Welcome to Volume 2 of Roads Less Travelled. This time around we’ve got the amazing, unusual, gloriously inventive Rhys Hughes, with a story that has been many years in the making. In addition, there’s a marvellously conceived and executed grand-guignol of a story from rising star Susan York.
I’ve interviewed both authors, and their comments and views make absorbing reading. It’s interesting to contrast their different approaches and opinions on the art of writing and promoting.
The mix is completed with bibliographies and photographs.
Dark bleatings, my beloved tribe! Let’s just get right into this review with this – I am rarely this delighted by a book. Two very different stories, complete with wonderful interviews with the authors.
500 Eyes – by Rhys Hughes
“The main character travels around the world, visiting land after satirical land. Fucking hilarious.” – This is one of the first notes I made on this story as I was reading it. It’s absolutely bizarre, but not really in a bizarro kind of way. I felt like I was reading a story written by love-child of Terry Pratchett and Oscar Wilde. On shrooms.
The writing style and the general sassiness absolutely tickled me, as did the exploits of our protagonist, Charlton Radish. It’s actually pretty difficult to adequately describe the tone of this story, so here’s one of my favourite excerpts to give you an idea:
“Skeletons. They are terrified of skeletons, especially those that move. After all what is more horrific than a walking skeleton, grinding its bones together, fingers like white twigs extended to clutch your throat? Better to run away! And so they do, but they all have skeletons inside them and the skeletons come with them as they run. They can never get away. To give one’s own skeleton the slip is a task so tricky it borders on the impossible and so they keep running, changing direction often, jinxing and reversing and looping.”
Truly, I can’t tell you how much I wish this is the way my writing brain worked. So few people (geniuses, in my opinion) think in terms of such epic silliness. Laugh out loud funny passages and lines on pretty much every page, and right up my street. I’ve never read Rhys Hughes before but suffice to say, new favourite author unlocked!
On the Cusp of Sleep – by Susan York
After the hilarity of 500 Eyes, the next story hit hard. The second I saw the phrase ‘The Old Ones’, I was pretty excited. There are several things I love in horror but one of the top tier topics for me is old, terrifying gods. That’s probably because I’ve always wanted to write a story of this ilk, but my brain just won’t concoct beasts of this magnitude! I LOVE reading about the horror of them.
Susan York weaves a cosmic, Lovecraftian horror story in On the Cusp of Sleep that is truly the stuff of nightmares – literally. It’s about particular people who are blessed/cursed with the ability to explore portals to other worlds in their dreams. The pacing is excellent, as is the building of tension – you can feel things just starting to spiral out of control and it gets more terrifying with each page.
I think it was the sleep element that really did it for me. I’ve been a troubled sleeper for as long as I can remember, plagued with frequent bouts of insomnia, or an upside-down sort of pattern where I just can’t drop off at night, but am quite capable of a blissful 8 hours slumber throughout the day. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t come at me with a sharpened stake.
You’ll never find my crypt anyway.
The idea of sleep, for some reason, being somewhere I don’t want to go is a peculiar but recurring feeling for me, so imagining these hellscapes and these gods lurking right there in my dreams is enough to keep me downing allllllll the caffeine!
Overall, a truly excellent book, with totally different but equally brilliant stories. If you’d like to get a copy or check out the authors, the links you need are below:
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment