In This Poem

In This Poem (2024)

Gibbon Moon Books

75 poems, none previously published. Concerned with such topics as mythical beasts, robots, ghosts, gods, dilemmas, metaphysics, trousers, bridges, haircuts, paradoxes, windows, journeys, brackets, pretzels, dinosaurs, thunder, duels, bears, kangaroos and dozens of other objects, ordeals and ideas. Always entertaining and offbeat. Regarded by the author as his best poetry collection to date.

"I would call him an indubitable modern sentence master." — SAMUEL DELANY

"Like Kafka with a brighter sense of humour.” — A.A. ATTANASIO

"Wit and whimsy and word-relish, high spirits and bittersweet twists." — IAN WATSON

Around the World in Eighty Ways

Around the World in Eighty Ways (2024)

Gibbon Moon Books

There are many ways of circling the world. It doesn't matter how many days it takes to return to your starting point. What's more important is the method you choose and the style you adopt. Here are eighty different ways of circumnavigating the globe. They are speculations rather than suggestions, implausible or impossible, often lethal but gleeful.

"It's a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.” — JEFF VANDERMEER

Dabbler in Drabbles #3

Dabbler in Drabbles #3 (2024)

Gibbon Moon Books

The third volume of the Dabbler in Drabbles project, a four volume extravaganza. There will be one-thousand drabbles in total. The first book features 100 of them, the second features 200, and this new book features 300.

The collections will be published as soon as they are ready, and after the fourth has been released, an omnibus will be prepared that will contain all the drabbles.

This new book is available in paperback and ebook editions.

"A drabble is a flash fiction that is exactly one hundred words long. And here we have a cyclops who is writing them and telling them to his friend, a centaur. Three hundred drabbles. The stories are miniature adventures, comedies and tragedies, tales of space and time, accounts of voyages and discoveries, many of them ironic or paradoxical, some of them featuring robots and monsters and ghosts."

The Sunset Suite

The Sunset Suite (2024)

Gibbon Moon Books

A weird Western.

"Coffee around a camp fire. But every cup tastes like a story. And so the two cowboys, Thorn and Brand, exchange tall tales as they drink. And they will keep telling stories until the pot is empty.

They will relate implausible and incredible accounts of outlaws, pioneers, visionaries, musicians, lawmen, warriors, ghosts, mountain men, dreamers and hellfire preachers.

They will gradually and inevitably turn into stories themselves as they sit beneath the bristlecone pine tree..."

A novella that consists of 26 flash fictions that gradually become more fantastical as the night wears on.

Dabbler in Drabbles #2

Dabbler in Drabbles #2 (2024)

Gibbon Moon Books

The second volume of the Dabbler in Drabbles project, a four volume extravaganza. There will be one-thousand drabbles in total. The first book features 100 of them, and this new book features 200.

The collections will be published as soon as they are ready, and after the fourth has been released, an omnibus will be prepared that will contain all the drabbles. 

This book is available in paperback and ebook editions.

"A drabble is a flash fiction that is exactly one hundred words long. And here we have a cyclops who is writing them and telling them to his friend, a centaur. Two hundred drabbles. The stories are miniature adventures, comedies and tragedies, tales of space and time, accounts of voyages and discoveries, many of them ironic or paradoxical, some of them featuring robots and monsters and ghosts. And this is the second volume of four..."

Dabbler in Drabbles #1

Dabbler in Drabbles #1 (2024)

Gibbon Moon Books

The first volume of a four volume project. Dabbler With Drabbles will consist of exactly one-thousand drabbles. The project has been divided into four parts.

The first volume contains 100 drabbles; the second volume will contain 200; the third volume 300; and the fourth and final volume 400. That's one-thousand in total but every volume will be of a different length. After the last volume is published there will be a large omnibus edition.

"A drabble is a flash fiction that is exactly one hundred words long. And here we have a cyclops who is writing them and telling them to his friend, a centaur. One hundred drabbles. The stories are miniature adventures, comedies and tragedies, tales of space and time, accounts of voyages and discoveries, many of them ironic or paradoxical, some of them featuring robots and monsters and ghosts, but each one compressed into an easily-digested snack for the mind. And this is the first volume of four..."

The Graphologist and Other Stories

The Graphologist and Other Stories (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

"Ghosts, puppets, and demonic coincidences. Forbidding symmetries and paradoxes of perdition. A quartet of tales that will throb like tiny troubled brains inside your expanded mind."

"Hughes’ world is a magical one, and his language is the most magical thing of all.” — T.E.D. KLEIN

"A dazzling disintegration of the reality principle. A rite of passage to the greater world beyond common sense. Raises the bar on profundity and sets a comic standard for the tragic limits of our human experience. Like Beckett on nitrous oxide. Like Kafka with a brighter sense of humour.” — A.A. ATTANASIO

Contents:

The Tipping Point * The Puppet Show * The Filtered Ones * The Graphologist

My Little Glib Book of Flippant Fairy Tales

My Little Glib Book of Flippant Fairy Tales (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

Fairy Tales. Also fables, parables, flash fictions, routines, conceits and rambunctiously inflated flapdoodles. Inventive whimsy, excessive exploits, absurd adventures and paradoxical picaresques.

