Matthew Hughes on Curious Fictions

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The name I answer to is Matt Hughes. I write science fiction, fantasy and suspense fiction. To keep the genres separate, I now use my full name, Matthew Hughes, for sff, and the shorter form for the crime stuff. I also write media tie-ins as Hugh Matthews. I've won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award, and have been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Endeavour (twice), A.E. Van Vogt, and Derringer Awards. I was born seventy years ago in Liverpool, England, but my family moved to Canada when I was five. I've made my living as a writer all of my adult life, first as a journalist, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and -- from 1979 until a few years back- as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia.

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Fiction

A God in Chains (excerpt)

Published Aug 7, 2019 · 4,426 words (17 minutes) · 1 like · 217 views

Fantasy adventure Dying Earth

This is the opening of A God in Chains (Edge SF and Fantasy Publishing, 2019) an adventure/mystery novel set in the fantasy milieu known as the Dying Earth.

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Fiction

The Sword of Destiny

Published Aug 2, 2019 · 10,471 words (39 minutes) · 85 views

Fantasy Baldemar wizard

“The Sword of Destiny” was written at the invitation of Gardner Dozois for his 2017 anthology, The Book of Swords. This 10,000-word novelette introduced Baldemar, the wizard’s henchman, at the (probable) end of his career. I later wrote several more stories bringing him from childhood to maturity, all of which have run (or will run) in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

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Timmy, Come Home

Published May 5, 2019 · 4,507 words (17 minutes) · 3 likes · 323 views

Science Fiction Fermi Paradox

“Timmy, Come Home” was written ten years ago at the invitation of Gordon Van Gelder for an anthology he was putting together called Is Anybody Out There? All the stories were themed around the Fermi Paradox, which asks the question, “If there are alien civilizations out there, why haven’t we been contacted by them?”

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Enemy of the Good

Published Mar 6, 2019 · 11,941 words (44 minutes) · 3 likes · 271 views

Fantasy Humor Archonate

A little philosophical diversion featuring my corpulent master criminal of Old Earth in its penultimate age.

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Fiction

The Devil You Don't

Published Feb 7, 2019 · 1,338 words (5 minutes) · 262 views

Science Fiction

I was a successful speechwriter because I knew how to paint word pictures, and because I could write in the voice of the person who was going to give the speech. As I wrote, I could hear the speaker's voice in my head. Back in 2003, I decided to write a story in the inimitable voice of one of the 20th century's great speech-makers. I sold it to the late and undeniably great Gardner Dozois, who was then editing Asimov's SF Magazine.

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The Gift of Gabby

Published Jan 5, 2019 · 5,741 words (21 minutes) · 1 like · 301 views

Fantasy Historical

An origin story for Pacific City, a fictional Oregon metropolis that grew up to be the haunt of various superheroes. Find out more here: https://welcometopacificcity.wordpress.com/

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Fiction

A Little Learning

Published Dec 5, 2018 · 10,618 words (39 minutes) · 2 likes · 243 views

Fantasy Humor

Guth Bandar is an explorer of the human collective unconscious, which the Institute of Historical Inquiry has comprehensively mapped over aeons of Old Earth's ancient civilization. But The Commons, as the Institute's scholars call the noosphere, may still have a few surprises left.

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