The Devil's Halo
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– from the Foreword by A.A. ATTANASIO
In death, as in life, paperwork is hell. The paperwork for the recently deceased Monty Zubris needs to be examined and deliberated upon. So, meanwhile, the Devil has consigned him to the Waiting Room of the Afterlife. It is ordered alphabetically, so he is compelled to make his way to his designated zone, which is, of course, near the very end of the chamber. On this voyage of enormous length, he meets various dead individuals, many of whom wish to tell him their remarkable stories.
A light comedy, a picaresque journey – like a warped subterranean Pilgrim’s Progress.
“Only Rhys Hughes could have written The Devil’s Halo!”
– IAN WATSON, European SF Society Grand Master 2024.
“For many years, I have regarded each new book from Rhys Hughes as continuing proof that the universe is a marvelous, exciting and creative place. His work brightens my days, lightens my burdens, and convinces me that I am in the presence of a font of exuberant inventiveness. THE DEVIL’S HALO is no exception, and might very well be in the Hughes Top Five. All the myriad tales of Hell from Dante onward have never charted any territory as gaily bizarre and humanly affecting as this book unveils. As Monty Zubris traverses the ten-million-mile length of Hell’s Waiting Room, the reader is treated to posthumous wonders akin to those in Philip Jose Farmer’s RIVERWORLD books. If Anatole France, Voltaire, James Branch Cabell and C. S. Lewis had been born in the year 2000, and come of age amidst our twenty-first-century chaos, they might have collaborated to produce an existential odyssey half as wild and unruly as this one. Somewhere in Hell’s Waiting Room, Robert Sheckley and William Tenn are reading this book and splitting their sides with rueful laughter.”
– PAUL DI FILIPPO, author of Vangie’s Ghosts
Cover design and artwork by Alison Buck
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Rhys Hughes began writing from an early age. His first book, Worming the Harpy, was published in 1995 by Tartarus Press, and since then he has published more than fifty other books, and his fiction has been translated into twelve languages. His work encompasses genres as diverse as fantasy, gothic, experimental, science fiction, magic realism, comedy, absurdism, thrillers and westerns, and he is known for his invention, imagination and wordplay. He recently completed an ambitious project that involved writing exactly one thousand linked short stories. He also writes plays, poems and articles.
