Rhys Hughes

For the Welsh footballer, see Rhys Hughes (footballer).

Rhys Henry Hughes
Born	1966 (age 58–59) Cardiff, Wales
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer
Nationality	Welsh
Genre	Absurdism, Fantasy, OuLiPo, Science fiction
Website
rhysaurus.blogspot.com

Rhys Henry Hughes (born 1966, Cardiff, Wales) is a Welsh fantasy writer, playwright and essayist. ^[1]

Career

Born in Cardiff, Hughes has written in a variety of forms, from short stories to novels.

His long novel Engelbrecht Again! is a sequel to Maurice Richardson's 1950 cult classic The Exploits of Engelbrecht and is the most radical of Hughes's books, making extensive use of lipograms, typographical tricks, coded passages and other OuLiPo techniques. ^[2]

His major project consisted of authoring a 1,000-story cycle of both tightly and loosely interconnected tales, a project that was completed in 2022. ^[2]

His books have had introductions and afterwords provided by Michael Moorcock, Jeff VanderMeer, A.A. Attanasio, Michael Cisco, Paul Di Filippo, John Clute, E.F. Bleiler and others.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Percolated Stars: An Astro-Caffeine Romp in Three Cups Featuring Batavus Droogstoppel Merchant and Scientist and Bourgeois Monster: One Lump or Two? (RazorBlade Press; 2003) ^[2]
• Engelbrecht Again! (Dead Letter Press; 2008; ISBN   978-0-9796335-4-6)
• Mister Gum; Or: The Possibly Phoney Profundity of Puerility (Dog Horn Publishing; 2009) ^[2]
• Twisthorn Bellow (Atomic Fez Publishing; 2010; ISBN   978-0-9811597-1-3) ^[2]
• The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange (Meteor House; 2013; ISBN   978-0-983746-13-3) ^[2]
• The Young Dictator (Pillar International Publishing; 2013; ISBN   978-0-9574598-3-0) ^[2]
• Captains Stupendous; Or, the Fantastical Family Faraway (expansion of The Coandă Effect: A Corto Maltese Adventure) (Telos Moonrise; 2014; ISBN   978-1-84583-886-7 ^[2]
• The Pilgrim's Regress (Gloomy Seahorse Press; 2014; ISBN   979-8-697441-96-1)
• Cloud Farming in Wales (Snuggly Books; 2017; ISBN   978-1-943813-36-0)
• The Honeymoon Gorillas (Bizarro Pulp Press; 2018; ISBN   978-1-947654-55-6)
• The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelm (Telos Publishing; 2023; ISBN   978-1-845832-12-4)
• Growl at the Moon (Telos Publishing; 2024; ISBN   978-1-845832-38-4)
• The Devil's Halo (Elsewhen Press; 2025; ISBN   978-1-915304-60-5)
• Trumpet Face (Incunabula Media; 2025; ISBN   978-1-300047-00-1)

Novellas

• Eyelidiad (1996) ^[3]
• Rawhead & Bloody Bones (1998) ^[4]
• Elusive Plato (1998) ^[4]
• The Crystal Cosmos (PS Publishing; December 2007; ISBN   978-1-905834-98-3)
• The Coandă Effect (Ex Occidente Press; November 2010)
• The Sticky Situations of Zwicky Fingers (Gloomy Seahorse Press; 2014; ISBN   978-1-291738-16-2)
• World Muses (Ex Occidente Press; 2017)
• Students of Myself (Elsewhen Press; 2014; ISBN   978-1-911409-69-4)
• My Rabbit's Shadow Looks Like a Hand (Eibonvale Press; 2021; ISBN   978-1-913766-05-4)
• The Ghost Loser (Gibbon Moon Books; 2022; ISBN   978-1-739797-14-0)
• Three Novellas (The Darktree Wheel, The Impossible Inferno, The Swine Taster) (Gibbon Moon Books; 2022; ISBN   978-1-739797-13-3)
• Robots in Love (Eibonvale Press; 2025; ISBN   978-1-913766-34-4)

