Brutal Pantomimes
"Rhys Hughes’ imagination is out of hand. His writing is not an exercise in a domesticated imagination; his art is a liberation of the imagination. This does not, as it turns out, result in formless, self-indulgently gelatinous non-stories at all; Hughes is an artist, which means he has the skill to work with a bounding imagination that travels like lightning."
- Michael Cisco; from his introduction
Brutal Pantomimes contains ten tales of absurd exoticism, weird adventure and wild fantasy from the shockingly prolific and highly acclaimed Rhys Hughes. Most of the stories, novellettes and novella included have not previously been published and some are regarded by their author to be amongst his best works... Enjoy pirate shenanigans, a globe of the Earth that is a voodoo doll, the dubious gifts of a Greek god, impossible angles, improbable sciences, impractical philosophies, a rare tropical yeti in a submarine and so much more. Featuring an introduction by Michael Cisco.
The full table of contents is as follows:
- Rhys Hughes’ Fiction is the Vaccine by Michael Cisco
- The Jam of Hypnos
- The Private Pirates Club
- Corsets on the Outside
- Wise Man
- The Inflatable Stadium
- The Eeriness that Lurks on the Far Side of Furniture
- The Knees of Kionga
- Shipyards on Saturn
- How Gangrene was my Sally
- The Impossible Inferno
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Rhys Hughes
Rhys Henry Hughes (born 1966) is a Welsh writer and essayist.
Born in Cardiff, Hughes is a prolific short story writer with an eclectic mix of influences, which include Italo Calvino, Milorad Pavić, Jorge Luis Borges, Stanisław Lem, Flann O'Brien, Felipe Alfau, Donald Barthelme and Jack Vance. Much of his work is of a humorously eccentric bent, often parodies and pastiches with surreal and absurdist overtones, although he is by no means limited to any of these forms and has proven to be extremely versatile. He has been published in Postscripts among many other places.

