Mostrando resultados por "Matthew Hughes" en Todas las categorías

It was bad enough when Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth's foremost discriminator and die-hard empiricist, had to accept that the cosmos was shortly to rewrite its basic operating system, replacing rational cause-and-effect with detestable magic. Now he finds himself cast forward several centuries, stranded in a primitive world of contending wizards and hungry dragons, and without his magic-savvy alter ego.

Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost penetrator of mysteries and uncoverer of secrets in a decadent, far-future Old Earth, one age before Jack Vance's Dying Earth. A superb rationalist, he has long disdained the notion that the universe has an alternative organizing principle: Magic. But now a new age is dawning, overturning the very foundations of Hapthorn's existence, and he must struggle to survive in a world where all the rules are changing.

In an age of wizards and walled cities, Raffalon is a journeyman member of the ancient and honorable guild of Purloiners and Purveyors—in other words, a thief. His skills allow him to scale walls, tickle locks, defeat magical wards. He lifts treasures and trinkets, and spends the proceeds on ale and sausages in taverns where a wise thief sits with his back to the wall. But somehow things often go the way they shouldn’t, and then Raffalon has to rely upon his wits and a well-calibrated sense of daring.

Following on the heels of Grace for a Season, which told the story of 10-year-old cat Gracie Bell, Grace for the Journey continues the exploration of how the lives of animals can serve God's purpose in the lives of humans...specifically the author. Drawing from a lifetime of memories, the author presents stories of animals from his life in a devotional-syle, showing how God is always working, even when we least expect it.

Here are nine tales of Henghis Hapthorn, foremost freelance discriminator of Old Earth in the planet's penultimate age. Included are the six stories that ran in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (and were previously collected in The Gist Hunter and Other Stories), leading up to the events that began the first Hapthorn novel, Majestrum, plus three more.

In a world of wizards and walled cities, Galabras Nachecko is a necromancer in the seaport metropolis of Golathreon, connecting the living with deceased relatives and associates to answer questions left unresolved at the time of death. Then he is tasked by Duke Simisson’s conniving seneschal to capture the ghost of a notorious land pirate scheduled for execution. He snags the spirit but finds that the assignment has made him a man who knows too much. Nachecko is propelled into a new career—secret agent segueing into diplomat—that leads him far from home, plunges him into perilous ...

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 ...

In a dying Earth of wizards and walled cities, a boy climbs out of poverty when he becomes an assistant to a moneylender's debt collector, then enters a career as henchman to an ambitious young thaumaturge. But Baldemar's career as a wizard's minion goes sideways after a powerful entity left over from the creation of the cosmos finds him useful for its own ends. Now he must tread a perilous path peopled by dukes and demons, spellslingers and secret agents, assassins and academics, plus a pair of vengeful wizards who want their stolen treasures returned.

PASSENGERS AND PERILS continues the story of the two central characters from the Jack Vance-influenced 2008 novel, TEMPLATE (PS Publishing and Paizo). (SPOILERS, if you haven't read TEMPLATE) Conn Labro is a manufactured human, created as the template for a legion of vat-grown super soldiers, but raised to be a professional duelist in a gaming house on one of the planets of the Ten Thousand Worlds. Jenore Mordene is a former showgirl who helps him navigate the strange ways of “normal” people. After surviving many perils in Template, the couple acquired a space yacht and are now hiring ...

In another sparkling and slightly askew adventure in the mode of Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Jack Vance, Fools Errant's Filidor Vesh sashays once more through the penultimate age, finding that... LOVE IS A MANY SPLINTERED THING The dandified Archon's apprentice is literally bowled over by beautiful Emmlyn Podarke -- she knocks him flat and steals his credentials, daring him to pursue her to a remote and mostly forgotten corner of Old Earth. Now Filidor must cope with philosophical pirates, prophet-seeking aliens, light-fingered mummers, and a tiny, bothersome voice in his left ear. ...

When professional duelist Conn Labro escapes indentured servitude as the star player of Horder's Emporium, he abandons the gaming world of Thrais, and sets out on an interstellar journey filled with murder, deceit, and self-discovery. His only friend on Thrais, dead and tortured, left him enough money to buy himself out of his contract, and a curious encrypted "bearer deed" to a mysterious property. With the seductive, secretive showgirl Jenore Mordene at his side, and a villainous, pleasure cult dogging his every move, Labro sets out to learn the truth, and more about his own past.

Wise, witty and just a little weird, FOOLS ERRANT wryly strolls the satirical path laid down by Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Jack Vance, heralding the brilliant debut of a gifted new voice. Foppish young Filidor Vesh wants only to dally among his shallow pastimes. But a simple errand for his uncle, the vaguely all-powerful Archon of those parts of Old Earth still populated by human beings, becomes a frenetic odyssey across a planet speckled with eccentric nations pursuing odd aims with intense determination. Harried at every step by the irascible dwarf, Gaskarth, and frequently at the...

In a far-future world of wizards and walled cities, Cascor is a bitter cashiered policeman who has built a new career as a freelance discriminator who occasionally dabbles in magic and hopes the wizards’ Guild never finds out. This collection brings together all the Cascor stories, including four that began with the discriminator as a supporting character in the series about Raffalon the unlucky thief. It includes three more that ran in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, plus two original novelettes and a short novella about the sorceress Margolyam, who became one of Cascor’s ...

Twenty years ago, five master criminals known as the Demon Princes raided Mount Pleasant to enslave thousands of inhabitants in the lawless Beyond. Now Morwen Sabine, a daughter of captives, has escaped her cruel master and returns to Mount Pleasant to recover the hidden treasure she hopes will buy her parents’ freedom.

Orphaned at twelve, Margolyam leaves the port city of Golathreon to live with her aunt Oleadora, a sorceress and healer in the inland market town of Keddrick. But her new life brings out qualities in the girl that she never knew she possessed, and Margolyam begins a journey of self-discovery that will plunge her into the world of wizardry, with all it manifold wonders and dire perils.

From the award-winning author of Majestrum, Template, and The Other, this collection of short stories ranges from the thoughtful to the whimsical. Most of them appeared first in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s. Others were written for the bespoke anthologies: Songs of the Dying Earth, Old Mars, and Welcome to the Greenhouse; one is published here for the first time.

In a far-future world of wizards and walled cities, Lieve Reder has risen from being a small chandler’s daughter to become the captain of a riverboat owned by House Bernaglio in the oligarch-run city of Exley. She has ambitions to rise higher and when her employer, the widow Philaria Bernaglio, asks her to travel to the remote desert town of Ur Nazim to retrieve a mysterious item her dead husband, Nulf Bernaglio ordered, she signs on to the quest. Accompanied by Dai, an artificial human created by one of the mad thaumaturges of Olliphract to be part of the wizards’ deadly war games, she...

After accidentally summoning a demon while playing poker, the normally mild-mannered Chesney Anstruther refuses to sell his soul…which leads through various confusions to, well, Hell going on strike. Which means that nothing bad ever happens in the world – and that actually turns out to be a really bad thing. There’s only one thing for it. Satan offers Chesney the ultimate deal – sign the damned contract, and he can have his heart’s desire.