I also write fiction. I started off with sci-fi (see the links further down the page), and I’ve recently slid into something that I guess is kinda urban fantasy. It’s more urban fantasy than it is anything else, anyway.
There’s more of me in it than it’s safe or wise, but that’s nothing new.
Frankie broke reality as we know it on the 31st of March, 2002. I admit it, it wasn’t the best idea they ever had, but they meant well and they didn’t really think about the potential ramifications. OK, so maybe they neglected to consider even the immediate consequences, but they were under a lot of pressure at the time. And anyway, reality was already fucked before they started messing with it. That was why they decided to try and fix it. They get it now, they are sorry about the whole thing, and they won’t do it again.
Yes, I know that Frankie says that kind of thing so often that people tune them out automatically, but it’s all true. They put it all back, anyway, and you can hardly tell the difference. If you know how to look for it, you can spot where it’s not quite as it used to be, but pretty much nobody does, so it shouldn’t really matter.
Anyway, rather than waste time apportioning blame, we should focus on dealing with the situation we’re in. There are gods afoot, after all, and you can’t trust half of those bastards.
CONTENT WARNINGS: STRONG LANGUAGE, SEXUAL CONTENT, MILD DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, SUICIDE
This is how it all started:
I went for a camping holiday with my dogs. I took some 1970s feminist sci-fi with me (Suzette Haden Elgin – I highly recommend her). Then I found some Conan Dark Horse comics in a second-hand shop, and started reading those, too. The two things somehow meshed in my head; they have a rather different take on gender issues, so they provided an interesting contrast. I was walking around with the dogs most of the time, which always helps me think. I started to wonder about how things are, and how things could be, and what that could do to different people. I thought about people I don’t know but I’d like to meet, and the more I thought about them the more I liked them and wanted to meet them. So I had to write a damn book to know what happened to them.
This is what came out:
CONTENT WARNING: Violence, Strong Language, Sexual Content. And pig rustling.
My second book came up because I always wanted to write a book about life on the circus. (Did I mention that I ran away with the circus? No? Sorry. People make a big fuss about that, and I’m not sure why. It was a fun time.)
I’m not really into writing out my diary and an astrophysicist friend of mine told me very sternly that “space cows are not optimal,” so I wrote this instead:
CONTENT WARNING: Strong Language, Violence, Sexual Violence.
Luke may be young but he’s been around. He knows exactly what he wants to do with his life: to make his loved ones proud and then to end it.
Quinn has everything she could possibly want: a supporting community, a loving home, and the best partners a person could ever wish for.
When a dubious oracle involves Luke on an even more dubious quest, he spots the perfect way out. Saving a world may not be what he’s used to doing, but martyrdom is the answer to all his prayers.
Quinn has neither the time nor the inclination for heroic endeavors. She has even less time for falling in hate with a pretentious, melodramatic, ill-mannered pretty boy.
Unfortunately, fate has made plans that lead all of their hopes astray. “Last Song” brings the cast of “Heinlein’s Finches” and “Among the Stars” crashing together. All they have to do is find a killer roaming the cosmos and save a planet from destruction. How hard could it possibly be?
CONTENT WARNING: Suicidal Ideation, Violence, Strong Language, Sexual Content.
The Community of Pax has achieved something no other society ever came close to: the eradication of violence in all its forms. Pax Citizens can look forward to happy, safe lives free of the fear of conflict – unless they fail to meet their Community’s standards, that is.
When Heaven protects herself in self-defence, she discovers the true cost of peace. This sets her off on a journey to discover what the universe has in store for those who won’t submit to authority.
“Si Vis Pacem” takes place before the events in the Heinlein’s Finches trilogy (“Heinlein’s Finches”, “Among The Stars”, and “Last Song”). If you have wondered about Asher’s scars, Dee’s psi-bilities, and Alya’s anarchic tendencies, this is your chance to find out more about them.
CONTENT WARNING: Ambient violence, institutional oppression, mild violence and sexual violence.
Here’s the Dreaded Biog:
Robin Banks finds writing in the third person intensely creepifying, so I won’t.
I was born a while ago, and these days I don’t regret it too often. A fan of peregrinations with a terrible tendency to get myself marooned, I currently dwell with an excessive number of dogs right at the end of the big cabbage field. That’s the big field with the cabbages, not the field with the big cabbages. Don’t be silly.
I enjoy road trips, dogs, guitars, and getting into scrapes. My favorite writers are Tom Robbins, Spider Robinson, and Matthew Stover, Rory Miller for non-fiction. I refuse to be landlocked, because you need to have some standards. I like Irish coffee with condensed milk in lieu of cream. You can’t help some people.
There is a rumor going around that I might in fact be a collection of raccoons hiding inside a hoodie, but that’s not been confirmed to date, possibly because I bite.
I don’t hang out here much, but if you need to get in touch, you can message me via my Facebook page.
Swimming in Deep Water 