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 about a new age of sympathetic

association, or magic.

It was bad enough when Henghis Hapthorn,

Old Earth’s foremost discriminator and diehard

empiricist, had to accept this coming of

a new age of magic. Now he no longer has

the leisure to anticipate and prepare for the

inevitable changes. Hapthorn finds himself

cast forward and stranded several centuries

in the future. This new world of contending

wizards and hungry dragons is a difficult one

to assimilate, and Hapthorn must do so 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.

Matthew Hughes has lead a successful writing career?first as a journalist, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian ministers of justice and environment, and as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia. He resides in a small town on Vancouver Island, off Canada’s west coast.

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