Rhys Hughes Knihy

A collection of stories introduced by a novelette that is a fusion of memoir, travelogue and speculation. 'Mombasa Madrigal' charts a modern voyage to that city of crumbling equatorial grandeur. A thoughtful, pulsating, intuitive text, it is something new in the somewhat conventionalised universe of contemporary narratives. The short stories that follow complement and amplify the impact. Outrigger canoes with crab claw sails ride the currents of the Indian Ocean into oblivion, the mountains of Kenya loom high over grounded ships miles from the sea, pirates dream impossibilities and scheme them into reality along the Swahili Coast. And always Mombasa, the gateway to East Africa, pulsing endlessly in the heat of the night.

The last in a long decadent line of piratical Spanish eccentrics, Bartleby Cadiz grows up in isolation to be as mad, bad and metaphysical as his ancestors. But he feels there is something different about him. What can it be? At last the doubloon drops. He is a lesbian trapped in a man's body! This realization starts him off on a grotesque voyage of discovery full of ironic transformations, implausible insights and bizarre betrayals, as he quests for true love in a world where friendship is only a theory. But not until an arcane giraffe lures him to a disastrous alchemical redemption will the questions about the farcical nightmare that is his existence find the answers they require...

The title, Existence is Elsewhen, paraphrases the last sentence of André Breton's 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism, perfectly summing up the intent behind this anthology of stories from a wonderful collection of authors. Different worlds... different times. It's what Elsewhen Press has been about since we launched our first title in 2011. Here, we present twenty science fiction stories for you to enjoy. We are delighted that headlining this collection is the fantastic John Gribbin, with stories from fourteen of our existing authors including Rhys Hughes, Christopher G. Nuttall and Douglas Thompson, along with five new authors.