Contents:

Suttee And Sweep * Multicoloured Leaves In Bright Spirals * When Pushkin Came To Shovekin * The Condemned Man * The Ugliest Idol In Christendom * Snake Belts * Boiling Water * Sic Semper Tyrannis * The Tea Party * A Worn Road * Not A Patch * Travels With My Antinomy * The Tongue * The Anvil Cloud * The Apple Of My Sky * The Taste Of Turtle Tears * The Improbable Velocipede * Blocking The Flue * The Explorer's Porters * The Insincerity Club * The Tea Factory * The Martian Monocles * Unicorn On The Cob * The Musical Universe * Train Of Thought * The Deaf Sailor * The World Within * A Deep Breath * Counting Sheep * My Swiss Neighbour * The Midair Meeting * Trombonhomie * Someone Told Me * Moonchaser * The Square Circle * Canute A Little * Rhino Cop * Poor Visibility * Alone With A Longwinded Soul * Collection Of Tails * Zucchini Overdrive * Musicians In The Cold * Que Pena! * How Don Cosquillas Earned His Name * Description Of A Liar * The Tools * The Shortest Month * Mad March Stylist * The Reversed Comma * Inside The Minotaur * The Integers * The Shrug * The Burning Ears * Note To Oneself * Said The Spook * Read All About It * Putting Things Off * Sweet Talk * Chiron At Suppertime

My Big Glib Book of Flippant Fairy Tales

My Big Glib Book of Flippant Fairy Tales (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

Flippant Fairy Tales. Also fables, parables, flash fictions, routines, conceits and rambunctiously inflated flapdoodles. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of inventive whimsy, excessive exploits, absurd adventures and paradoxical picaresques.

Contents:

Sinbad's Ear * The Fairy And The Dinosaur * The Dungeon * Zumbooruk * The Post Office * Nookie Nocking * A Quick Drink * Diplomatic Immunity * The Spanish Cyclops * He Was Mighty * The Days Of The Turbans * The Cowardly Custard Apple * The Desiccated Sage * The Moon And The Well * The Thinnest Warrior * Pinocchio's Brother * Humbaba * Two Fat Men In A Very Thin Country * The Six Sentinels * But It Pours * Knight On A Bear Mountain * A Word In Your Shell-Like * The Caravan * Below The Carnival * Something Fishy * The Sea Indoors * Climbing The Tallest Tree In The World * Every Single Day * Pirates Of The Carob Bean * The Oceans * My Nose * Where Everyone Wins * The Stuffed Goddess * The Shy Desperadoes * Ocean Of Words * Walking The Wrong Plank * The Prodigal Beard * Sending Freedom Far Away * The Impregnable Fortress * His Unstable Shape * The Tallest Midget * Fable With Turkish Coffee * The Kissable Climes * My Index Finger * Siddhartha * Waiting For Breakfast * Simple Physics * Fabulists Of Failure * The Palace * Likeable Mouse * The God Of Thunder * The Dog-Eared Gods * Islands In The Bathtub * The Juggler * Daedalus * The Coffee Drinker * Pressed Flowers * How Cold Is It? * Dr Jekyll * Hogwash And Bum Note * The Slipper Exchange * Apeman Dilemma * Bending The Knee * Curtains * Hassan-I-Sabbah * The Non-Existent Viscount In The Trees * The Memory Palace * The Time Tunnel Orchid * Starfish Wish * When The Microscopic Giants Took Over Happenstance * The Mirror In The Looking Glass * Zeno Said * The Expanding Room * The Path Of Garden Forks * A Gorgon Reversed * Unsung Space Monster * Venus And Stupid * The Soft Landing * Bathtime For Moons * The Hippy Beach * Milk And Ladders * The Knees * Von Ryan's Daughter's Express * The Bungle Duke * Najort Esroh * The New Knight * Sorites Speculation * A Cosmic Fox * The Truth Is Out There * Vampires In Space * The Sleeping Bag * King Midas * Point X * The West Pole * Bangers The Mash * Net Profit * Defending Oneself * Silky Salathiel * Fringes And Bangs * Monsieur Choux * The Rowing Machine * Market Forces * A Real Nowhere Man * The Mouth Of Hell * The Strings Of Segovia * Paired Down * French Toast * The Target * The Bailiff * The Curtains * Napoleon * Little People, Inc. * Stand And Deliver * The Caveman * Fox In Socks * A Glass Of Wine * Trophy Wife * The Goat That Gloated * Above His Station * The Parable Of The Homeless Fable * The Plug * The Queue * Silly Goose * Chins * The Skeleton * Your Arm In Mine * Fossils * Sheer Lunar Sea * My Bearable Smugness * An Unusual Bat * Evolution * The Rock Pool * The Tarnished Rule * Too Many Characters * Beyond Paraparapara * The Pig Iron Mouse Dooms The Moon * Fat Cat Fable * The Optimistic Hypochondriac * Two Buddhists * The Discus Thrower * Worse Than His Bite * Seeker After Wisdom * The Motherlode * On The Threshold * Bookmark * Educated Shapes * Kafka's Birthday * Soup Of Fools * The Lucky Black Cat * Three Wise Men * Trojan Horse * Be The Change * The City That Was Itself * The Labyrinth * Universe Tower * Vampires! * More Vampires! * Antimatter Pasta * The Pancake Hurler * The Sundial * The Long Ward * The Bomb Scare * The Mice Will Play * Hagouth Town * The Melon Seller * The Dusky Birron Returns * The Flying Fish * The Magical Eye * A Lot On His Platypus * Ship Of Ghouls * Sexing The Confection * Gone With The Wind In The Willows * The Backwards Aladdin * The Iron Age * Lady, Tiger And Protozoon * Cats' Eyes * The Siege * And Follow Me * Her Face Was Flushed * The Dark Horse * Virgil Leading Dante Into Hell Takes A Wrong Turning * The Precious Mundanity * Invisible Letters * Divided Island * Love Keys * Perpetual Motion * The Library * The Underwater Trapeze * Old Eros * Washing Our Hands * Ajax * In Moonville * In Sunsetville * In Eclipseville * Cat O' Nine Tales * Eggs * In My Own Hands * Daggers * Velocity Of A Kiss * When I Discovered Laziness * Fables From Farout Stables * Solomon * Fifty Cups Of Lady Grey * Veronica Lake * Get A Room * Ariadne * The Landscape Player * The End Of The Road * Penal Colony * The Plate Pagoda * The Chopsy Moggy * The Silver Necks * Anton Arctic And The Conquest Of The Scottish Pole * The Thinnest Book In The World * Oranges And The Arrows * Certain Books * The Man Toucan * Don Quixote * The Octopus And The Clock * The Giant Woman * The Sculptors * Fable Of The Flames * The Stone Collector * The Tired Bed * The Lazy Dictator * The Tattoo * The Dice And The Coins * The Illuminations * The Cigar * The Doubles * Weather Patterns * The Explorers * The Wandering Pole * Listening To Leonora * The Windmill * The Colonel's Head * The Pyramid Museum * Mystic Optometrist * Russian Doll * The Wooden Salesman * Arms Against A Sea * Curtains For You * The Chocolate Princess * My Beetroot Brow * The Two Kingdoms * The Hidden Sixpence * How To Wake Up * The Glowing Review * The Atheist Dog * Seven League Boots * Noah's Ark * The Book Pages * Plate Armour * Something More Comfortable * The Seal Of Disapproval * The Casual Comment * Flash In The Pantheon * Chaucer * Small Freedom * Scaffolding * Whirlwind Romance * The Vicious Circle * The Matchmaker * The Blanket Ban * Doom Laden Haven * The Metaphorical Marriage * The Locksmith * Owls Are A Hoot * The Snail Path * Gorgon But Not Forgotten * The Sink Monster * Stale Air * Better The Devil * The Fire Jump * The Holiday Makers * Tarzan In India * Potato Soup * The Infringement * Duke Electron * The Sea Thief * The Stairway Zoo * The Mushroom Cloud * All Your Belongings * The Ledge Nymphs * Geronimo * The Achilles Tendency * Down In The Park * The Cakes Of Gehenna * Double Atlas * The Dirtiest Ararat * A Corking Tale * All The Waiting * The Wrong Lamp * The Strongest Monster * The Opposite Of Moons * Sun Soup * The Unfair Funfair * The Meltwater Republic * Into The Wild * The Bubble Bursts * The Realisation Of Vast Headgear * When Clowns Collide * Cooking Soup On A Burning House * Sinbad Is Glad * Head Office * Shoe Stones * The Parrot * On The Hour * X Marks The Spot * The Speech Bubble * The Reverse Oasis * Bringing It Back * The Wall Builders

The Golden Fleas

The Golden Fleas (2023)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

"The Golden Fleas contains previously uncollected work that is among my earliest surviving fiction. In fact, this new book has been created primarily for those select few readers who have expressed a wish to read all my stories. When I recently examined the contents of my published collections to date I noted that many of the stories I wrote between the years 1989 and 1995 don't appear in any of my books. These stories are cruder than my later fictions, true, but I do believe they have some value..."

Contents:

Interview with the City Treasurer * Circular Reasoning * The World Idiot * Stepping Out * Lucy * The Cellar Door * Landing * Time Lapse * On the Deck * Learning to Fly * Be Like You * Something About a Demon * The Landscape Player * Seven Fables of Yearning * Mr Found in a Bottle * The Queen of Jazz * Dr Perambulator Wants to Marry an Aubergine * The Sealed Room * The New Men * Three Dancers * The Octopus Jar * Walpurgis * Celia the Impaler * The Wardrobe Tree * The Big Lick * Mastitis Groan * The Laughing Policeman in the Foreign Legion * A College Story * Learning to Fall * The Swiss Family Abacus * A Horse Called Man * The King and Eye * The Golden Fleas

Adventures With Immortality

Adventures With Immortality (2023)

Oddness
 

A collection of linked philosophical fantasy stories. Available from Barnes and Noble and elsewhere as a hardback and filled with art by Mike Dubisch.

"In this thought-provoking collection, Rhys Hughes unveils eleven mesmerizing narratives that delve deep into the recesses of eternal life, unraveling the enigmatic threads of the immortal psyche.Every story is a riveting exploration, from the intricate dance of living countless lives to the elusive pursuit of nirvana's enlightenment and even the gravity-defying plunge into the abyss of a black hole."

Contents:

The Planet of Perfect Happiness * Vile Bodhisattva * Identity * Less is More * Misanthropy * The Telescope * A Certain Ratio * The Joyless Eternities of Josiah Juddering * Who is the Giant? * In That Room * The One

The Coffee Rubaiyat

The Coffee Rubaiyat (2023)

Alien Buddha Press

"Settle into the enchanting rhythm of this coffee-themed adaptation of the classic Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as each stanza awakens the senses with witty, humorous, and thought-provoking reflections on the joys and quirks of coffee culture.

The Coffee Rubaiyat embraces the essence of morning awakenings, midday pick-me-ups, and contemplative sips, all while exploring the comical and heartwarming encounters that revolve around this beloved brew.

This collection celebrates the endless nuances and pleasures that coffee brings. Coffee lovers, literature enthusiasts, and anyone with a penchant for the art of the bean will relish in the fusion of two worlds – the timeless verses of Omar Khayyam and the contemporary charm of Rhys Hughes.

A delightful literary adventure that will leave you yearning for another sip."

Aardvarks: Earth Pig Poetry

Aardvarks: Earth Pig Poetry (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

"Poems in which aardvarks feature to a greater or lesser extent. The poetry of Rhys Hughes has been compared to that of Spike Milligan, Ogden Nash, Ivor Cutler and Richard Brautigan."

There's an aardvark

on my uncle's shoulder

and he's waiting

for my aunt.

He is a type of aunt-eater,

that creature with a long

sticky tongue.

And so is the aardvark.

I wondered if I had written enough poems about aardvarks to issue a book of aardvark-themed poetry. I went through all my poems to see if this was true. Turns out it nearly was (I had to write a few more to make up the shortfall). Anyway, I put the collection together and here it is...

Lovecraft's Chin

Lovecraft's Chin (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

A slim volume of humorous poems about the man himself, focussing mainly on his chin and his pantheon. If Edward Lear and Ogden Nash had met Cthulhu (and lived to tell the tale) they might have written about the encounter in a way not too dissimilar to this.

ON A RAFT

Lovecraft on a raft,

a sight

to make you shudder.

He lacks

the strength to pull the oars

but his chin

makes an excellent rudder.

Poems also about Clark Ashton Smith, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, M.R. James and others. 

The Jazz Hands Pterodactyl

The Jazz Hands Pterodactyl (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

THE LITERARY DINOSAUR

The dinosaur who wants

to be a writer

is working on a new book.

He recently ate

a gang of Hells Angels.

He is happy

when he has just finished

a new chapter.

"The poetry of Rhys Hughes has been compared to that of Spike Milligan, Ogden Nash, Ivor Cutler and Richard Brautigan."

Starfish Wish

Starfish Wish (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

"Once upon a time there was a book, a collection of modern fairy tales and fables, and this book lived in the uncharted regions of availability. It featured 27 stories, and each one of those stories was a prisoner of the book. The book was rather like a dragon in this regard and the stories were like damsels in distress. The book guarded the stories jealously but no knight ever came to rescue them. Until now. Yes, the reader is the true knight and the act of reading is the method by which the stories can be set free. The stories will escape from the book into the head of the reader where they will be free to enjoy life. You are the reader, the hero of this adventure. Unsheathe your eyes and prepare to do battle!"

Contents:

Sinbad's Ear * The Cowardly Custard Apple * The Thinnest Warrior * The Sea Indoors * Where Everyone Wins * Walking the Wrong Plank * The Prodigal Beard * Fable with Turkish Coffee * The Dog-Eared Gods * Starfish Wish * The Mirror in the Looking Glass * Silky Salathuel * The Tongue * The Taste of Turtle Tears * The Thinnest Book in the World * Worse Than his Bite * The Melon Seller * Market Forces * The Backwards Aladdin * The Iron Age * The Underwater Trapeze * The Chopsy Moggy * The Giant Woman * Curtains for You * Double Atlas * The Wrong Lamp * Bringing it Back

Flunkey Monkey

Flunkey Monkey (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

Poems that monkey around. Poems that would swing from trees and eat bananas if they had limbs and mouths. Poems that are cheeky and a little mischievous. Poems that are rather hairy. Poems that see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, but see, hear and speak lots of absurdity. Poems that use simian similes and monkey metaphors. Monkey-poems.

I crushed grapes with my mighty fists

like an angry ape

and waited for the juice to ferment.

Samson sent

his girlfriend to instruct me to do that

and it’s a mystery

still to me. Wine, wine, wine, Delilah?

Pastel Whimsies

Pastel Whimsies (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

A concise collection of whimsical stories about ghosts, monsters, mythical heroes, giants, talking cats and pots of custard, divided into four sections: crime, fantasy, science fiction, horror.

Of the twelve short-stories in the collection, ten have never before been published.

Contents:

The Smoothness of Belo Custardo * A Dame Abroad * The Caveman Detective * The Pastel Whimsy * The Chopsy Moggy * Memory Gongs * The Library *What Makes it Go * Sadie Lorelei's Chatter * Crack Hill * Feepy as Cruck * The Critics

Note: The story entitled 'The Library' is a flash fiction that I plan to extend into a full length story and is therefore not yet a part of my official bibliography.

The Knight of Whatever

The Knight of Whatever (2023)

Gibbon Moon Books

Poetry. A chapbook for chaps. Also for chaperones and cheeky chimpanzees. Poems suitable for knights at night and dames in the daylight. Or vice versa. Verses about vice and virtue. Lyrical investigations into the nature of aardvarks, gibbons, and yetis. Ditties about funky ducks and landscapes made of cake.

In other words, poetry suitable for all ages but especially suitable for unsuitable ages. The very young, the very old and the very daft will probably understand.

And even if they don't, the Knight of Whatever will just shrug...

The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm

The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm (2023)

Telos Publishing

"Writer, explorer, inventor, fantastist … join Perceval Pitthelm as he takes you on a journey in the township of Kionga, self-propelled on a pair of massive, mechanical kangaroo legs.

His stories may be wild, but his adventures are even wilder. In a riot of imagination and literary sleight of hand, Rhys Hughes presents an old-style adventure set in East Africa, Brazil and the Sahara Desert."

Contents:

The Knees of Kionga * The Buying and Selling of Bittersweet Longing * The Singing Sands Have Lost Their Voice * Mr Pitthelm's Books

The Mermaid Variations

The Mermaid Variations (2022)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

These three stories were written between the years 2002 and 2005 and first published in Portuguese in 2007 by Livros de Areia in a book entitled A Sereia de Curitiba.

First publication in English in print form came when they appeared in my short story collection, Salty Kiss Island, a large volume published in 2017 by Storm Constantine’s Immanion Press.

But it seemed to me that it would be nice for the miniature trilogy to appear in print without the stories being complicated by other tales tangential to them. That explains the existence of this slim book.

Contents:

The Mermaid of Curitiba * Lovespoons in Peril * The Lunar Tritons

Tiny Arrows

Tiny Arrows (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

Microfictions and Nanofictions.

A slim collection of mostly new flash fiction. Includes a dozen illustrations by artist David Bowman. The conceit is that each microfiction or nanofiction is a tiny arrow shot from the bow of a mythical archer.

EXAMPLE: 'THE FLASH'

     The flash fiction writer went out into the storm.
     “I need some inspiration,” he said.
     The lightning bolt turned him into ashes.
     That’ll do,” he whispered, and the index finger of his ghost began scrawling a story on the damp ground with the carbon of his death.

Yee-Haw

Yee-Haw (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

YEE-HAW is a collection of poems, mutant campfire songs, short plays and other small prose pieces, a 'Weird Western' and companion volume to the collection WEIRDLY OUT WEST, published last year by Black Scat Books.

It is priced very low, only $3.99 for the paperback edition and 99 cents for the ebook, because this is very much an offbeat project and not a commercial venture at all.

(Dedicated to Maithreyi Karnoor, Michael Moorcock and Kinky Friedman.)

"The West has always been the place where the sun sets best, and when it has slipped over the horizon it is time for the embers of the campfire and the blushing cheeks of the long riders to take over the rosy glow duties. And around this campfire songs must be sung and poems recited and tales should be told. The Honky Tonk Squonk, the Ghost Riders, the Biscuit Kid, the Robot Hobo, the Purple Sage, and many others. Then, and only then, will it be time for coffee, beans and dreams, and yee-haws that turn into snores."

Five Hundred Mini-Sagas

Five Hundred Mini-Sagas (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

A mini-saga is a complete story with a beginning, middle and ending but done in exactly 50 words. The form was invented by Brian Aldiss in the 1980s and has since become one of the most popular and significant microfiction formats. FIVE HUNDRED MINI-SAGAS presents no fewer than five hundred of these flash fictions, most in prose but some in verse, and the result is a remarkable collection full of unusual and original ideas.

“Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef’s sardonic confections, certainly not in English.” — MICHAEL MOORCOCK

“If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.” — SAMUEL R. DELANY

The Senile Pagodas

The Senile Pagodas (2022)

Centipede Press

"When a fictitious book title crosses from the realm of fantasy to reality, it becomes a work destined to break the mold and stake its place in the annals of literature. And in The Senile Pagodas, Rhys Hughes reimagines what it is to break that mold. It’s a book whose name may have been plucked from a Borges/Casares collaboration but standing on the shoulders of giants has its perks. And this book is evidence of that. This collection of twenty-one stories (seventeen published here for the first time) acts as an homage to the authors who informed and shaped Hughes’ writing, ranging from Kafka to Hawthorne to Moorcock to Bulgakov. It’s a “who’s who” of literary heavyweights that Hughes honors through his wildly inventive brand of magical realism, which will spark your imagination in the same way his influences have done for him.

Never averse to a densely packed framework, “Nightmare Alley” and “The Apocryphal Wonder” showcase Hughes’ innate sense for story layering. The former features a traveling bookseller whose escape from an alley is always fleeting. That is, until he finds the customer he was always searching for. And the latter is an ingenious story within a story distorting the line between fact and fiction. Preach a fabrication long enough and what does it become? “Abomination with Rice” and “The Bannister” include two remarkable and mystifying dilemmas that complement the work of weird fiction’s towering titans: Lovecraft and Hodgson. If you don’t see the connections at first, just look to the sea and the sky for what’s lurking just out of frame.

The silly and absurd can be found in “Knights that Go Bump into Things” where there’s proof that not all knighthood results in gallantry. At least, not without bumps in the road or a knight’s noggin. Similarly, “Poe Pie” is a comical but bizarre depiction of hunger as imprisonment in which you may think twice before entering Café Poe again. Others such as the Calvino tribute, “City of Blinks,” can be seen as laconic parables. This one centers around a concentric city with tiered levels and a king who watches from above. It’s a seemingly perfect hierarchy, but even a king blinks and an eye can only see what’s in view — for revolution may only be a blink away.

And “Lem’s Last Book” is an apropos tale demonstrating the physical prowess of a book, one whose presence can absorb the words of other books. When set between two it can create a hybrid of sorts. Though, the jury is still out on what it can produce when lying between two people. What The Senile Pagodas offers is a cornucopia of fantastika fiction that reads as though it could have been written yesterday or a hundred years ago. It’s where Hughes channels a variety of perspectives and avenues to further announce his appreciation for mischievous misadventure while also paying tribute to the lords and masters of the written word. But it also serves as the ultimate “thank you” note from one of the supreme authorities of modern imaginative expression in short story form.

Profusely illustrated with full page author photographs, the edition is 300 numbered copies (with a multitude of facsimile signatures) and 100 unsigned copies."

Contents:

Nightmare Alley * Poe Pie * The Apocryphal Wonder * Abomination with Rice * Knights That Go Bump Into Things * The Decibel Circus * The Antediluvian Uncle * The Lake of Flavours * The Messiah of the Mannequins * The Hemisemidemiurge * Gauntlet of Gorgons * Lem's Last Book * Final Demand * The Rhondda Rendezvous * The Pollinators * Transmigrating the Bishop * City of Blinks * The Bannister * The Darkest White * The Baker Street Cimmerian * For the Sake of Saké

Comfy Rascals

Comfy Rascals (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

Many rascals are too tense to be comfortable. Real life rascals have much to worry about. But rascals in fiction can afford to relax a little in the waves of prose that surround them, gently swirling on the wit and wisdom, bobbing on the contrivance, floating on the syntax. It is nice to be a comfy rascal.

"Each of these stories is a shimmering whimsical fleck which not only satisfies in and of itself but, taken with its compatriots, builds an image of life and language that is pure play and discovery. Like Kafka's parables, if Kafka's sense of humor was less dark and had more puns." — BRIAN EVENSON

“If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.” — SAMUEL R. DELANY

Robot Poems

Robot Poems (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

A collection of long and short poems about robots, androids, cyborgs and other assorted cybernetic beings. Includes a mini-epic, 'The Mime of the Android Stammerer'.

 Some of the poems here concern themselves with competent robots, our future overlords, but most are about robots that have been wired wrongly or who aren't sapient at all. A few are even powered by clockwork.

Robots can be very amusing as well as instructive. They can be terrifying too. These robots tend to be comical, absurdist, whimsical creations, but not always. The earliest poems in this book (from the early 1990s) tend to be more serious; the later ones tend to be more humorous.

Whitman sang the body electric; now the electric bodies wish to sing back. And so they have...

Three Novellas

Three Novellas (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

A collection of three acclaimed novellas, long out of print.

THE DARKTREE WHEEL
THE IMPOSSIBLE INFERNO
THE SWINE TASTER

"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef’s sardonic confections, certainly not in English.” — MICHAEL MOORCOCK

“If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.” — SAMUEL R. DELANY

“It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.” — JEFF VANDERMEER

The Ghost Loser

The Ghost Loser (2022)

Gibbon Moon Books

Clumsy Carnacki desperately wants to be an occult detective. He is the incompetent son of the great Thomas Carnacki and hopes to follow in his father's footsteps, but he keeps getting everything wrong.

His blunders often lead him into situations that would defeat a better man but somehow Clumsy always muddles through. Until the day he bites off more ectoplasm than he can plausibly chew...

These stories of Clumsy Carnacki are both a genuine tribute to the original tales of William Hope Hodgson and an ironic variation on them in postmodern mode. 

Contents:

The Ghastly Club Foot * The Vampiric Tramp * The School for High Fliers * In His Footsteps * The Stork Reality

The World Beyond the Stairwell

The World Beyond the Stairwell (2002)

Gibbon Moon Books

"'The World Beyond the Stairwell' may well be the finest tribute (with love) to Hodgson ever written." — John Clute.

First published twenty years ago as part of a limited edition hardback collection from Sarob Press, the novella THE WORLD BEYOND THE STAIRWELL is finally available as a standalone paperback and ebook. It is simultaneously a tribute to Hodgson and Borges, with a bit of Lovercraft thrown in for good/bad measure.

"Enter the weird and original world of Rhys Hughes, an eerie nightmare place of monsters, demons, devils and other strange horrors. If you haven’t read anything by this author previously, then get ready for a truly terrific helter-skelter ride of the imagination." — Jeff VanderMeer.

Get a Room!

Get a Room! (2002)

Gibbon Moon Books

A slim book of poems about the thwarted passions of implausible and even impossible lovers who nonetheless manage to get it together thanks to some timely and snappy advice. Star-crossed, moon-spangled, kiss-splattered romantics should rejoice!

"A wonderfully stylish writer. I would call him an indubitable modern sentence master.“ - Samuel R. Delany

"Rhys Hughes puts a big red rubber nose on language." - Maithreyi Karnoor

Mathematical Ghost Stories

Mathematical Ghost Stories (2022)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Litterature Pontentielle) is a perennial workshop of experimental fiction that was founded by Raymond Queneau and Francois le Lionnais in 1960. Its members attempt to create original fictions using mathematical and logical constraints that are arbitrary but rigorously applied.

Some OuLiPo constraints are complicated, some are simple. For these ghost stories a simple constraint has been chosen. Five of M.R. James’ stories (the more obscure ones) have been taken and sequels written for them. Each sequel is exactly the same length as the original and has an identical structure, which means it has the same number of paragraphs, the same number of sentences in each paragraph, the same number of words in every sentence, and all the punctuation marks are in exactly the same places.

Contents:

Before Dawn in the Playing Fields * The Animus of Objective Mammals * A Vinaigrette * Voles * The Hypothesis

Omnibus #Two

Omnibus #Two (2021)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

Four Books in One. THE YOUNG DICTATOR. TWISTHORN BELLOW. THE ABNORMALITIES OF STRINGENT STRANGE. THE FURTHER FANGS OF SUET PUDDING.

"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet's literature... As well as being drunk on language and wild imagery, he is also sober on the essentials of thought. He has something of Mervyn Peake's glorious invention, something of John Cowper Powys's contemplative, almost disdainful existentialism, a sensuality, a relish, an addiction to the delicious." — Michael Moorcock

“It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.” — Jeff VanderMeer

“If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.” — Samuel R Delany

My Little Halloween Book

My Little Halloween Book (2021)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

Four horror stories that are perfect for Halloween and just as good at any other time of year.

This is a slim pocket-sized book featuring stories of the macabre, in turns diabolical, kafkaesque, and grotesquely absurd. All of the stories are recent. Two have been previously published, the other two have not.

Contents:

Between the Circles * Are You Being Severed? * Hungry Mouths * The Utterly Conventional Abode on the Perfectly Normal Hill

The Seven Deadly Sinbads

The Seven Deadly Sinbads (2021)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

New adventures of the famous sailor.

Sinbad visits strange islands, dips beneath the sea to meet mermaids, is shipwrecked and rescued and shipwrecked again, finds a message in a bottle that tells a most remarkable story and ends up performing in a very unusual music festival.

He has learned wisdom over the years and wraps legends around himself like a cloak.

"The wages of sin are death, they say, but we sin every day, and Sinbad earns his salary anyway, on seven salty seas."

