Black Brillion A Novel of the Archonate

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. He comes to the city of Sherit seeking the criminal, Luff Imbry. Luff Imbry has devoted his young life to the enjoyment of wealth. A gourmet, a charmer, and an ever-so-stylish fop, he has come to Sherit to pursue a new fortune. Not, mind you, his own, for Luff is also a mountebank, swindler, and forger of the first water. Yoked together by circumstance, they form an uneasy truce and 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, Sacredotal Eminence of the Assembly of Tangible Unity, and now claims to cure the invariably fatal ailment known as the lassitude with Black Brillion. But the gemstone is a myth, as our heroes know.Filled with dollops of drollery and an ancient evil, Black Brillion is a science fantasy caper that grows into a metaphysical exploration of the human psyche. Matt Hughes has crossed Jack Vance with Carl Jung to come up with a bold new novel of life on an Earth grown older by millions of years.

MATTHEW HUGHES lives in Courtenay, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island. This is his third novel.

Praise for Black Brillion:

Despite the risks of working in the shadows of accomplished authors like Smith, Vance and Wolfe, Hughes has managed to produce compelling and very readable novels...Hughes mixes his science and fantasy well and manages well in the difficult balancing act required to create believable stories mixing the two genres. The novel's unexpected denouement satisfyingly melds the science fiction and fantasy elements of the story…It seems likely that Hughes will create more stories in Archonate series, and I look forward to reading more tales set in Old Earth. Fans of Jack Vance will not be disappointed by this incursion of Matthew Hughes into Vance's science-fantasy territory.--Science Fiction Weekly

“Hughes serves up equal measures of wit, intrigue, and seat-of-the-pants action and even dabbles a little in Jungian psychology when Harkless discovers a talent for plumbing humanity's collective unconscious. Irresistibly good reading.�--Booklist

“A witty pastiche drawing on Jack Vance's ‘Dying Earth', mixes humor, philosophy, and a criminal investigation.�--Locus

"On this old Earth, 'Black Brillion' is nothing less than a miraculous novel.�--The Agony Colum