Rohan Quine—biography, contact, publications, themes, mission, photo, categories
Rohan Quine—biography, contact, publications, themes, mission, photo, categories
(For a brief bio that can be copied and pasted, biographies of various specified wordcounts are available at the bottom of this page. For downloadable headshots, right-click any of the images below.)
Thank you for visiting.
I’m an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror. I grew up in South London, spent a couple of years in L.A. and then a decade in New York, where I ran around excitably, saying a few well-chosen words in various feature films and TV shows, such as Zoolander, Election, Oz, Third Watch, 100 Centre Street, The Last Days of Disco, The Basketball Diaries, Spin City and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (see www.rohanquine.com/those-new-york-nineties/film-tv). I’m now living back in East London, with my boyfriend and two happy free-roaming house rabbits—a white down-ears and a black up-ears.
My novel The Beasts of Electra Drive (Winner in the NYC Big Book Award 2021, and a Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018) is a prequel to the other five tales, and a good place to start. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-beasts-of-electra-drive-reviews-media for reviews by Kirkus, Bookmuse, Bending the Bookshelf and others. From Hollywood mansions to South Central motels, havoc and love are wrought across a mythic L.A., through the creations of games designer Jaymi, in a unique explosion of glamour and beauty, horror and enchantment, celebrating the magic of creativity itself.
In addition to its paperback format, my novel The Imagination Thief (a Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021) is available as an ebook that contains links to film and audio and photographic content in conjunction with the text. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-imagination-thief-reviews-media for some nice reviews in The Guardian, Bookmuse, indieBerlin and elsewhere. It’s about a web of secrets triggered by the stealing and copying of people’s imaginations and memories, the magic that can be conjured by images of people, the split between beauty and happiness, and the allure of power.
Four novellas—The Platinum Raven, The Host in the Attic, Apricot Eyes and Hallucination in Hong Kong—are published as separate ebooks, and also as a single paperback The Platinum Raven and other novellas (a Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021). See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-novellas-reviews-media for reviews of these novellas, including by Iris Murdoch, James Purdy, Lambda Book Report and New York Press. Hunting as a pack, all four delve deep into the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
All titles are also available in audiobook format and video-book format, performed by me.
Rohan 🙂
Contact links and email
Rohan Quine on Facebook
Rohan Quine’s Facebook Page
Rohan Quine on The Secret App
Rohan Quine in the British Library
Rohan Quine’s Knowledge Panel on Google, as author/actor/producer
Rohan Quine as producer of Luxe Films’ feature film Inherit the Witch
Rohan Quine’s film and TV acting, producing and writing, on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
Rohan Quine’s film and TV demo reels, on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
Rohan Quine’s headshots, on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
Rohan Quine at your local Amazon or Apple or Audible, or at Barnes & Noble
Rohan Quine at Amazon UK
Rohan Quine’s audiobooks at Spotify
Rohan Quine at Audible UK
Rohan Quine at Audible US
Rohan Quine at Apple Books
Rohan Quine at Google Play Books
Rohan Quine at Kobo
Rohan Quine at Bookshop.org
Rohan Quine at Foyles, UK
Rohan Quine at Waterstones, UK
Rohan Quine at Barnes & Noble, US
Rohan Quine at Blackwell’s, UK
Rohan Quine at Amazon Prime Video
Rohan Quine on Vimeo
Rohan Quine on YouTube
Rohan Quine as prison-queen Kiki in the cult TV drama show Oz, in the Oz TV wiki
Rohan Quine as prison-queen Kiki in the cult TV drama show Oz, in Wikipedia
Rohan Quine as prison-queen Kiki in the cult TV drama show Oz, in the “OZ Daily” blog
The Imagination Thief by Rohan Quine on Tumblr
Rohan Quine on Goodreads
Rohan Quine at ALLi
Rohan Quine on X
Rohan Quine at Books2Read
Rohan Quine on Wattpad
Rohan Quine as Winner and Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021
Rohan Quine as Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018, for The Beasts of Electra Drive
Rohan Quine at Awesome Indies—Seal of Approval for The Imagination Thief
Rohan Quine in Triskele LitFest’s filmed panel “Preserving the Unicorn”
Rohan Quine interviewed in Dan Holloway’s “eight cuts” gallery
Rohan Quine’s and Dan Holloway’s video conversation “How Authors Work with Editors”
