Stephen Hunt

This book was also voted best fantasy novel of 1994 by the readers of the British genre gaming magazine 'Roleplayer Independent'.

The novel is widely recognized as having created the 'flintlock fantasy' sub-genre of the mainstream sword and sorcery literary genre, a movement which is still popular amongst tabletop gaming enthusiasts [see Flintloque].

Hunt's short fiction has appeared in various mainly US and UK-based genre magazines, and some of his earliest works were written in the cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction.

The best known of these was the 'Hollow Duellists', a short story which William Gibson was reported as admiring as one of the leading works of the second-wave works of cyberpunk fiction. This later went on to win the 1995 ProtoStellar prize for best short fiction story (a tie with British SF author Stephen Baxter).

Influences on Hunt's work include Jack Williamson, Stephen Goldin, Bruce Sterling, Larry Niven and Michael Moorcock (the latter is an author whose work Hunt's own has sometimes been compared to by reviewers).