Rhys Hughes

Mirrors in the Deluge is a collection of 32 unrelated stories that take elements from fantasy, science fiction, horror and other genres and give them a lateral shift. Like much of Rhys' work these quirky tales between them encompass parody, pastiche and puns. The fun, as ever, starts with the title of each story - gently leading an unsuspecting reader into preconceived ideas and expectations; expectations that are soon spun around, turned on their head (or other extremities), and pushed in an unexpected direction. Thus, a saunter merely through the contents page is already a hugely entertaining experience and one more akin to savouring the hors d'oeuvres of a grand feast than consulting a list of shortcuts into a literary tome. In fact, the gastronomic metaphor serves us well here; the courses on offer range from tantalising tuck to a gourmand's repast, but never mere vittles - perhaps the way to enjoy this book is to digest one story, three times a day (four if you're a halfling who needs second breakfast), rather than trying to gorge on all the available delights and delicacies at one sitting. To complete this gourmet's guide, a tempting sampling of the stories must include: The Soft Landing, a unique story told from the perspective of a photon; Travels with my Antinomy, how do you solve a paradox when you're part of it?; Vanity of Vanities, the internet achieves consciousness and takes over, but with very different consequences than you might imagine; The Fairy and the Dinosaur, in which a fairy can't find what she wants for her picnic in the goblin market, is offered cloned prehistoric plums but turns to a time-travelling robot to go back to the age of the dinosaurs and eat an original plum. Other titles to tempt you include The Prodigal Beard, A Dame Abroad, The Unkissed Artist Formerly Known as Frog, The Goat That Gloated, The Taste of Turtle Tears, The Bones of Jones, and The Haggis Eater.

A collection of thirty stories inspired by the genius of the writer Italo Calvino... Paradoxical and philosophical fables; impossible cartographies and labyrinths of the mind and heart; towers that stretch across the universe; men who set sail on domestic oceans; the opinions and hopes of the sun; sentient geometries; games with gravity and planets; metafiction and wordplay; recursion and exploration; the perplexities of logic and desire. These thirty tribute stories demonstrate the whimsical inventiveness and originality of an author who has won considerable acclaim for his speculative fiction.

Love can't be bottled but it might arrive in a bottle... Love is a game like chess but with smiles, winks, laughs and kisses for pieces... Love is a problem. Is there a solution? Cult author Rhys Hughes answers this question and resolves all the paradoxes in his new novelette. Join the woman who has no need for romance and the sailor from another age as they simultaneously attempt to accept and avoid the designs of destiny.

It may come as no surprise that France wants to take over the world again. But this time they plan to go much further and gain control of the spiritual dimensions too, making French the official language of the Afterlife! Twisthorn Bellow is a freshly baked golem who has fallen into a vat of nitro-glycerine, turning him into a living stick of dynamite. As well as battling against monsters and rock musicians, he's the only thing that can preserve and protect the glorious British Empire and prevent the Frenchification of the entire cosmos. But considering the French have all the best ideas and tunes, he doesn't stand a souffle in Hell's chance!

A collection of weird tales, monstrous fantasies and ghostly novelettes, some of them inspired by H. P. Lovecraft but cross-pollinated with Jorge Luis Borges and William Hope Hodgson. Nearly all the stories are about doomed souls who set out on journeys for which they will find reasons to regret. Includes the acclaimed novella 'The World Beyond the Stairwell'. "'The World Beyond the Stairwell' may well be the finest tribute (with love) to Hodgson ever written." - JOHN CLUTE

Tired of being given good advice in fables and parables by wise men, sages and gurus? Why not try Rhysop's Fables instead, a set of 207 unhelpful and irresponsible fables? There are no messages here telling you how best to live your life. That kind of thing is entirely up to you! The philosophy of Rhysop's Fables is that there are no answers to life because life is not a question... Join a cast of crows, clouds, aardvarks, snails, robots, foxes, dinosaurs, ghosts, pickle jars and many other beings and things in the great quest to fail to unravel the mysteries of existence! You won't regret it; and even if you do, you won't regret your regret!

Zwicky Fingers is a giant fruit bat detective who lives in the past, present and future simultaneously. He is often consulted by the police force when there are paradoxical, lateral or impossible crimes to be solved. His sticky situations are ten tricky cases, one for each finger of two hands; but hands belonging to whom? That's just one of the mysteries you may or may not encounter when you join Zwicky on this decathlon of Calvinoesque whimsies!

A collection of 123 flash fictions by a writer who has made his reputation as a devoted champion of the short story form. None of the stories in this book are longer than 999 words; most are under 500 words; some are less than 100. The very short story is a noble literary tradition and includes such renowned names as Kafka, Chekhov, O Henry, Frederic Brown, Daniil Kharms and Brian Aldiss among its greatest practitioners. Ranging the spectrum of the imagination and encompassing a diverse range of styles and moods including fantasy, science fiction, humour, irony, whimsy and satire, this collection is perfect for the contemporary reader in our modern busy world.

A book of poetry by cult author Rhys Hughes with more than seventy poems selected from the past twenty years of his writing career and divided into four approximate categories: absurdism, mystical, science fiction and lovey-dovey, followed by an afterword.

An illustrated volume of cat stories and poems by cult author Rhys Hughes written over the past two decades and collected together for the very first time. Do you want to know what happened when Pushkin came to Shovekin; or how the sausage dog Bangers the Mash helped every cat in the world; or which grey cat drank fifty cups of tea one after the other? If so, you need to read More Than a Feline...

They said it just wasn't so. But it was! Thirty stories exploring the bizarre and curiously absurd world of cult writer Rhys Hughes. Irony-Whimsy-Paradox Aliens-Mad Scientists-Monsters Living Bicycles Trumpeters in Outer Space Wordplay Robots in Lingerie That's the least of it... Herein you will discover phenomena new not only to science but also to the imagination! Roll up! Roll up! But if you can't roll, feel free to hop, prance, slither, gyrate, stride, tiptoe, slide or undulate in any style you choose!

The world has never seen an aviator quite like Stringent Strange. Half man, half ape, half badly added fraction, he can fly anything with wings and many things without. Under the mentorship of the unorthodox genius Professor Tobias Crinkle, our hairy hero soon gets much more than he bargains for when he finds himself up against a fiendish Nazi plot to invade and conquer America before the war has even begun Fortunately there exists an invention that can help him fight back against the warlike scoundrels, but the consequences of using it will propel him into even greater peril, into an alternative future where the themes and tropes of early magazine science fiction are menacingly real and coexist in perfect disharmony Into a bracing reality where the only weapons he can rely on are the three special abnormalities he was born with... Come and join Stringent Strange in a stupendous, mysterious, inventive adventure set in a far-flung time When Pulps Collide Rhys Hughes is the acclaimed cult author of 20 books and more than 600 short stories. His work has been highly praised by Michael Moorcock, Michael Bishop, Mike Mignola and possibly other Michaels too. His first book, Worming the Harpy, was published in 1995 and achieved massive critical acclaim for its inventiveness and originality. Since then he has continued to experiment with science fiction, fantasy, fables, whimsy, humour, and metafiction with increasing success. Half of him is too clever by half; the other half does what it can to normalize the total.