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Rhys Hughes

Goodreads Author


Born
in The United Kingdom
Website

Twitter

Genre

Influences
Italo Calvino, Boris Vian, Stanislaw Lem, Flann O'Brien, Donald Barthe ...more

Member Since
May 2008


A writer of Speculative Fiction who uses fantasy and comedy to explore unusual concepts. Known for his original ideas, intricate plots, love of paradox, and entertaining wordplay.

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Popular Answered Questions

Rhys Hughes I never get writer's block. If I ever had writer's block I would regard it as a message to stop writing and go and do something else. I hope that this…moreI never get writer's block. If I ever had writer's block I would regard it as a message to stop writing and go and do something else. I hope that this will always be the case.(less)
Average rating: 3.92 · 4,623 ratings · 879 reviews · 343 distinct worksSimilar authors
A New Universal History of ...

by
4.01 avg rating — 77 ratings — published 2004 — 10 editions
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The Smell of Telescopes

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4.24 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 2000 — 3 editions
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Nowhere Near Milkwood

4.21 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 2002 — 2 editions
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Cloud Farming in Wales

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 28 ratings — published 2017 — 2 editions
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The Postmodern Mariner

4.12 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2008 — 5 editions
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Worming the Harpy and Other...

4.42 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1995 — 4 editions
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Yule Do Nicely

3.30 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 2017 — 6 editions
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Link Arms with Toads!

4.33 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions
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The Astral Disruptor (Sampi...

4.10 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2010 — 5 editions
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The Phantom Festival

4.05 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2011 — 3 editions
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My Blog

My blog can be found here:
The Spoons That Are My Ears
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Published on February 18, 2009 02:02
The Postmodern Mariner The Truth Spinner
(2 books)
by
4.14 avg rating — 35 ratings

The Astral Disruptor The Polo Match
(2 books)
by
4.13 avg rating — 31 ratings

The Abnormalities of String... The Further Fangs of Suet P...
(2 books)
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings

Triple Obscura #1
(2 books)
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings

The Adventures of Hogwash a... The Black Dog of Zero The Original Copycats The Affairs of Don Entrerrosca Abridged Too Far The Tyrant Craft Welsh Ghost Stories
(25 books)
by
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating

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Rhys’s Recent Updates

Rhys rated a book it was amazing
The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov
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My mission to read (or reread) all of Nabokov's novels continues. He wrote seventeen novels in total. I have now read seven.

When I was younger and first discovered him, I read ten of them and then for some reason stopped (perhaps intimidated by the d
...more
Rhys rated a book really liked it
In Hazard by Richard Hughes
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I was surprised at how good this was. I don't know why I should be surprised. I guess because of the fact that Joseph Conrad's 'Typhoon' is one of my favourite novellas of all time, and when I saw that this book was telling a similar story I felt it ...more
Rhys rated a book really liked it
Myths of the Near Future by J.G. Ballard
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Ballard at his best is one of the best short-story writers I have ever encountered. At his best, he tends to stick to the same formula: but this works for him. His finest stories are almost entirely driven by imagery expressed in highly controlled la ...more
Rhys rated a book really liked it
The Man from London by Georges Simenon
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Simenon is nearly always good. I have read maybe 90 of his books so far and only 4 or 5 were weak. Generally speaking, he is masterful, the kind of writer I regard as a 'real' writer (I can explain what I mean in greater detail, if you really want me ...more
Rhys rated a book it was amazing
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
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I read the Penguin Modern Classics paperback, not the kindle edition, but I can't find that particular paperback on Goodreads.

Anyway... Astounding!

A couple of days ago I hiked from Aberdyfi to Machynlleth over the hills, a fairly stiff 6 hour trek, a
...more
Rhys rated a book it was amazing
Mary by Vladimir Nabokov
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This was Nabokov's first novel and perhaps his weakest, but it's still a Nabokov, so how can I rate it under five stars? It's still a good novel. It evokes a Russia long gone, a Berlin also long gone. At an early age, Nabokov was already handling iro ...more
Rhys rated a book it was amazing
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
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It's a Nabokov novel, so of course it's brilliant, and it is one of the best Nabokovs too, or at least one of his most accessible... I know someone who once said, "When I am reading Nabokov I wonder why I bother reading anyone else." An extreme state ...more
Rhys rated a book liked it
The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck
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I love Steinbeck but this isn't one of his better books. It was written in the late 1950s and yet it somehow feels more dated than work he published in the 1930s and 1940s. The first third of the novel might have been written by Paul Gallico at his w ...more
Rhys rated a book really liked it
Lord Of The Flies / Pincher Martin / Rites Of Passage by William Golding
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I read The Lord of the Flies and Rites of Passage some years ago. But I hadn't read Pincher Martin and now, thanks to this volume, I have.

