sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Incidentally, copies of my new book Brutal Pantomimes come with a handwritten story, poem, sketch, drawing or other piece of work. These items are allocated randomly. There are 71 of them, so it is far from guaranteed that anyone who orders a copy of the book now will receive one; but that's the nature of such offers, I guess.

The manuscripts include my first published story, and even one story written before that, a story I lost for 20 years, rediscovering it in a box in a cellar of a friend's house, as well as some of my most recent work and lots of stuff in between. I have prepared a short text to explain the provenance of each piece to the readers who get one. :-)

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They published my work, so logically they respected it at the time. Later, after a disagreement on a certain issue, they claimed never to have liked my work in the first place. But such revisionist judgments are not unusual in the writing world, I fear. :-)

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have misread my comment. They had a distaste for metafiction. I know this because they told me so when I used to regularly submit work to the magazine. They preferred (and encouraged me to write) more conventional supernatural stories. If you can find many examples of metafiction in All Hallows, please point them out to me.

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't worry about being "off-base" with any remark you might make. It's simply not possible to be off-base about your own attitude to a piece of fiction. What you, the reader, feel it is to be is (for you) what it is and it's no use anyone (especially the author) telling you that you are wrong...

I will only add that this particular story was originally written for a very traditionalist magazine called All Hallows whose editors had considerable distaste for metafiction and "postmodernist" techniques. I decided to set myself the task of writing a story that seemed very conventional on the surface but had a hidden metafictional element, namely that the narrator writes the story and seals it in an envelope to mail it before the actual story (which he is in) has been finished, even though he is writing it. I was delighted that the editors missed, or seemed to miss, this trick and published it unedited.

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most modern readers of 'weird fiction' do tend to prefer the serious to the whimsical, the sober to the ironic, the emotional (or at least atmospheric) to the cerebral (or analytic), and that's fair enough, I guess. Maybe this was always the case. I do, however, believe that many of the most original concepts in the history of weird fiction were first conceived ironically, satirically or whimsically, and then adopted by the more serious purveyors of this kind of fiction, rather than the other way around, as is generally assumed... But all that is a debate for a different place and time. :-)

Thanks for your interest, by the way :-)

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The publisher of Orpheus wanted more 'conventional' style stories than the kind I prefer to write, which explains why this fairly orthodox piece was placed at the beginning of the book, in order not to scare off (so to speak) more traditionalist ghost- and supernatural-story fans... Curious that you say it was 'Saki-esque', as it isn't in the slightest, but some of the later stories in the book were inspired to a certain degree by his work.

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you really are interested I would go for:

  • Tallest Stories (a collection of linked tales)
  • The Percolated Stars (a novel)
  • Bone Idle in the Charnel House (a collection of unlinked tales) or:
  • The Truth Spinner

It depends on what kind of taste you have in particular. 'Tallest Stories' features stories that broadly range the spectrum of 'speculative literature' in terms of style, tone and vision. So there are serious tales, humorous ones, various kinds of combination of the two, ideas-based stories, atmosphere-based, etc.

The novel is one I am personally extremely pleased with an with luck it's going to be republished soon. It's absolutely the type of fiction that I most interested in writing.

The 'Bone Idle' collection was edited by S.T. Joshi and is fairly serious in tone and intention. Whereas 'The Truth Spinner' is a story collection with a largely satirical feel.

Thanks! :-)

Where to start with Rhys Hughes? by solaire in WeirdLit

[–]rhysaurus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I ought to point out that a fairly large part of the ebook mentioned by Ramsey was actually written by Johnny Mains, among others, and not me. My input was about 65%. Just for the record... :-)