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Link Arms with Toads!
Self-reflective mirrors looking for their own reflections. Towns that migrate to the moon. Prisoners of elaborate dungeons and gigantic miniature solar systems. Robots, ghosts, rascals, explorers, troubadours, apemen and yetis. All are present in the multiverse of inversion and invention that is Link Arms with Toads! Rhys Hughes is a unique figure in contemporary fiction whose speculative whimsicality is not so much balanced as trampolined by tensile prose and puckish pensiveness. Link Arms with Toads! forms the ideal introduction to his work.
286 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 18, 2011
4 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Rhys Hughes
335 books323 followersA 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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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 15, 2021
This is one amazing book. As Rhys himself has said elsewhere, this book is the perfect introduction to the breadth of his fiction. I shall now read its Afterword entitled ‘Romanti-Cynicism’ for the first time, but I do not review non-fiction. So here I end the review, while hoping for my own replication (or perception) as the handsome troubadour I truly am.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
Did Not Finish
September 29, 2022I think I mostly just wasn't in the right mood for this kind of book. But I was totally indifferent to every story I read, and since I got it through an interlibrary loan, I will probably never pick it up again.
November 27, 2025
3.5* A short story collection/sampler that spans from 1994 to 2010, with the most recent definitely being the best. Recommended if you enjoy absurdist science fiction littered with puns.
May 7, 2011
Where Words Dare Not Go
Rhys Hughes possesses on of the most richly imaginative minds of any contemporary writer. His ability to create stories that at firs appear grounded in realism only to explode into fantasy is matched only by his own creations where surrealism is written to be read as fact, as the development of a cast of characters and an idea are so completely credible that his eventual hints or injections of reality take the reader totally by surprise. But while many writers are able to delve into the interstices of fantasy fiction and populate their pages with created names of people and places that eventually tire the reader, Hughes instead remains the articulate wordsmith: no matter the story, the quality of writing is so fine that simply turning each page is a pleasure for the mind.
Hughes has mastered the art of recapitulation - finding a theme and then playing it out in repeated incidences until the final page delivers an unexpected rally. For instance, in '333 and a Third' a man searches for a room in a city no longer providing housing opportunities, finds a tiny space (a cupboard under a stairs) and moves in with the address being 333 and a third. Cramped and disillusioned he discovers a hole and then an Alice in Wonderland tunnel which leads him to another city with, yes the same problem and the same solution, etc etc - until he ultimately discovers he is in a hospital and faces undertakers with a space problem - a similarly confined 1/3 of a coffin. Or simply follow the well-oiled confusion of 'Hell Toupée' - the vary title of which should alert the reader of the hell to pay that will follow.
Reading Rhys Hughes is a leisurely process: one feel's that reading with too much speed the goodies may slip away unnoticed. He challenges our wit, our ability to imagine, our intellect and our table of entertainment. He is a complete pleasure.
Grady Harp
Rhys Hughes possesses on of the most richly imaginative minds of any contemporary writer. His ability to create stories that at firs appear grounded in realism only to explode into fantasy is matched only by his own creations where surrealism is written to be read as fact, as the development of a cast of characters and an idea are so completely credible that his eventual hints or injections of reality take the reader totally by surprise. But while many writers are able to delve into the interstices of fantasy fiction and populate their pages with created names of people and places that eventually tire the reader, Hughes instead remains the articulate wordsmith: no matter the story, the quality of writing is so fine that simply turning each page is a pleasure for the mind.
Hughes has mastered the art of recapitulation - finding a theme and then playing it out in repeated incidences until the final page delivers an unexpected rally. For instance, in '333 and a Third' a man searches for a room in a city no longer providing housing opportunities, finds a tiny space (a cupboard under a stairs) and moves in with the address being 333 and a third. Cramped and disillusioned he discovers a hole and then an Alice in Wonderland tunnel which leads him to another city with, yes the same problem and the same solution, etc etc - until he ultimately discovers he is in a hospital and faces undertakers with a space problem - a similarly confined 1/3 of a coffin. Or simply follow the well-oiled confusion of 'Hell Toupée' - the vary title of which should alert the reader of the hell to pay that will follow.
Reading Rhys Hughes is a leisurely process: one feel's that reading with too much speed the goodies may slip away unnoticed. He challenges our wit, our ability to imagine, our intellect and our table of entertainment. He is a complete pleasure.
Grady Harp
March 18, 2013
4 1/2 stars. Some of the stories are better than others, but the best stories in this collection are incredible (my favorites were probably "Pity the Pendulum" and "The Candid Slyness of Scurrility Forepaws"). Apparently this author is working on a giant collection of interconnected stories (he's aiming for 1,000!), and this book is just a sampling. As an introduction to this authors I have to say I am thoroughly impressed.
Hughes reminds me a lot of Steve Ayelett, another British author who expertly crafts moody sentences full of peculiar language. With some collections of short stories you never quite know what the next story is going to be like, so the variety keeps things interesting. With Rhys Hughes, you never quite know what the next sentence is going to be like, and the experience is always exciting.
Hughes reminds me a lot of Steve Ayelett, another British author who expertly crafts moody sentences full of peculiar language. With some collections of short stories you never quite know what the next story is going to be like, so the variety keeps things interesting. With Rhys Hughes, you never quite know what the next sentence is going to be like, and the experience is always exciting.
January 8, 2013
An intriguing collection. These stories are rascally and always a bit surprising, like someone who picks your pocket wearing a three-cornered hat. My favorite here is "Pity the Pendulum," an amazing expansion of the setting and back story of Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum", which is Gothic and meta-Gothic at the same time.
May 14, 2012
Crazy stuff but tons of fun.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews