Matthew Hughes

Author Information
Matthew Hughes's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    31 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    August 2001
  • Latest Book:
    April 2022
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Full Series List in Order

Hell and Back

1 - The Damned Busters (Oct-2010)
2 - Costume Not Included (Apr-2012)

A Novel of the Archonate

Black Brillion (Nov-2004)

A Tale Of Henghis Hapthorn

Majestrum (Aug-2007)
The Spiral Labyrinth (Sep-2007)
Hespira (Feb-2010)

Book List in Order: 31 titles

  • Fool Me Twice

    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....

  • Black Brillion

    A Novel of the Archonate

    IN THE FAR DISTANT FUTURE, WHEN THE SUN IS BEGINNING TO DIE.. . Young security officer Boro Harkless, an idealist driven by the memory of his heroic father, and jaded Luff Imbry, a mountebank, swindler, and forger of the first water, form an uneas...

  • The Gist Hunter And Other Stories

    The Gist Hunter & Other Stories chronicles nine unique stories set in the Dying Earth-esque planet that expands the universe of Matthew Hughes’s Archonate novels. This series of stories best introduces and plays companion pieces to Black Brillion, ...

  • Majestrum

    A Tale Of Henghis Hapthorn

    Sherlock Holmes meets Jack Vance's Dying Earth in Majestrum, the. explosive new novel from Matthew Hughes, acclaimed author of Black Brillion, Fools Errant, and The Gist Hunter and Other Stories. The scientific method and a well-calibrated mind have...

  • The Spiral Labyrinth

    A Tale Of Henghis Hapthorn

    Sherlock Holmes meets Jack Vance’s Dying Earth in The Spiral Labyrinth, the new novel from Matthew Hughes, acclaimed author of Majestrum. The universe continues to shift away from logic and reason, rewriting its basic operating system, bringing ab...

  • The Commons

    Includes the story The Helper and His Hero, nominated for a Nebula Award - Best Novella, 2007

    For years now, 40,000 readers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction have been reveling in the adventures of Matt Hughes's Guth Bandar, th...

  • Hespira

    A Tale Of Henghis Hapthorn

    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 betw...

  • Hespria

  • The Damned Busters

    Hell and Back - 1

    After accidentally summoning a demon, 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... with disastrous consequences....



  • The Other

    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, i...

  • Costume Not Included

    Hell and Back - 2

    Chesney's efforts to Save The Day and Win the Girl make slow progress. Meanwhile, Boss Greeley's deal with the Devil makes him ever-stronger, and untouchable, while the Reverend Hardacre digs deeper and finds that not everything in reality is quite w...

  • The Peppermint Man

    Billy Jackson has spent his life running from a past so horrible that he has spent the last twenty years in therapy. Against the advice of his doctor, he returns to his hometown for the first time since entering foster care. But the sins of his fathe...

  • 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn

    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 Hunt...

  • Nine Tales of Henghis Hapthorn

    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 Gi...

  • Hell to Pay

    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 o...

  • The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories

    In Old Earth’s penultimate age, the corpulent master criminal Luff Imbry moves through the halfworld like a full-fleshed shark. Thief, forger, confidence man, and sometimes go-between, he maps out his illicit operations with exquisite care then car...

  • Template

    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 ...

  • Paroxysm

  • To Hell and Back

    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 o...



  • The Compleat Guth Bandar

    The Compleat Guth BandarIn Old Earth’s penultimate age, humanity’s collective unconscious has long since been fully explored and mapped by the noönaut scholars of the Institute for Historical Inquiry. But something is threatening the integrity ...

  • Devil or Angel and Other

    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...

  • Devil or Angel and Other Stories

    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 wr...

  • 9 Tales of Raffalon

    A THIEF IN THE DYING EARTH 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,...

  • As I Am

  • A God in Chains

    "...the closest thing to Vance since Vance." says George R.R. Martin

    Searching for his stolen past in the Dying Earth.

    He calls himself Farouche, after a character from legend, but his reality is that his memories and identity were...

  • Barbarians of the Beyond

    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 ...

  • Go Tell the Phoenicians

    The primitive aliens' advanced technology makes no sense -- but if Kandler can't solve the mystery, job loss will be the least of his problems....

  • Passengers & Perils

    PASSENGERS AND PERILS continues the story of the two central characters from my 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 ...

  • Fools Errant

    • / Fantasy
    • Buy Buy

    Pleasure-loving aristocrat Filidor Vesh finds his life changed forever when he must deliver a mysterious parcel to his uncle, the omnipotent 98th Archon, on a quest that takes him through provinces populated by mutant rodents, alien ants, and a venge...



  • Forays of a Fat Man

    • / Fantasy
    • Buy

    Luff Imbry, confidence man, thief, forger extraordinaire, aficionado of a myriad art forms, began life as a supporting character in my novel Black Brillion. He reappeared again in the same role in a companion novel, The Commons.And that should have b...

  • One More Kill

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy

    Fans of Lawrence Block's Keller stories are going to love One More Kill. I certainly did. Matt Hughes kept me up all night, turning pages.—George R.R. MartinHe was a trained killer, an orphaned kid who rose from raw recruit to the ran...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Matthew Hughes has published 31 books.

Matthew Hughes does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Passengers & Perils, was published in April 2022.

The first book by Matthew Hughes, Fool Me Twice, was published in August 2001.

Yes. Matthew Hughes has 3 series.
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