Errant and Fool Me Twice, 2001) The Commons The stories concerned with the Commons were originally intended to form one long novel. As this book did not meet the word limits imposed by Tor Books, Hughes published the shortened novel as Black Brillion and turned the excised material into a series of six short stories about Guth Bandar, a scholar dedicated to exploring humanity's collective unconscious. Hughes sold these stories to Gordon Van Gelder at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction; the first three were collected in 2005 as part of The Gist Hunter and Other Stories and Robert J. Sawyer assembled all six as a fixup novel (titled The Commons) in 2007. In 2014, Hughes self published the stories as they first appeared in F&SF as The Compleat Guth Bandar: differences between this volume and The Commons are slight. Black Brillion was nominated for the Aurora Award while "The Helper and His Hero" was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella. Black Brillion (2004) The Commons (2007) (vt. The Compleat Guth Bandar (2014)) "A Little Learning" (First published in Fantasy Readers Wanted — Apply Within, October 2003, reprinted in F&SF June 2004) "Inner Huff" (First published in F&SF, February 2005) "Help Wonted" (First published in The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, reprinted in F&SF October–November 2005) "A Herd of Opportunity" (First published in F&SF, May 2006) "Bye the Rules" (First published in F&SF, December 2006) "The Helper and His Hero" (First published in F&SF, February 2007 and March 2007; Nebula Award for Best Novella nominee, 2008) Henghis Hapthorn Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost freelance discriminator of Old Earth in its penultimate age. Hapthorn first appeared in a sequence of six stories sold to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, where the arch-rationalist and sceptic discovers to his horror that his rational world is about to come to an abrupt end with the dawn of an age of magic. Hapthorn's story continued in three novels published by Night Shade Books: more recent Hapthorn stories have been set before his first encounter with magic ("The Immersion") or after Hespira ("Fullbrim's Finding", "Hapthorn's Last Case"). Majestrum (2006) The Spiral Labyrinth (2007) "Sweet Trap" (a standalone excerpt of the first two chapters of The Spiral Labyrinth, first published in F&SF, June 2007) Hespira (2009) 9 Tales of Henghis Hapthorn (2013) "Mastermindless" (First published in F&SF, March 2004) "Relics of the