| Author | Message | ||
     Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Yesterday my new book was published. Link Arms With Toads! is published by Chômu Press and is available from various online bookstores and elsewhere. Here's the link to the publisher's webpage devoted to it: http://chomupress.com/our-books/link-arms-with-toads/ This book is a collection of 18 tales. The earliest dates from 1994 and the most recent from 2010. Link Arms With Toads! is a showcase of the genre I foolishly invented when I was younger and it also happens to be my most representative collection (it features horror, science fiction, fantasy, metafiction, fabulism, magic realism, etc). There's going to be a prize draw too and the winner will get not only a signed copy of the book but also a poem or a story or something written especially for them in which they are the main character.  Remember folks: "Whether you are a ghost, a robot or just an apeman, you can always link arms with toads!" | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Forgot to say... Details of the prize draw can be found here: http://chomupress.com/news/introducing-the-romanti-cynical-world-of-rhys-hughes/ | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68 |
"Link Arms With Toads! is a showcase of the genre I foolishly invented when I was younger..." Do you have a name for the genre, Rhys? What are its characteristics? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Thanks Ramsey! Yes, it's called 'Romanti-Cynicism' and basically it's designed for people, like me, who are naive and sceptical at the same time. (Rather pompously, I'm afraid) the best thing I can do is post an extract from the Afterword I wrote for this book... For better or worse this should explain the point of that foolish genre in sufficient detail. If it's too long don't read it. Here goes... ************************************* Back in 1995 or 1996, flushed by the appearance of my first book and also by my own blood in my own cheeks, I made the mistake that young, bombastic, daft authors often do: I decided to invent a literary movement. I didn't attempt this just for the sake of it, but because I wanted to define more clearly the essential effect I was striving for in my fiction. In other words I planned to label myself before anyone else got the chance. As it happened I was far too slow off the mark, for I had already been branded as a writer of humorous dark fantasy! A reviewer of distinction had read many of my early stories and come to the conclusion that my work aspired to juxtapose the vision of Thomas Ligotti with that of Woody Allen. This approach was felt to be rather unwise because “horror and comedy always cancel each other out.” But my intention wasn't that at all. Horror-comedy is one thing, perhaps a worthy thing in its own way, but it's not my thing. I wasn't hoping for any kind of contrasting or portmanteau effect; I was striving for a synthesis so complete that no join might be noticed. To explain this more fully I like to fall back on a dubious analogy... It's possible to describe water as hydrogen-oxygen but this term is less useful than the one already in common parlance. Water is different from both hydrogen and oxygen, and no objective analysis of the properties of hydrogen and those of oxygen before combination can predict what the properties of water may be. There simply is no physical clue in the atoms of either element as to precisely what will happen when they are joined; we only know the result from experience. The properties of water are not predetermined by those of hydrogen and oxygen. The sum is different to, if not greater than, the parts, and has unique abilities... I wondered if what was true for physical elements might not also turn out to be true for genres... If we take a pair of unrelated genres, for instance horror and comedy, and mix them correctly, the outcome shouldn't be a chessboard of alternating squares or a salad-dressing of incompatible oil and vinegar, but a molecule, a brand new substance with properties of its own that the original elements don't have. Horror frightens; humour tickles; a perfect blend of these elements should result in a substance that doesn't scare or amuse, or at least doesn't merely do these things, but is capable of effects beyond the reach of those two atomic genres. What those effects will be is something that can only be discovered from the procedure itself. ************************************* That's the theory anyway... I wondered (and still wonder) if two of my main urges, (1) romanticism -- proper romanticism, not the kissy kissy kind but flights of the imagination) and (2) rationality (or scepticism or cynicism) could be combined into a new molecule, something that has different (maybe higher?) properties from both romanticism and cynicism... Hence: romanti-cynicism. Pretentious? Moi? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
Rhys - I bloody love that cover! I've just started writing a couple of stories that are more like articles than stories. It seems the only way they can work. The only problem is it's making my other writing problematic, stained somehow. Anyway. They say Hitler and Custer were romantics btw. Colin Wilson says it's a dangerous condition. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Tony: Borges wrote plenty of stories that are more like articles; so did Barthelme. It's a style I happen to like very much, so good luck with those! What I plan to do sometime soon is write a couple of stories in the style of fake interviews (as Calvino did with Henry Ford, Montezuma and a random Neanderthal Man); it seems an interesting avenue to explore. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
