Progressive rock musicians in trouble in a strange land.
"Progressive rock musicians. Where do they go after they die? They go to Hell, that’s where, to a corner reserved just for them. I know this for sure because I was a prog rock musician, then I died and began the long slide down to Hell, where I am now. What happened was that the instant after my death, a flight of steps appeared in the ground, a spiral staircase without a visible base, but it had a bannister running alongside it, and I had a sudden urge to straddle that bannister and corkscrew to the bottom, and that’s what I did and thus I reached Hell, where I still am."
"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. 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
"If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.’ — SAMUEL R. DELANY
"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
Genre: Fantasy
"Progressive rock musicians. Where do they go after they die? They go to Hell, that’s where, to a corner reserved just for them. I know this for sure because I was a prog rock musician, then I died and began the long slide down to Hell, where I am now. What happened was that the instant after my death, a flight of steps appeared in the ground, a spiral staircase without a visible base, but it had a bannister running alongside it, and I had a sudden urge to straddle that bannister and corkscrew to the bottom, and that’s what I did and thus I reached Hell, where I still am."
"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. 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
"If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.’ — SAMUEL R. DELANY
"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
Genre: Fantasy
Used availability for Rhys Hughes's Return to Zenda