Ep 25 - Matthew Hughes

Invaders From Planet 3

We're joined by author and editor Matthew Hughes in this episode. Matt talks about his first love in sf: Jack Vance's "The Dragon Masters", as well as Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton, along with his discovery of Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury and AE van Vogt. He also discusses some of the historical fiction novelists who influenced him, such as Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliff.

Matt talks about being "a guy just passing through" as he shares stories from his early years, starting with an unstable home life where his father, trying to stay one step ahead of money problems, occasionally uprooted the family at a moment's notice — sometimes in the middle of the night to move half-way around the world. There's the story of his teenaged knife fight. And he tells us how taking LSD made him a nicer person.

We also hear about Matt's evolution as a writer, from the teenager writing stories, to the newspaper reporter and editor, to the go-to speechwriter for Canadian federal politicians, their provincial counterparts in BC, and business leaders as well. He talks about his first sale of a fictional story, "Fishface and the Leg", and how he developed his career writing crime stories, and science fiction and fantasy.

Matt also shares details of the new speculative fiction novel he's developing, about a man in his Jack-Vance-Dying-Earth-inspired world who wakes up with amnesia and finds himself on the road to a confrontation with wizards.

Our interview took place in October 2018 at the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Games Convention (VCon).

You can learn more about Matthew Hughes and his stories on his website: https://www.matthewhughes.org

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