Am I able to buy a signed one straight off you? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
Rhys - the two I am doing are the most dreamlike things I've done. It certainly feels to push me into dreams more than my fiction. I fancy reviews of made-up films myself. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I find the properly judged combination of horror and comedy to be probably my favourite genre of all. There is something uniquely thrilling about the nervous or hysterical laugh when produced by fiction, cinema or TV. 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' always disturbed me to the core with its nightmare surrealism as much as it had me in fits of laughter. 'The Laurel & Hardy Murder Case' had me feeling every hair-raising second of Ollie's terror as he fled from that ghost and in helpless tears of laughter at the ridiculousness of two grown men in such a situation. In literature I find the works of Tom Sharpe [try 'The Throwback'] or Christopher Fowler to be sublimely chilling as well as embarrassingly laugh-out-loud funny in public. Rather than cancelling each other out, I say we need more comedy in horror, and vice versa, so more power to you, Rhys. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Sure, Tony, if you really want a signed one I'll be happy to oblige! But you know something? I think I must be a pervert when it comes to books because I don't actually like getting my books signed by the authors who wrote them. It feels like a violation of the purity of the object itself. Once I bought a book off an author I greatly admire and I had to fight to get it away from him before he could sign it. "Don't spoil my beautiful new book with ink marks!" I cried. He was bewildered: in his own mind it was his book. But I regarded it as mine. I understand that on this score I'm in a minority of one! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
Stevie - I agree. But I find humour the hardest thing to write. Rhys - I sort of agree. I want the signature but know what you mean precisely. Maybe sign it in a funny place? The bottom? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
How to get it, Rhys? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Well, Tony, if you like, you can email me at: rhysaurus@yahoo.co.uk with your snail-mail address and I'll post one to you. If you want any special message or anything just let me know... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
How much? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
It's officially £11. But I have Central Asian blood in me so I'm willing to haggle. Just don't tell the publisher -- or anyone else! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
I'd be very interested in a signed copy direct from you too, Rhys. I'm thoroughly enjoying The Brothel Creeper and this looks superb too! What do you want from me (and how do I get it to you) if you could do me a signed copy? In fact, do you doodle? I have a thing about signed and DOODLED books now - I've been managing to get a few unlikely people to doodle for me. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.93.209 |
£1!  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Ah! I see I've slipped sideways into the alternate reality that is eBay. I'll outbid Tony and say £1.50!  | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 49.227.26.61 |
Great to see another book, Rhys! I've got an address now so I'll send it to you, for the earlier book. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Hello Caroline! Yes I can doodle. I like doing silly little drawings and I can certainly doodle something in a book for you. If you do want one, just drop me an email at: rhysaurus@hotmail.com Obviously I'm not going to do too many of these private deals, partly because I don't have many copies of my own book, but also because it would be unfair on the publisher (who happens to be an extremely nice person as well as a superb writer in his own right). But I figure that one or two private deals is OK. Hello Ally! Yes, please email me your address at my email (above). I've saved you a copy. Publications of Toads! means that I've had five books published in the last 6 months. This makes me look incredibly prolific, but it's just a coincidence they have clustered like this; and in fact two are reprints. Anyway, I've written about them en masse here: http://mantoucan.blogspot.com/ If you visit that blogsite and scroll down to the bottom entry you can see some of my efforts at drawing: I posted my first (and so far only) self-illustrated story there! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Those are WAY better than mere doodles, Rhys - they're brilliant. I'll drop you an email shortly ... | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Thanks Caroline. I just received your email. I'll reply soon but probably not today or tomorrow as I won't have much internet access until Monday... | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I've just blogged about Toads! My blog includes details about the prize draw for this book (you get a signed copy with a handwritten story or poem in which you are the main character): http://rhysaurus.blogspot.com/ | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.153.252.217 |
Just received this book from Amazon. Looks great. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.95.150 |
