Erm Kaslo, you may remember, is the protagonist of
A Wizard’s Henchman, now out in limited editions and ebook formats from PS Publishing. In the novel, he undergoes a transition from confidential operative to the position in the eponymous title after the universe suddenly shifts its operating basis from rationalism to magic. I plan to do more with Kaslo in the post-change environment – probably another novel – but the short stories will be prequels, covering the years before the big change when he was a Sam Spade of the far future.
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I’m recovering the rights to
The Other, the Luff Imbry novel that would have had a sequel to complete the story begun in the first book, but the publisher changed owners and the numbers were not good enough. This authoring game is all about the numbers.
I may try crowdfunding the second Imbry book through Kickstarter or GoFundMe. I have to look into the ins and outs. I have pretty much decided to try Patreon, however, which offers readers an opportunity to fund their preferred authors and artists by pledging a dollar or two every month. I’ll wait until after the holiday, though, since December is not a good time launch new ventures.
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