Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Today is the very last day you can order a signed limited-edition copy of my new novel STRINGENT STRANGE. After today you will never be able to get one, not at the current price at any rate. This edition is limited to less than 100 copies.

When the limited-edition is sold out, there will be a trade paperback, but that won't be as collectable, obviously...

For information on how to obtain on, please visit the publisher's website here:

METEOR HOUSE

Thanks!

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Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Long story, but I'll make it short. A couple of years ago a fake "publisher" by the name of Neil Jackson scammed me (and other writers) by commissioning chapbooks and ebooks from us, which he sold at a profit without passing any money back to his authors. Often he took the money from readers but never delivered an actual product. He pocketed the money and ran...

Anyway, the ebook I created for him was called Better the Devil and it sold quite well, but I received nothing at all. So I've finally decided to issue my own revised edition of the same ebook. Here it is; and this time every cent and penny goes to me, apart from the big percentage that goes to Smashwords and the other big percentage that goes in taxes... but hey, at least I get something!

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100,000 words of fiction for $2.99 and a fabulous cover by the excellent Gonzalo Canedo... You can download it by clicking on this link to take you to the relevant Smashwords webpage. Thanks!

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

At long last my novel The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange has been published! After lots of delays it's finally here. The first print run is a signed limited edition of 88 copies. The tarde paperback will follow fairly soon.

Just thought I would take the liberty of announcing this news!

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It feels good to get this one out of the way at last!

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Enquiries about this book should be made to the publisher, Meteor House. Thanks!

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Yesterday I received a parcel from Amazon containing a remarkable book, namely a comprehensive anthology of OuLiPo writing from the 1960s to the present... Edited by Harry Matthews (one of the only English speaking members of OuLiPo) this anthology is packed full of cerebral delights that for the most part are inspiring and amusing.

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One of the reasons I was attracted to the literature of the 'weird' in the first place is because it promised unfettered imagination and genuine originality; subsequently I was disappointed. Most 'weird' fiction is derivative, bland and conceptually timid. OuLiPo successfully achieves what the weird fails to do and for my money it is the most inventive 'movement' to appear in Literature and the work produced by OuLiPo writers is the most original, unexpected and genuinely imaginative that I have ever encountered...

For instance, one of the works included in the Compendium is One Hundred Thousand Billion Poems by Raymond Queneau. The title is no exaggeration. There really are 100,000,000,000,000 poems here, all of them coherent and different, but you have to cut each multi-function line of the ten sonnets into strips to get access to all the permutations... This conceit is an example of the sort of formal brilliance that never seems to occur to genre writers and is why I have a reluctance to describe myself as a genre writer.

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

This is why I have been long wedded to the 'avant garde' as well as to genre fiction.
They can make a great blend. Interesting in the light of what I said about your story 'Story With A Clever Title' here: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/.../#comment-6011

That looks like a great book, Rhys. Thanks.

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

My new book is now available for general consumption. The Just Not So Stories features no less than 30 of my most absurdist-flavoured tales, including some of my personal favourites such as 'The Leveller of Neptune', 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People', 'Message to Rosita', 'My Crow Nation', 'The Blue Jewel Fruit' and 'The Sun Trap'.

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This collection is dedicated to Nebula Award winner Michael Bishop because the final story in the book was one he graciously consented to contribute to. 'My Own Worse Anemone' is partly set in the Land of Oz and partly in our world; and Michael is a character who gets to speak dialogue he wrote himself. It's always a joy when an author as renowned as he is shows himself willing to involve himself in such playful experiments!


The Just Not So Stories is published by The Exaggerated Press (a relatively new British small-press) and can be purchased here for the sum of £7.99, making it one of my cheapest ever books!

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

My new novel The Young Dictator is coming soon...

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...in the next few days, in fact!

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

I so admire your prolificness Rhys! If I had but a fraction of your motivation and creativity...

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Thanks. But I think it's just practice really.
When I started writing many years ago I struggled to come up with ideas for stories, but the more I worked at it the easier it became.
Now it has gone to the other extreme and I get ideas flooding my mind even if I don't want them!
These ideas insist on being used up in stories, otherwise they won't leave me in peace. And those stories insist on being put into books.

I think that the part of my brain associated with inventing story ideas has grown bigger or there are more synapse connections in it now... and that's just the result of practice.
So there's no mystery involved.
I couldn't have written a book like The Young Dictator when I started writing.
Now I can hardly avoid writing it!

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!!

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