Henchmen
In the spirit of A God in Hiding, the newest epic fantasy by critically acclaimed novelist, Matthew Hughes
The book is now available in e-format in North America
Vunt is building a career as a gambler. Oldo is a young man fresh from the farm. But the Duke of Vanderoy has decreed that every able-bodied man must have a job or be conscripted for unpleasant chores.
The two meet when they come seeking work at a riverside warehouse that handles goods being shipped up and downstream. The job pays more than it ought to, so long as they keep their mouths shut. They do that, but they also keep their eyes open, and soon they discover their new employer is engaged in shifty operations. Worse, they suspect his brutish bodyguard may have killed the workers Vunt and Oldo have replaced.
From there, the two young men embark on a perilous adventure that will see them hired on as caravan guards—while acting as undercover operatives of the Vanderoy wizards’ Guild—traveling north to Ur Nazim and then pursuing the developing mystery in the city of half-mad thaumaturges, Olliphract.
They’ll encounter wonders and terrors, worlds they never dreamed of, visiting the Underworld and even the unknown depths of the human psyche, struggling to fight their way free of the schemes and duels of powerful spellslingers and madmen.
Henchmen eBook : Hughes, Matthew: Amazon.ca: Books
Praise for Matthew Hughes:
“I really enjoyed Barbarians of the Beyond. Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself.” — George R. R. Martin
“Lock the door, turn off the phone, get into a comfy chair, and deep-dive into a marvelous continuation of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series. Matthew Hughes is a treasure and Barbarians of the Beyond is a terrific adventure.” — David Gerrold
“Matthew Hughes follows nimbly in Jack Vance’s footprints, then breaks some fresh trail. First-class space opera.”— Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids
“Lock the door, turn off the phone, get into a comfy chair, and deep-dive into a marvelous continuation of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series. Matthew Hughes is a treasure and Barbarians of the Beyond is a terrific adventure.” — David Gerrold
“Matthew Hughes follows nimbly in Jack Vance’s footprints, then breaks some fresh trail. First-class space opera.”— Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids
“Engaging and enchanting…a fine companion adventure to Jack Vance’s The Demon Princes series, told with Matthew Hughes’s excellent sense of charm, ethical complexity and exotic worldbuilding. Let’s hope this is just the beginning!” — Kurt Busiek
“…a tale that captures that special ‘golden age’ feel in which mankind has travelled far into the stars yet still behaves as though it’s the Wild West.” — David White, RNR Magazine
More from Matthew Hughes:
About Matthew:
Matthew Hughes is a Canadian author of science fiction and fantasy.
His speculative fiction novels are: Fools Errant, Fool Me Twice, Black Brillion, Majestrum, The Commons, The Spiral Labyrinth, Template, Hespira, The Other, The Damned Busters, Costume Not Included, Hell to Pay, Song of the Serpent and Wolverine: Lifeblood (both as Hugh Matthews), A Wizard’s Henchman, A God in Chains, Baldemar, and Passengers & Perils.
His magnum opus is What the Wind Brings, a historical novel with magical realism elements. It was the first Canadian work to win the International Endeavour Award. He waited more than forty years to write the novel and spent a year composing several drafts, made possible by a $25,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
His major influence as a writer of speculative fiction is the Grandmaster Jack Vance. Booklist has called Hughes Vance’s “heir apparent.”
In 2021, Vance’s estate (Spatterlight Press), published Hughes’s Barbarians of the Beyond, an authorized companion novel to Vance’s iconic revenge series, The Demon Princes. The book prompted George R.R. Martin to say, “Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself.”
His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Pulp Literature, Postscripts, Storyteller, Interzone, Amazing, Unfit, and several anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin, including the bestseller, Rogues.
His works have been short-listed for the Aurora, Locus, Nebula, Philip K Dick, A.E. Van Vogt, Neffy, Alberta Book Publishing, and Endeavour Awards.
In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s Hall of Fame.
Before turning to writing fiction, he spent three decades as the top-ranked speechwriter in British Columbia, writing for leaders of all three provincial political parties and CEOs of the province’s largest corporations.
Since 2007, he has traveled the world as a housesitter, living in twelve countries.
His web page is at https://www.matthewhughes.org
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