It does. Bodes well for yours, Des. It must be LOVELY seeing a novel published, or a collection of shorts. I looked at an old short of mine in All Hallows the other day and felt quite a buzz, and not the usual 'why did they take this' embarrassment. I just couldn't remember writing it, just saw the story. It's odd, because you never feel you've improved. As Russell T Davies says, there's always, when writing, the hum of 'this is rubbish'. It's great to realise that, that it's common. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.145.129.232 |
I just won the prize draw apparently! Yipee! If you want detail about me for the story/poem please drop me an email at efilsgod_at_hotmail.co.uk | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.168.20.12 |
Congratulations, Weber. I'm sure Rhys will do you proud withi his inscription poem. Well, I shall Links Arms with this Thread, if not with Toads, and say that there is a similar prize draw for me to inscribe Nemonymous Night now on the same Chomu site. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.19.205 |
Chomu books look lovely. Professional. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
I bet you still haven't bought one, though.  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Huh? I haven't been told yet who won the prize draw. But I'll assume that Weber isn't trying it on... :-) Best get some information about him then (I'm assuming Weber is male) and then start work on the poem. Ye gods! I haven't written a poem for about 5 years! Some of my poems can be found online, as it happens. Most of these date back to the early 90s. Here we go: http://www.internet.is/artist/writer/Rhys%20Hughes.htm This minor 'collection' is entitled The Damnation of Chris de Burgh and contains some poems I'm really rather fond of, namely: * Nipple Song -- I actually wrote guitar music for these lyrics and played it live; * Ode to Auburnity -- a poem in praise of girls with red hair; * Cat on a Unicycle -- and why the devil not? * Goetic Looking Glass -- one of my very infrequent vampire poems; * The Fall of Rome -- six words, four homonyms, an epic in miniature! * The Knight of Whatever -- a poem about a lazy crusader... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.241.230 |
Congtulations Weber! Unlike Des I simply must link arms with toads and shall be making arrangements to do so forthwith. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Thanks John! I have a frog in my throat at this news! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.169.183.1 |
Zed - I have! I also won Des's latest. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Can I add my praise for Toads too? I've only read a handful of stories so far but I'm enjoying it immensely. Thanks, Rhys! And congrats, Weber! | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.241.230 |
I suspect a copy of this wonderful book is on the way. The massed batrachian brethren gathered outside Probert Towers are waiting with baited breath and restrained tongues for their bedtime story from the Lord of the Manor | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Thanks for that praise, folks! But you ought to be aware that you aren't reading properly from the script... Please keep to the script, OK? The script demands the following: I am persona non grata in the writing world and you are supposed to completely ignore me. But if you can't manage that, here is a list of mandatory reactions: You should: (a) Dismiss my work as merely pun-driven and/or self-indulgent and/or apolitical; (b) Deduce from the above that I therefore think too highly of myself and that I need to be 'taken down a peg or two'; (c) Harangue me with political or psychological truisms that prove how much more humane and insightful you are than I am; (d) Point out that your own work has better or similar or dissimilar ideas that cancel out my own work; (e) Continually declare your desire to champion the cause of Truth (provided it's not unpalatable Truth) with the intended implication that my work doesn't do this, honest it doesn't, truly! (f) Give me personal anecdotes that demonstrate (but not too directly) your enormous capacity for empathising, with the unspoken suggestion that your capacity in this regard is much larger than mine; (g) State vaguely that I am 'letting the side down'; (h) Return to the beginning (point (a)) I expect better from you next time! | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Weber won the prize draw and this book is now on its way to him... (It went off this morning). I included a few other gifts for him too and wrote a poem for him that's about him. If you want to see the other gifts and read the poem, you can do so by visiting my blog here: http://postmodernmariner.blogspot.com/ I thank you! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.240.77 |
That is excellent! thank you. Can't wait for it to drop thru me front door now! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.157.26.75 |
A new RTR: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/link-arms-with-toads-rhys-hughes/ | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.157.26.75 |
All Shapes Are Cretans - simply wonderful. A Rhysian masterpiece. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Thanks Des! That story was one of my many (too many?) attempts at paying homage to the great Jorge Luis Borges... It was also one of those stories I just couldn't get published anywhere in English, though I tried hard to place it... It appeared in Greek back in 2007 but this is its first English publication. |