Rohan Quine interviewed in Jane Davis’s Virtual Book Club
Rohan Quine interviewed on Howard Lovy’s blog
Rohan Quine interviewed on ALLi’s “Inspirational Indie Authors” blog
Rohan Quine in article “Books and Films—Writers Who Also Make Videos”, in indieBerlin
Rohan Quine’s literary fiction interview chez Jay Lemming
Rohan Quine’s “Undercover Soundtrack” chez Roz Morris
Rohan Quine interviewed at Whitefox
The Imagination Thief by Rohan Quine on Wattpad (mini-chapters 1-98)
The Imagination Thief by Rohan Quine on Wattpad (mini-chapters 99-120)
The Platinum Raven by Rohan Quine on Wattpad
Rohan Quine at LibraryThing
Rohan Quine at Byte the Book
Rohan Quine at BookLife
Rohan Quine at PubMatch
Rohan Quine at BookBub
Rohan Quine at Streetlib
Rohan Quine at XinXii
Rohan Quine at Smashwords
Rohan Quine on LinkedIn
Google Photos album “Those New York ’Nineties – film & TV & video stills”
Google Photos album “THE BEASTS OF ELECTRA DRIVE (novel) – mini-chapter titles”
Google Photos album “THE IMAGINATION THIEF (novel) – mini-chapter titles”
Google Photos album “THE IMAGINATION THIEF (novel) – images”
Google Photos album “THE PLATINUM RAVEN (novella) – chapter titles”
Google Photos album “THE HOST IN THE ATTIC (novella) – chapter titles”
Google Photos album “APRICOT EYES (novella) – chapter titles”
Google Photos album “HALLUCINATION IN HONG KONG (novella) – chapter titles”
Google Photos album “Synopses, characters etc., for novels and novellas”
Summary of categories/genres
Literary Fiction with a touch of Magical Realism and a dusting of Horror, celebrating the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
Straplines and links for the titles, and order of reading
These six tales share what is probably the same cast of main characters. All six are free-standing and make full sense when they’re read in any order you please. However, the ideal order would be to start with The Beasts of Electra Drive. This is because, in addition to being its own beast, this novel is a prequel to the other five titles. Revealing the beautiful origins of those main characters, The Beasts of Electra Drive is therefore something of a hub for the other five tales’ spokes.
The sequence of the other five is more up for grabs, but the purest chronology of all six stories’ events would be as follows.
(1) THE BEASTS OF ELECTRA DRIVE
From Hollywood Hills mansions and Century City towers, to South Central motels and the oceanside refinery, this novel spans a mythic L.A., following seven spectacular characters (or Beasts) from games designer Jaymi’s game-worlds. The intensity of those Beasts’ creation cycles leads to their release into real life in seemingly human forms, and to their combative protection of him from destructive rivals at mainstream company Bang Dead Games. A prequel to Quine’s other five tales (and a Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018), The Beasts of Electra Drive is a unique explosion of glamour and beauty, horror and enchantment, celebrating the mechanisms and magic of creativity itself.
Buy paperback or ebook or audiobook. Samples here. Reviews here. One-page Info Sheet PDF here for all formats.
(2) THE IMAGINATION THIEF
This novel is about a web of secrets, triggered by the stealing and copying of people’s imaginations and memories. It’s about the magic that can be conjured up by images of people, in imagination or on film; the split between beauty and happiness in the world; and the allure of various kinds of power. It celebrates some of the most extreme possibilities of human imagination, personality and language, exploring the darkest and brightest flavours of beauty living in our minds.
Buy paperback or ebook or audiobook. Samples here. Reviews here. One-page Info Sheet PDF here for both formats.
(3) THE PLATINUM RAVEN
This novella is a triple convulsion whereby our heroine Raven escalates herself into the Chocolate Raven and then the Platinum Raven, from London to Dubai to the tower in the hills in the desert—then back down again, forever changed.
Buy paperback or ebook or audiobook. Samples here. Reviews here. One-page Info Sheet PDF here for ebook and here for paperback.
(4) THE HOST IN THE ATTIC
This novella is a hologram of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, digitised and reframed in cinematic style, set in London’s Docklands in a few years’ time.
Buy paperback or ebook or audiobook. Samples here. Reviews here. One-page Info Sheet PDF here for ebook and here for paperback.
(5) APRICOT EYES
In this novella, a cat-and-mouse pursuit through the New York City night involves a preacher, a psychic and a dominatrix, broadcast live on air—until a horror is unearthed, bringing two of them together and the third to a sticky end.
Buy paperback or ebook or audiobook. Samples here. Reviews here. One-page Info Sheet PDF here for ebook and here for paperback.
