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Astra City was a technological 40th century masterpiece. It represented the challenge of society to the raw untamed planet where it raised its gleaming towers in a far-flung corner of the galaxy. Beyond the force field encircling Astra City lay mystery and terror in the form of the weird primeval Greek beasts.
There were other mysteries surrounding Astra City. Mysteries like those the one-eyed Twen discovered in the labyrinth below the modern city. A labyrinth whose age would only be calculated in centuries… but which was believed to have been erected by the distant Masters themselves. Hidden in its depths Twen discovers a forbidden document of the millennial age, which involves her with a secret society who know the dreadful truth about the colonists. They are Androids… and their dawning intelligence leads them into head-on conflict with the rapidly decaying human race.

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 carries them out with courage and panache. But, often, things don’t go as Luff planned, and he must call upon a talent for improvisation and a ruthless will to survive.

This collection brings together seven short stories and novelettes previously published in Postscripts, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the anthology Forbidden Planets, plus two novellas formerly only available in limited editions. It offers Luff Imbry in all his moods and guises.

Finalist for the 2014 Endeavour Award.

Praise for Matthew Hughes:

“Matthew Hughes does Jack Vance better than anyone except Jack himself” – George R.R. Martin
“Heir apparent to Jack Vance” – Booklist
“Hughes’s boldness is admirable”- New York Review of Science Fiction
“Hughes effortlessly renders fantastic worlds and beings believable”- Publishers Weekly
“A towering talent”- Robert J. Sawyer
“A treasure” – David Gerrold