Publisher's Synopsis
Sherlock Holmes meets Jack Vance's Dying Earth in
Majestrum, the explosive new novel from Matthew
Hughes, acclaimed author of Black Brillion, Fools
Errant, and The Gist Hunter and Other Stories.
The scientific method and a well-calibrated mind
have long served freelance discriminator Henghis
Hapthorn, allowing him to investigate and
solve the problems of the wealthy and powerful
aristocracy of Old Earth, and securing him a
reputation for brilliance across The Spray and
throughout the Ten Thousand Worlds. But the
universe is shifting, cycling away from logic and
reason and ushering in a new age of sympathetic
association, better known as magic.
This change is evidenced by the unexplained
transformation of Henghis Hapthorn's personal
electronic integrator into a small fruit-eating
creature. Odder still, Hapthorn's personality has
been cleaved into two distinct beings sharing one
body: himself, familiar and appropriate to the
rational old order; and the other, strange, intuitive,
and obsessed with an arcane and untranslated
tome, appropriate to the new.
When Hapthorn is hired by Lord Afre to
investigate the motives of his daughter's new
companion, a young man of indeterminate
circumstances, he takes the job expecting it to allow
him the opportunity to explore and understand his
changing universe. Little does Henghis Hapthorn
realize, but the path of discovery will lead to
deeper questions, a mysterious assignment from
the Archon himself, and the ancient and powerful
secret name... Majestrum!
