The SF Site: Featured Reviews Archive

The reviews are sorted alphabetically by authors' last name -- one or more pages for each letter (plus one for Mc). All but some recent reviews are listed here. Links to those reviews appear on the Recent Feature Review Page.

Author & Fan Tribute Sites | Feature Reviews | An Interview with...

Pages | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

The Spiral Labyrinth by Matthew Hughes
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
Henghis Hapthorn is approached by a wealthy socialite with what appears to be a straightforward case: her husband has vanished after buying a small spaceship. Establishing that the spouse was not involved in hanky-panky, Hapthorn investigates further, to discover that several others who had considered buying the vessel also disappeared. He takes on a guise as a buyer himself -- to be captured by a super-intelligent fungus that leeches personality, experience, and knowledge from its victims.

The Gist Hunter & Other Stories by Matthew Hughes
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Six of the tales in this collection feature Henghis Hapthorn, foremost freelance discriminator in the city of Olkney in the penultimate age of Old Earth. Hapthorn, the most brilliant citizen in the city (and he does not hesitate to say so) solves problems that nobody else can solve by "uncovering facts and relationships so ingeniously hidden or disguised as to baffle the best agents of the Archonate's Bureau of Scrutiny."

Black Brillion by Matthew Hughes
reviewed by Peter D. Tillman
The story opens with probationary policeman Baro Harkless hot on the trail of the notorious con-man Luff Imbry. Harkless gets his man, and a promotion too, but with a surprising twist: Harkless finds himself teamed with Imbry to track yet another con-man, the even-more notorious Horslan Gebbling. Gebbling, masquerading as Father Olwyn, Sacredotal Eminence, is organizing a landship cruise across the great plain of the Swept, presumably to fleece the passengers....

Black Brillion by Matthew Hughes
reviewed by Donna McMahon
"I am often struck by how widely a day can escape from one's expectations," says Luff Imbry, and thus begin the escapades of an ill-matched pair, juxtaposed by fate in the form of the Archonate's Bureau of Scrutiny. Baro Harkless, newly minted Agent of the Bureau is partnered with Luff Imbry, the very same portly confidence trickster he apprehended in commission of an extortion mere hours earlier, and whom he reasonably expects to be in transit to the nearest contemplarium.

Fool Me Twice by Matthew Hughes
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Filidor Vesh is the foppish, self-indulgent nephew of the Archon, mysterious ruler of Old Earth. Although Filidor is officially the Archon's Apprentice, he neglects his duties and education in favour of riotous high living and the sort of parties that make frequent veiled appearances in the gossip column of the Olkney Implicator. His carefree dissolution is brought to an abrupt end when a righteously outraged citizen pummels him to the ground and steals his official plaque and vigil.

Pages | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |