Books by Rhys Hughes

Rhys Hughes has never been a stranger to experimental fiction and unusual ways of constructing stories, and this mini-collection gathers some of his most far-reaching examples, placed squarely in the world of OuLiPo writing. Short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle or the workshop of potential literature, OuLiPo is a grouping of authors who fashion works based on constrained writing techniques - writing that follows rigorous and extremely precise rules concerning structure and layout etc. And here, we encounter works based on rigid numerical constraints, works in the form of grids that can be read in any direction, and a "logico-erotic tale in which the permutations of the sexual acts are based on the workings of logic gates."The intricacy of construction within these carefully defined restraints is stunning but the resulting literary world is still very much the author's own, filled with his characteristic sense of humour, the absurd and the fantastical. This is a slim but large-format book to give space for all the complex layouts, grids, structures etc. that make up these stories.

Rhys Hughes has never been a stranger to experimental fiction and unusual ways of constructing stories, and this mini-collection gathers some of his most far-reaching examples, placed squarely in the world of OuLiPo writing. Short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle or the workshop of potential literature, OuLiPo is a grouping of authors who fashion works based on constrained writing techniques - writing that follows rigorous and extremely precise rules concerning structure and layout etc. And here, we encounter works based on rigid numerical constraints, works in the form of grids that can be read in any direction, and a "logico-erotic tale in which the permutations of the sexual acts are based on the workings of logic gates."The intricacy of construction within these carefully defined restraints is stunning but the resulting literary world is still very much the author's own, filled with his characteristic sense of humour, the absurd and the fantastical. This is a slim but large-format book to give space for all the complex layouts, grids, structures etc. that make up these stories.

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.

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!

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 soufflé 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

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!

Welsh writer Rhys Hughes regards this as his favourite book, and with good reason. It is one of the funniest and most intelligent books from the lighter side of macabre writing I have ever seen. It clamours with a cast of pirates, floppy-wristed welsh bards, explorers and inventors, imps, squonks, moving public houses, M R Jamesian revenants, M R Jamesian punctuation, blueberry pies, trousers, noses, clocks, carrots . . . I cant list them all here, there isn't room. Like all the best books, this quirky and surreal collection is hard to classify, but it lies in that region where the macabre and eerie worlds of classic horror and fantasy become a basis for something else - for a dark and original sense of humour filled with unexpected cross-references, homages, satires and black comedy. What makes this collection remarkable is not just the delightfully murky and skewed tales themselves, but the complex and ingenious way they all lock together and interrelate. I was going to say 'tessellate' but if this is a tessellation then it is filled with impossible-sided polygons, non-Euclidean three-dimensional geometry, unexpurgated curves and cracks from which blueberry-scented steam emerges with a screaming hiss. But what is without doubt is that 'The Smell of Telescopes' is a magnificent book and a cornerstone of the rather oddly shaped corner of literature that it occupies. Since the first edition went out of print, the unavailability of this book has been a great crime of literature. And Eibonvale Press is, as always, dedicated to the righting of the world's more substantial wrongs.