Collections

• Worming the Harpy and Other Bitter Pills (Tartarus Press, 1995; ^[3] ISBN   978-1-872621-20-3)
• The Smell of Telescopes (Tartarus Press, 2000; ISBN   1-872621-44-9) ^[3]
• Stories from a Lost Anthology (Tartarus Press, 2002; ISBN   978-1-872621-68-5) ^[4]
• Nowhere Near Milk Wood (1997, expanded 2002) ^[4]
• Journeys Beyond Advice (2002) ^[4]
• A New Universal History of Infamy (2004): a parody of and homage to Jorge Luis Borges's collection A Universal History of Infamy . ^[4]
• The Less Lonely Planet (Humdrumming, Ltd.; May 2008; ISBN   978-1-905532-52-0)
• The Postmodern Mariner (Screaming Dreams; June 2008; ISBN   978-0-9555185-2-2)
• The Brothel Creeper (Gray Friar Press; March 2011; ISBN   978-1-906331-22-1) ^[5]
• Link Arms With Toads! (Chômu Press; May 2011; ISBN   978-1-907681-08-0)
• Tallest Stories (Eibonvale Press; January 2013; ISBN   978-1-908125-16-3)
• The Just Not So Stories (Exaggerated Press; October 2013; ISBN   978-1-291558-20-3)
• More Than a Feline (Gloomy Seahorse Press; December 2013; ISBN   978-1-291619-27-0)
• Flash in the Pantheon (Gloomy Seahorse Press; 2014; ISBN   978-1-291731-03-3)
• Rhysop's Fables (Gloomy Seahorse Press; 2014; ISBN   978-1-291738-73-5)
• Bone Idle in the Charnel House (Hippocampus Press; 2014; ISBN   978-1-61498-087-2)
• Orpheus on the Underground (Tartarus Press; 2015; ISBN   978-1-905784-71-4)
• Mirrors in the Deluge (Elsewhen Press; 2015; ISBN   978-1-908168-65-8)
• Brutal Pantomimes (Egaeus Press; 2016; ISBN   978-0-957160-69-9)
• Salty Kiss Island (Immanion Press; 2017; ISBN   978-1-907737-77-0)
• How Many Times? (Eibonvale Press; 2018; ISBN   978-1-908125-60-6)
• Crepuscularks and Phantomimes (Raphus Press; 2020)
• Weirdly Out West (Black Scat Books; 2021; ISBN   978-1-735764-61-0)
• Utopia in Trouble (Raphus Press; 2021)
• Comfy Rascals (Raphus Press;2022)
• The Senile Pagodas (Centipede Press; 2022; ISBN   978-1-61347-080-0)
• Adventures With Immortality (Oddness Books; 2023; ISBN   978-1-96021-328-0)
• The Eleventh Commandment (Recital Publishing; 2025; ISBN   979-8-988670-23-0)
• That Other Egypt (Eibonvale Press; 2025; ISBN   978-1-913766-36-8)

Poetry

• The Gloomy Seahorse (Gloomy Seahorse Press; 2014; ISBN   978-1-291715-03-3)
• Bunny Queue (ImpSpired Press; 2021; ISBN   978-1-914130-32-8)
• Robot Poems (Gibbon Moon Books; 2022; ISBN   978-1-739797-16-4)

Ebooks

• The Rhys Hughes Fantastic MEGAPACK® (Wildside Press; 2022)

References

1. "Rhys Hughes". The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
2. "Hughes, Rhys". the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
3. S. T. Joshi (2006). Icons of Horror And the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of our Worst Nightmares - Volume 1. Greenwood Press. p. 368. ISBN   0-313-33781-0.
4. John Clute (2016). Pardon This Intrusion. Orion. p. 169. ISBN   978-1-4732-1979-3.
5. Onyett, Kate (24 September 2011). "Rhys Hughes, Brothel Creeper (2011)". The Future Fire. Retrieved 21 January 2025.

External links

• The Spoons That Are My Ears!, Rhys Hughes's weblog
• Rhys Hughes, the man who laughs at goldfish, interview by Steve Redwood
• Interview at Weird Fiction Review, 7 March 2016