A story about summer and its consequences.
"I love pedalling by bicycle from one place to another, and I think I prefer this mode of transport to all others, though I have a soft spot for canoes. The big banana canoe is one of my stock daydream objects. A mutant banana so large that when it is on the belly of the ocean at night, watchers on the shore point to it and cry, ‘The moon! The crescent moon is enjoying a midnight dip.’ Cycling in summer is joy. In winter it is a disaster. In winter I rarely cycle, unless it is to the coffee shop for coffee. Or very occasionally to the theatre to watch a play that isn'''t about wind and rain. I will talk about going to the theatre quite soon. In the meantime I am cycling in a shadow. I assume the shadow is that of a cloud but as I glance up, I notice that a gigantic robot is looming above me. I have cycled between his legs without knowing what I was doing."
"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: General Fiction
"I love pedalling by bicycle from one place to another, and I think I prefer this mode of transport to all others, though I have a soft spot for canoes. The big banana canoe is one of my stock daydream objects. A mutant banana so large that when it is on the belly of the ocean at night, watchers on the shore point to it and cry, ‘The moon! The crescent moon is enjoying a midnight dip.’ Cycling in summer is joy. In winter it is a disaster. In winter I rarely cycle, unless it is to the coffee shop for coffee. Or very occasionally to the theatre to watch a play that isn'''t about wind and rain. I will talk about going to the theatre quite soon. In the meantime I am cycling in a shadow. I assume the shadow is that of a cloud but as I glance up, I notice that a gigantic robot is looming above me. I have cycled between his legs without knowing what I was doing."
"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: General Fiction
Used availability for Rhys Hughes's Summer 2019