Contents:

False Dawn of Parrots * The Missing Ink * The Seven Deadly Sinbads * Sinbad's Ear * The Geometry of Prayer * The Upside-Down Story * The Little Ironies * The Dusky Birron Returns * The Gala of Implausible Songs

Cthulhu Wants You!

Cthulhu Wants You! (2021)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

A collection of short stories inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft.

These stories are not parodies or pastiches but darkly ironic fantasies that connect with the Mythos at a tangent. Open-minded devotees of Lovecraft may find amusement in the offbeat ideas, paradoxical plots, whimsical language and strange originality of these tales.

But whether you know what you want or not, be assured of one thing: Cthulhu wants you!

Contents:

Bridge Over Troubled Blood * A Languid Elagabalus of the Tombs * * The Crab * The Itchy Skin of Creepy Aplomb * The Lollipop God is Dead * Abomination with Rice * The Cream-Jest of Unset Custard * Sigma Octantis * The Bicycle-Centaur * How Gangrene was my Sally * The Sauce of the Guile * On the Other Hand

Utopia in Trouble

Utopia in Trouble (2021)

Raphus Press

"Some time ago, we set ourselves a goal, an objective, an ideal: to publish an epic poem in the parameters of Rhys Hughes, not Homer. It would be a Rhysariad. And after Mombasa Madrigal (and other African Escapades), Arms Against a Sea (And Other Troubles), Crepuscularks and Phantomimes, here we have Utopia in Trouble. Farce, satire and parody are usual elements in Rhys Hughes' prose, but in Utopia in Trouble they gain an almost cinematic freshness. Not only for the sincere, almost touching tribute to the great filmmaker Jacques Tati in the short story "The Playtime of Monunculus", but for the entire framework of each of the stories in this book. For Utopia, here, appears not only as the hieratic and perpetually stable project of a perfect society, but as the irresistible strangeness that only imagination and fiction can evoke, even if in a brief and dizzying instant. Utopia in Trouble, a collection with fearsome short stories by Rhys Hughes. A perfect square in format (7.87 × 7.87 in.), 90 pages, with a exclusive, painfully handcrafted Japanese binding style, designed at Raphus Press Immanent Headquarters and printed by Sol Negro. As usual, this new chapbook edition will be very scarce: only 25 copies, plus some (very few) private copies."

Contents:

The Burning Nose * The Forever Man * The Playtime of Monunculus * The Overlooked Story * The Geometry of Prayer * Other Days

Bunny Queue

Bunny Queue (2021)

ImpSpired Press

A poetry collection.

"The bunnies of imagination are seeking entry to your mind. Offbeat but timely, whimsical but wise, playful but perceptive, these quirky and mostly short poems may put you in mind of Ogden Nash, Ivor Cutler, Spike Milligan or any other absurdist poet you like, and put a smile on your face while doing so. It is sensible to be silly, profoundly so in some instances. That is the general message of this collection. The bunnies of imagination are already queuing. Will you let them in?"

“Bunny Queue serves up a long collection of short poems that are witty, whimsical, very puny, and on occasion incisive concerning the quirks in language and the human condition. If you are looking for dense, lyrical poetry you’ve come to the wrong place. For the most part shunning adjective and adverbs, Hughes writes in a clean direct voice with sensible line breaks. If you are looking for a light, entertaining read that you can open anywhere for a few good laughs and more, welcome aboard.”

- Bruce Boston, Bram Stoker Award Winner, author of Gallimaufry

"A wonderfully stylish writer. I would call him an indubitable modern sentence master.“

- Samuel R. Delany, Author of Dhalgren

"Rhys Hughes puts a big red rubber nose on language."

- Maithreyi Karnoor, Author of Sylvia

My Rabbit's Shadow Looks Like a Hand

My Rabbit's Shadow Looks Like a Hand (2021)
Eibonvale Books

An experimental novella utilising many effects, including parallel columns and text grids, stories within stories and more, all combined into a unique and cohesive whole.

The novella was partly inspired by Don Marquis and his 'Archy and Mehitabel' sequence of poems. In this novella there are twelve shadow rabbits who create twelve texts (poetry and prose mostly) that are fully contained works but also interact with each other to form a bigger story.

These twelve facets are set in a frame by another story and it turns out that this framing story is also potentially framed in a larger cosmos.

A fantasy, a comedy, a magic realist adventure and an example of OuLiPo writing.

Students of Myself

Students of Myself (2021)
Elsewhen Press

"There are few students in my class. When one considers what the subject is, this isn’t surprising. I teach myself.In other words, I impart to my students facts and fancies based on my life and ideas. It’s the least popular class in the university and I doubt it will be funded for another term. But none of that is my fault. I wanted to teach a proper discipline such as ecology, but the authorities wouldn’t let me. They insisted that I teach myself; and as a result, I do so.

The students are given an assignment. They each have to write a short piece about how I spend my free time. But this is information I’ve always kept secret. I can’t imagine how they’re expected to know anything about my private life, certainly not in detail.

Clearly I’m being spied on. Unless it’s guesswork?

I read the essays anxiously.

Yes, only some of them have got it right…"

Weirdly Out West

Weirdly Out West (2021)

Black Scat Books

A collection featuring short stories, short poems, a long narrative poem, a haiku sequence, a play, and an article on the history of the Weird Western.

"Rhys Hughes saddles up & blasts his way across the vast plains — kickin’ up trouble in this hog-wild collection of Western Weirdness. Using various forms (short stories, a play, lonesome poems — even a garsh-dang essay!), he roasts the genre & serves up some hearty, avant-garde grub — fresh as a dew-dappled Texas rose. Guns, puns, cowgirrrls & tumbleweed — what more could ya ask for?"

Contents:

Phony Express * Like a Rhino Cowboy * Short Western Poems * Fables from Farout Stables * Honky Tonk Squonk * The Gunfighters * The Narrow Path to the Far West * Tom Cabin's Uncle * For a Few Hollers More

Vampires with Fairy Wings

Vampires with Fairy Wings (2021)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

A selection of the surviving verse and prose poems of unjustly forgotten 1930s writer Victoria Plumjob. She was friends with André Breton, Salvador Dali, Chump Rumple, Edith Shriek and Roger Dammit Upstairs, and she was one of the leading lights of the Furious Ducks, an obscure avant-garde collective. Most of her work was lost in a series of bizarre accidents but enough remains to fill a slim volume (one of her poems was rescued by an owl from a burning canoe).

Victoria was a precocious child and began writing stories when she was very young. Her earliest publications were in ephemeral student magazines, few of which have successfully endured the ravages of time. The only collection of her work published in her lifetime was issued in a limited edition by Catwheel Press and is now extremely rare. Vampires with Fairy Wings is thus the first volume to feature her work for more than eighty years. It includes an excellent afterword by noted grammatical scholar Jaggery Feeley, and thanks to the efforts of historical researcher Nina Vangerow it also features photographs of Victoria published here for the very first time.

"This book strikes a valedictory note that is neither sharp nor flat but deserves to be struck anyway." -- Bernardo Puffin.

The Pilgrim's Regress

The Pilgrim's Regress (2021)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

The picaresque exploits of a knight on a bicycle... The noble and chivalrous Don Cosquillas (more informally known as Arturo Risas of Madrid) hereby invites you to partake of his adventures as he roams with his trusty sidekick Sancho Panda over Spain and across Africa and all the way to India and the back of beyond. Metafictional and ticklish, he assures you that he has your best interests at heart and if you care to accompany him through these pages you will be richly rewarded, though in what manner he is quite at a loss to specify. No matter! Here be dragons, puppet masters, and all manner of curiosities and hobgoblins.

Contents:

Zucchini Overdrive * Musicians in the Cold * ¡Qué Pena! * How Don Cosquillas Earned his Name * Description of a Liar * Rhodomontade and Piffle * The Laughable Career of the Tickle Master * Risible and Shine * Astragal and Bingbong * Sackbut and Splashes * Tarzan of the Chardonnay * Found Kidneys * Up Without Away * Sinking Fast * Salad in Dallas * My Foot Walked Off Without Me * Westward Ivanhoe! * A Stitched Dog's Tongue * Topaz Days, Emerald Nights * Spider in Slippers * Making It Up As I Go Along * The Fantastical Scholar's Chop-Logic * ¿Qué Cosas? * The Puppet Masters of Tau Ceti * The Logistics of Fictional Life

A Rhys Hughes Sampler

A Rhys Hughes Sampler (2020)

Gloomy Seahorse Press

A paperback 'sampler' of my work entitled SAMPLER because potential readers often wonder what is the best entry point to my large corpus of fiction. 48 stories, at least one a year from 1993 to 2020. All but two of these stories  ('The Chimera at Home' and 'Dogears') have been published before. Ebook edition also available and both priced low.

Contents:

The Forest Chapel Bell * In the Margins * Three Friends * The Duvet Thief * Trombonhomie * The Urban Freckle * The Purloined Liver * Madonna Park * Journey Through a Wall * Bridge Over Troubled Blood * A Girl like a Doric Column * Telegram Ma'am * The Tell-Tale Nose * The Banker of Ingolstadt * The Spanish Cyclops * The Macroscopic Teapot * Climbing the Tallest Tree in the World * Two Fat Men in a Very Thin Country * Finding the Book of Sand * Niddala * The Minotaur in Pamplona * The Candid Slyness of Scurrility Forepaws * Sending Freedom Far Away * Anton Arctic and the Conquest of the Scottish Pole * The Six Sentinels * Degrees of Separation * The Mirror in the Looking Glass * The Strings of Segovia * Loneliness * Rediffusion * The Gunfight * The Grave Demeanour * The Yeasty Rise and Half-Baked Fall of Lyndon Williams * How to Lose Friends and Alienate People * The Blue Jewel Fruit * The Pastel Whimsy * The Soft Landing * The Taste of Turtle Tears * The Prodigal Beard * The Unkissed Artist Formerly Known as Frog * No Fury * The Belly Orchard * Chopsticks * Silky Salathiel * All Your Belongings * The Partial Rapture * The Chimera at Home * Dogears

Omnibus #One

Omnibus #One (2020)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

Five Books in One.

EYELIDIAD. THE POSTMODERN MARINER, THE STICKY SITUATIONS OF ZWICKY FINGERS, THE JUST NOT SO STORIES. THE CRYSTAL COSMOS.

"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet's literature... As well as being drunk on language and wild imagery, he is also sober on the essentials of thought. He has something of Mervyn Peake's glorious invention, something of John Cowper Powys's contemplative, almost disdainful existentialism, a sensuality, a relish, an addiction to the delicious." — Michael Moorcock

“It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists.” — Jeff VanderMeer

“If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.” — Samuel R Delany

Corybantic Fulgours

Corybantic Fulgours (2020)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

"Who are the Corybantic Fulgours? They are monsters. They live in a room, a room as large as the inside of the Moon, and in this room there are all sorts of ways and means, odds and ends, curves and bends, and no one but no one can ever say what the right way from here to there is. Most monsters don't care about things like that, and the Corybantic Fulgours are made from curdled light, so they care even less. Let's open the door to that room and step inside..."

A book of verses written for monstrous doodles drawn during the summer of the pandemic year 2020.

Samples of pages and an interview about the project can be found at Borderless Journal.