It's a tremendous novel and my own take is that it's a time dilation story, like Ambrose Bierce's 'An Occurrence
...more
Rhys rated a book it was ok
Paratime by H. Beam Piper
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Um, no, not really.

There are some good ideas here, specifically one good idea: that an advanced parallel Earth has exhausted its resources and must become a parasite in order to survive, exploiting lesser Earths for their resources. This conceit coul
...more
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Quotes by Rhys Hughes  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“During the siege of Panama, he trailed behind his comrades, picking up shreds of purple wool which had once been blue. The fighting was incredibly vicious, but there was a deeper quality to the havoc, an ineffable wiping of belief. Though he wore his name like a sealed pocket, it was picked when he passed into the Cup of Gold, city of burnished lips.”
Rhys Hughes, The Smell of Telescopes

“The next stop is mine. You’d better follow.” “The stop belongs to the railway, but I know what you mean.”
Rhys Hughes, The Smell of Telescopes

“Clearly the world wasn’t as natural as we had always assumed. Someone or something had designed it, a joker perhaps, or if geology really was responsible, then blind physical forces had no less a sense of humour than the gods, which is not implausible.”
Rhys Hughes, Thirty Tributes to Calvino

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics posts views last activity  
Welsh Literature: Rhys Hughes 2 22 Feb 01, 2009 05:34PM  
The Next Best Boo...: Hi from Oregon 8 32 Feb 09, 2009 03:55PM  
40k Book Club: Astral Disruption 1 4 Nov 24, 2010 05:26AM  
Atomic Fez Publis...: An interview with Rhys Hughes, author of Twisthorn Bellow 3 17 Dec 02, 2010 08:56AM  
40k Book Club: Paul Di Filippo: The Complete Interview (Part 2) 1 9 Dec 06, 2010 11:52AM  
40k Book Club: #amWriting: Rhys Hughes interviews Bruce Sterling [October, 4, 2010] 1 7 May 24, 2012 07:30AM  
SciFi and Fantasy...: Short Story Recommendations? 31 106 Jun 03, 2012 05:35AM  
Language & Grammar : Title Trek 560 244 Mar 19, 2014 07:52AM  
Literary Horror: Year's Best Weird Fiction edited by Simon Strantzas 23 33 Oct 25, 2016 04:48PM  
Horror Aficionados : Track the short fiction you read in 2017 31 263 Jan 03, 2018 11:05AM  
“Laugh if you will... They laughed at all great ideas and inventions. They laughed at nitrous oxide.”
John Sladek

95923 Feeding the Kindle Addiction . . . with HOT FREEBIES! — 3931 members — last activity 2 hours, 16 min ago
Our Group has tons of Freebies that will give our credit cards a much needed break while also helping clear out the monstrous TBR piles we have accu ...more
208497 Friends of Snuggly Books — 217 members — last activity Aug 13, 2026 04:46AM
Snuggly Books publishes the best of experimental and Decadent fiction from the past, present, and perhaps even future...translations of classic works ...more
51445 UK Amazon Kindle Forum — 6713 members — last activity Sep 07, 2026 12:55AM
Where every hour is happy hour.
13920 Rhys Hughes Fans — 28 members — last activity Feb 28, 2026 04:22AM
fans of absurdist Welsh fiction writer, Rhys Hughes
10882 Welsh Literature — 158 members — last activity Apr 13, 2026 03:44AM
A group for anyone interested in modern Welsh literature.
1195771 Free Fantasy Stories and Poems — 5 members — last activity Nov 14, 2022 12:17AM
A group devoted to free fantasy stories and poems online. Authors who have published work with online journals can provide links to those journals.
9318 Latino and Latin American Literature — 1340 members — last activity Feb 11, 2026 07:42AM
Best Writings of The Americas
36508 40k Book Club — 659 members — last activity Feb 23, 2021 09:27AM
40k is a digital publishing house, focused in short stories, novelettes and novellas (science fiction and fantasy) and essays that you can read in abo ...more
26674 The Italo Calvino Appreciation Society — 138 members — last activity Apr 04, 2026 01:18AM
The one and only group dedicated to the greatest Italian writer to have graced this fine earth.
4225 American Westerns — 705 members — last activity May 31, 2026 04:37AM
The American Westerns group provides a forum for the appreciation and discussion of classic and current fiction of the Old West.
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