Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Taking a walk earlier today, I saw a sign that I thought said "cat valet". It actually said, "car valet". Anyway, this set in motion a train of thought that brought me to the phrase 'uncanny valet'.

"That would be a good title for a Rhys Hughes story," I thought.

Then I had the idea of coming up with a list of such titles and challenging Rhys actually to write the stories to go with them.

I've just done an internet search on "uncanny valet". I should have known it's been used:

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=uncanny+valet

Nonetheless, the exercise of challenging Rhys Hughes with a list of titles still seems to me like a fertile idea, so I will try it.

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

I can't help but think "Cat Valet" would make a good title. It could be a familiar, a werecat, or something far more clever.

Cats would make good valets. They love to bring things (usually dead), are immaculate in matters of grooming, and most importantly, have the haughty demeanor no self-respecting valet would be without.

But not all cats can make the cut:



Acquiring good help is never easy and that day was no exception. Most of the applicants were ill-tempered and arrogant brutes. Even the most perfunctory glance revealed these hopefuls were not well-fitted for such a lofty position of importance; they were far too scruffy and mercurial to be trusted with the care of the most delicate and expensive of tailored fabrics. Equally apparent, these ruffians lacked completely the eye for perfect grooming that distinguishes the noblest specimens of their tribe. I confess, nevertheless, to feeling their disdain rather piercing; as if I were the one to be interviewed, judged and condemned as“unsatisfactory.” And as they filed out, one after the other, their surly vocalizations seemed maddeningly dismissive. I was the prospective employer here! Was it asking too much to expect some small amount of respect as my due?

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Yes, a good title for Rhys. Another challenge might be to think of bad titles for him to use like 'I am HP Lovecraft's Grandson'.

Meanwhile, I have been real-time reviewing on a daily 'story'-individual basis his 123 flash fictions in 'Flash in the Pantheon' here and his 207 Rhysop's Fables here!

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

CATS!!!!!!!

Coincidentally I have recently published an illustrated book of my cat-themed stories and poems. Basically (and yes I hate the word 'basically' too) it's all the cat-themed fiction and verse that I have written over the past 20 years put together into a single volume. It's not a tome, more of a kitten.

It's $7.72 in the USA from Amazon And £4.84 from the British Amazon
Or, if you are into ebooks, you can get it for only £1.23 from
I have recently set up my own small-press. It's very small. It's me in a jumper, basically (that damned basically again!)... Gloomy Seahorse Press has so far published six of my own books (new titles but also titles that went out of print long ago). However, I have also started an imprint called Gibbon Moon which will publish other writers: forgotten masters who have gone out of print unjustly, foreign masters who haven't yet been adequately translated into English, and some new writers too...

:rolleyes:

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

My collection of stories Journeys Beyond Advice is now back in print after many years of being unavailable. First published in 2002 by Sarob Press I decided to reissue it as a paperback by my own small press. The book features two novellas, two novelettes and three short stories.

http://static.lulu.com/browse/produc...resolution=320

This collection has a more 'gothicky' flavour than most of my books and two of the stories (a novella and novelette) were directly inspired by William Hope Hodgson. The first of these got a lot of praise at the time from various critics and reviewers and was my attempt to blend the concerns of Hogdson with those of Borges.

Anyway, the book is available again, this time as a paperback. It will be available on Amazon soon but in the meantime it can only be bought from Lulu here. I did my best to keep costs down but it's a hefty book.

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

"To my mind one of the best examples of imaginative fiction to appear in England since the war is Maurice Richardson's The Exploits of Engelbrecht... These 'Chronicles of the Surrealist Sportman's Club' are superbly laconic pieces, concentrating more original invention into fewer words than almost any writer I can think of. They outshine, for me, almost anything else remotely like them, including the stories of Borges and other much admired imaginative writers." -- MICHAEL MOORCOCK

Written in the 1940s and published in the legendary magazine Lilliput, the stories of Engelbrecht the dwarf surrealist boxer were collected and published in book form in 1950 by Phoenix House. That edition didn't sell very well but it become a 'cult classic', beloved by a small number of highly enthusiastic readers. It was republished by John Conquest in 1977 in an edition that also didn't sell. And then published for a third time by Savoy Books in 2000 in a deluxe edition that sold as poorly as its two predecessors...

...except that recently there seems to have been a very belated surge of interest in Engelbrecht: the Savoy edition has gone to a second printing at last; and a French translation seems to be doing well, better than any of the English editions in fact. My own sequel to Maurice Richardson's masterpiece was one of my slowest selling books, but there also seems to be a belated surge of interest in that one too.

One person who took note of my sequel was Richardson's daughter, Celia, who got in touch with me. It occurred to me that what was needed was a low cost edition of her father's book. We discussed this idea and she gave me the rights to publish an ebook version of The Exploits of Engelbrecht under the aegis of my own Gloomy Seahorse Press. And after various delays it is finally here!


I also decided to turn my own sequel into an ebook... It can be obtained from Amazon as follows:


Formatting this one proved very tricky because it's full of unusual layouts.... Anyway, out of all my books it's the one I slaved most over and is packed with more incident than days in a millennium... You don't have to read the original to understand the sequel as it's a stand-alone novel as well.

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

My next official book is going to be The Lunar Tickle, the collected spacetime adventures of Thornton Excelsior. This book will be published by Doghorn Press, who also issued my Mister Gum novel a few years ago. Emmet Jackson, the artist who did the superb cover for The Young Dictator has excelled himself again in producing a wonderful cover, which I shall reveal soon in a future blog post.

A limited edition is also going to be made available.

This is how the limited edition works. Twenty people will be given the chance to be the main character in the book. Only twenty and no more. If you are interested, simply let me know. When I have twenty names the offer will close. I will create a version of the book in which you are the main character, then I will send you a secret link enabling you to buy that version. You will have 24 hours in which to buy the book.

You can buy more than one copy if you wish: you will the main character in all the copies you buy. But be aware that copies will cost £11.99 and there will be postage on top of that. So you might end up paying £15 in total for each copy. That's your choice. If you want to send me a photo of yourself to include in the book, please do so!

Note: I posted this on Facebook ten minutes ago and now there are 17 places left.

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

So, now I have a list for this challenge. My apologies if I have unwittingly duplicated existing Rhys Hughes titles in compiling this list. The list is as follows (I may add more later):

Greetings, Cretans
The Merchant of Venus
The Consolations of Lobotomy
Esprit D'escalator
Manatee Fair
At the Mountains of Totnes
The Beast with Five Thumbs
Jacob's Larder
Set Your Aphasia for Pun
Menarche in the UK
The Circus Minimalist
The Ripping Mr. Tantleigh
Lucy in Dubai with Sideburns
One of Our Finer Saws is Missing
I, Reboot
The Lion and the Unicycle

Re: Rhys Hughes
 

I have just seen the exciting news here that Rhys Hughes has a collection of his work - edited by S.T. Joshi - forthcoming from Hippocampus Press.