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The Postmodern Mariner by Rhys Hughes
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Essential reading for fans of Rhys' work ...
Embark on a truely amazing journey through the pages
of this book and the impossible creative mind of its author!

— Book Description
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Click for larger view

Cover artwork by Steve Upham

ISBN : 978-0-9555185-2-2
Paperback : 216x138mm : 160pp

Due to be published June 2008

A book of implausible adventures featuring absurdities, anachronisms, exaggerations, outrageous puns, pirates, mythological beings, giant cups of tea and the occasional metafictional trick.

Part One: Castor Jenkins, the Münchhausen of Porthcawl

  • Castor on Troubled Waters
  • Canis Raver
  • The Plucked Plant
  • When Wales Played Asgård
  • Interstellar Domestic
  • The Cream-Jest of Unset Custard
  • The Day the Town of Porthcawl was Accidentally Twinned with the Capital of the Cheese and Biscuits Empire

Part Two: Piper at the Fates of Ooze

  • The Lip Service

Part Three: The Postmodern Mariner in Person

  • Rommel Cobra’s Swimming Carnival

Extract from the book :

I spent a long time searching for the Tavern of the Long Lost Sea. None of my correspondents could tell me where it was and they only knew of it through hearsay. I found it at last in the middle of a desert, as far away from any port as a sailor might ever wish to be, and I staggered inside and ordered a beer. Then I asked if there were any messages for me.

There were three. Three corked bottles of green glass!

The third simply said: "Har! har! har!"

Download 1st story (10 pages) : ThePostmodernMariner.pdf : 131kb

— About The Author
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Rhys Hughes is one of the most prolific and successful authors in Wales, although his work has rarely been available in his own country. His earliest publications were chess problems and mathematical puzzles for newspapers.

His first short story was published in 1992 and since then he has embarked on a project that involves writing exactly one thousand linked 'items' of fiction, including novels, to form a gigantic story cycle. Many of these individual items have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies around the world and his books are currently being translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian and Greek.

Be sure to check out his blog on a regular basis : rhysaurus.blogspot.com

"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet's literature... As well as being drunk on language and wild imagery, he is also sober on the essentials of thought. He has something of Mervyn Peake's glorious invention, something of John Cowper Powys's contemplative, almost disdainful existentialism, a sensuality, a relish, an addiction to the delicious. He's as tricky as his own characters... He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef's sardonic confections, certainly not in English." — Michael Moorcock

"It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists." — Jeff Vandermeer

"Rhys Hughes is an accomplished player with words, plots, effects, relationships, sensibilities; you name it, Hughes tries to stand it on its head. More often than seems attributable to mere chance, he succeeds." — Ed Bryant, Locus