Search Worlds Without End

The first collection by writer Matthew Hughes, and the perfect companion to his acclaimed novel Black Brillion, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories features nine stories taking place in the universe of The Archonate, as well as four non-series stories. The stories of Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth's "foremost freelance discriminator", combine mystery and science fantasy while simultaneously recalling the arch irony of Gene Wolfe and the sly fancies of Jack Vance.

Table of Contents:

• From the Discourses and Edifications of Liw Osfeo
• Mastermindless - [Henghis Hapthorn] - (2004)
• Relics of the Thim - [Henghis Hapthorn] - (2004)
• Falberoth's Ruin - [Henghis Hapthorn] - (2004)
• Finding Sajessarian - [Henghis Hapthorn] - (2005)
• The Gist Hunter - [Henghis Hapthorn] - (2005)
• Thwarting Jabbi Gloond - [Henghis Hapthorn] - (2005)
• A Little Learning - [Guth Bandar] - (2003)
• Inner Huff - [Guth Bandar] - (2005)
• Help Wonted - [Guth Bandar]
• Shadow Man
• The Devil You Don't - (2005)
• Go Tell the Phoenicians - (2005)
• Bearing Up - (1996)

Boro Harkless has devoted his life to the service of the Archonite Bureau of Security, the force tasked with keeping the peace among and within the city-states of Old Earth. An idealist driven by the memory of his heroic father, he comes to the city of Sherit, seeking the notorious Luff Imbry.

Luff Imbry has devoted his life to the enjoyment of wealth. A gourmet, a charmer, and an ever-so-stylish fop, he has come to the city of Sherit to pursue a new fortune. Not, mind you, his own, for Luff is also a mountebank, swindler, and forger of the first water.

Tossed together by circumstance, they form an uneasy truce when they discover a common goal: capturing the grandest con-man of them all, Horselan Gebbling. Gebbling, who made off with Imbry's previous fortune, is posing as Father Olwyn, Sacerdotal Eminence of the Assembly of Tangible Unity, and has chosen as his prey the victims of the first new disease in millennia, the invariably fatal ailment known as the lassitude.

Dangled in front of the victims is the fabled relic of past glories, the gemstone called black brillion. About black brillion, learned men agree on only two things: it can do anything, and it doesn't exist. But Gebbling boasts of having it, and its effects on the lassitude are nothing short of magical.

Riding a landship across the unnatural prairie known as the Swept, Boro and Luff get caught up in an ever-growing tangle of mysteries. Nonsense chants lead to miracle cures. Guests end up crushed beneath the ship's giant wheels. The crew have secrets of their own.

The dangers are not merely physical. On the ship is a noönaut, an explorer of the Commons, the dream realm which contains the memories and emotions of hundreds of thousands of years of human existence. Something in the Commons is calling to Boro to claim him for its own.

What lurks beneath the Swept? What hides within the Commons, eager to come out? And exactly what game is Gebbing playing?

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, discovered dead and tortured, left him enough money to buy himself out of his contract and a curious encrypted "bearer deed" to a mysterious property on the distant edge of the galactic Spray.

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 behind his bearer deed and more about his own past than he had ever dared bargain for.

Science Fiction Book Club release, containing the full and unabridged text of Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice.

In the Penultimate Age of the Archonate, callow young fop Filidor Vesh is perfectly content to spend his days in the pursuit of shallow amusements, until he is summoned by a wizened old dwarf in need of a voluntary good deed - deliver a parcel to his uncle, the all -powerful and original 98th Archon, sole ruler of the world. So begins Filidor's reluctant odyssey through peculiar provinces peopled with odious denizens, including such road killers as mutant rodents, alien ants and a vengeful thamaturge. Now in terra incognito, his narrow conception of life shaken to the extreme, Filidor will strive to say and do the right things...and grow up in the process.

After returning from his quest to save the world from his uncle, Filidor Vesh now stumbles blindly through an attempt to squelch the machinations of a would-be political usurper. As a result, he must contend with evil agents as well as his true love.

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appaered in the February and March 2007 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. There are no other known publications available at this time.

This novelette originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 102, November 2018.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 2004. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection The Gist Hunter and Other Stories (2005).

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 2005. IT can alos be found in the anthologies Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition, edited by Rich Horton, and Best Short Novels: 2006, edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection The Gist Hunter and Other Stories (2005).

