Passengers & Perils — Matthew Hughes

PASSENGERS AND PERILS continues the story of the two central characters from my Jack Vance-influenced 2008 novel, TEMPLATE (PS Publishing and Paizo). (SPOILERS if you haven't read TEMPLATE) Conn Labro is a manufactured human, created as the template for a legion of vat-grown super soldiers, but raised to be a professional duelist in a gaming house on one of the planets of the Ten Thousand Worlds. Jenore Mordene is a former showgirl who helps him navigate the strange ways of normal people. After surviving many perils in TEMPLATE, the couple acquired a space yacht and are now hiring out for charters and small cargoes. This brings them into contact (and conflict) with cultists, thieves, organized criminals, various constabularies, and the deeply inbred aristocrats of Old Earth. They'll also meet up with a confidential operative from the world Novo Bantry as well as the foremost freelance discriminator of Old Earth and a corpulent master criminal.