When Hapthorn is hired by Lord Afre to investigate the motives of his daughter's new companion, a young man of indeterminate circumstances, he takes the job expecting it to allow him the opportunity to explore and understand his changing universe. Little does Henghis Hapthorn realize, but the path of discovery will lead to deeper questions, a mysterious assignment from the Archon himself, and the ancient and powerful secret name... Majestrum!

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. Worse, some entity with a will powerful enough to bend space and time is searching for him through the Nine Planes, bellowing "Bring me Apthorn!" in a voice loud enough to frighten demons.

As magic begins to reassert its ancient dominion, Old Earth's foremost freelance discriminator, Henghis Hapthorn, and his intuition (now a separate person named Osk Rievor), are living apart, though they remain on good terms. But now there comes between them a woman of alluring mystery. Who is Hespira? Does she truly want either of them? Or has she come to destroy them both?

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, March 2015.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, February 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2013, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, September 2013.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, November 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, January 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, March 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, November 2013.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, January 2015.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, May 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, May 2015.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, September 2014.

Read the full story for free at Ligthspeed.

Erm Kaslo is at the top of his game: a hardboiled confidential operative in the ultra-high-tech civilization of The Ten Thousand Worlds that spans the entire galactic arm known as The Spray. But the universe is about to arbitrarily change its fundamental operating premise from science to magic. Technology will cease to function and all of Kaslo's hard-won skills and abilities will be useless.

Meet Luff Imbry, an insidiously clever confidence man... He likes good wine, good food, and good stolen goods, and he always maintains the upper hand. When a business rival gets the drop on him, he finds himself abandoned on Fulda-a far-off, isolated world with a history of its own. Unable to blend in and furious for revenge, Imbry has to rely on his infamous criminal wit to survive Fulda's crusade to extinguish The Other.

Hailed as the heir apparent to Jack Vance, Matthew Hughes brings us this speculative, richly imagined exploration of society on the far edges of extreme. A central character in Black Brillion, Luff Imbry is at last front and center in Hughes's latest rollercoaster adventure through a far-future universe.

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.

But Mount Pleasant has changed. Morwen must cope with mystic cultists, murderous drug-smugglers, undercover "weasels" of the Interplanetary Police Coordinating Company, and the henchmen of the vicious pirate lord who owns her parents and wants Morwen returned. So he can kill her slowly...

Set in Jack Vance's Demon Princes universe, at around the time of Kirth Gersen's hunt for Attel Malagate and Kokor Hekkus, Barbarians of the Beyond is a return to "Jack Vance Space" and space-opera derring-do that follows in the science fiction Grandmaster's footsteps.

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. And thus the strangest superhero duo ever seen - in Hell or on Earth - is born!

Book one of the To Hell & Back saga is a riotous fantasy from the acclaimed author of the Henghis Hapthorn stories.

The sequel to the hilarious "The Damned Busters"

Chesney's efforts to 'Save the Day' and 'Win the Girl' make slow progress. This superhero lark is a bit more complicated than he thought.

But even as Chesney is trying to learn the ropes, Boss Greeley has made a deal with the Devil. A deal that is making Greeley stronger by the minute. Soon he will be untouchable. Meanwhile Reverend Hardacre digs deeper and finds that not everything in reality is quite what it seems...

Now Chesney, the one-time actuary-turned superhero must continue the fight.

Meet Chesney Arnstruther. Once a mild-mannered insurance actuary, now a full-time crime-fighting superhero, it's all he can do to kick bad-guy ass while at the same time holding down a steady relationship with the gorgeous Melda. Something is going on.

Meet Xaphan, wise-cracking demon and the source of (almost) all of Chesney's powers. He's been asked by his infernal master to give Chesney whatever he needs... but surely stopping bad guys is not in Hell's plan? Something is definitely going on.

Meet Arthur Wrigley, a modest yet charming older gentleman whose nasty little hobby is fleecing innocent widows. Meet Simon Magus, ancient mystic and magician from Biblical times now very much enamoured of Vegas, baby. And pray you never meet the Chikkichikk, a proud and ancient race of, well, warrior dinosaurs, from the universe that God made then rejected before He started monkeying around with this one.

Whatever the hell is going on, this is definitely the third book in the wondrous To Hell & Back series.