(6) HALLUCINATION IN HONG KONG
In this novella, sliding from joy to nightmare and back, a plane-flight frames a journey into Jaymi’s and Angel’s polarised identities and perceptions, where past and present merge in an obsessive fantasy of love, death, horror and apocalyptic beauty.
Buy paperback or ebook or audiobook. Samples here. Reviews here. One-page Info Sheet PDF here for ebook and here for paperback.
Themes in the six tales
Each of these tales aims to express the beauty, horror, mirth and complexities of our individual human quests to inhabit life as richly and passionately as possible.
To the best of its finite abilities, each tale attempts to illuminate and celebrate the possibilities of our individual human lives and imaginations in this world, using language—thereby attempting to leave the world infinitesimally richer and more beautiful than it was. It aims to reflect readers’ internal lives in ways they haven’t quite been reflected before, unearthing unexpected love and beauty from within the brutality of the world.
In particular, each tale aims to explore the darkest and brightest corners of human imagination; to wring as much beauty as possible from this harshly-designed life where we seem to have landed without sufficient consultation ahead of time; and then to explore and interrogate that beauty with rigour, sensuality and humour. Regarding the less well-designed aspects of the human condition, it also seeks ways of our transcending those aspects with emotional and aesthetic honesty, love, and a healthy dose of mirth along the way.
Each tale shows that within the glorious, multitudinous, fucked-up fascination of our situation in the world, every one of us is essentially alone; and that cruelty and suffering are able to target any one of us at a moment’s notice, if they’re inclined to. Yet it also shows that love, beauty and humour all continue to insist on arising between and within most of us, making riches available to many of us. It suggests our need to evolve. And it suggests that one way to increase our chances of raising our heads above the asphalt (our own heads and other people’s) is for all of us to put proactive energy into exercising our creative and compassionate imaginations, in whatever ways we can.
Mission statement
I aim to push imagination and language towards their extremes, in order to explore and illuminate the beauty, horror and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time. More specifically…
1. How can I illuminate the world, to the best of my finite abilities, using language in new and old ways, and thereby leave the world infinitesimally better than it was beforehand?
2. How can I aim and attune my ears as clearly as possible to whatever the highest artistic potential may be, then bring down the richest results from that place, then give those results the truest and most beautiful form I can create?
3. How can what I write take an honest account of the darkness and pain in the world, while at the same time being a vote for life (maybe even an absolute blast of fun along the way)?
While each novel or novella is being written, the sole occupant of the driver’s seat is the desire to create something whose core reason-for-being is to be explosively and irreducibly itself to the max, with such force and beauty and rightness that it had to be what it is, and that serves up a gigantic and celebratory fuck-you to the world, expressing both the darkness and the brightness of its creator’s unique experience of being alive.
Headshots
Biography
33 words
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror: The Beasts of Electra Drive, The Imagination Thief, The Platinum Raven etc.
44 words
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror, celebrating the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
95 words
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror, celebrating the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
In addition to their print and ebook formats, his novels The Beasts of Electra Drive and The Imagination Thief, plus his four novellas (The Platinum Raven, The Host in the Attic, Apricot Eyes and Hallucination in Hong Kong), are all available in audiobook and video-book formats too, performed by the author.
196 words
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror, celebrating the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
His novel The Beasts of Electra Drive (a Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018) is a prequel to his other five titles, and a good place to start. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-beasts-of-electra-drive-reviews-media for reviews by Kirkus, Bookmuse, Bending the Bookshelf and others.
Aside from its paperback format, his novel The Imagination Thief is available in an ebook that contains links to film and audio and photographic content in conjunction with the text. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-imagination-thief-reviews-media for reviews in The Guardian, Bookmuse, indieBerlin and elsewhere.
His four novellas—The Platinum Raven, The Host in the Attic, Apricot Eyes and Hallucination in Hong Kong—are published as separate ebooks, and as a single paperback The Platinum Raven and other novellas. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-novellas-reviews-media for reviews of these, including by Iris Murdoch, James Purdy, Lambda Book Report and New York Press.
All titles are also available in audiobook and video-book format, performed by the author.
231 words
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror, celebrating the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
Before writing, he spent a decade in New York, where he ran around excitably, saying a few well-chosen words in various feature films such as Zoolander and TV shows such as Oz (see www.rohanquine.com/those-new-york-nineties/film-tv).
His novel The Beasts of Electra Drive (a Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018) is a prequel to his other five tales, and a good place to start. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-beasts-of-electra-drive-reviews-media for reviews by Kirkus, Bookmuse, Bending the Bookshelf and others.
Aside from its paperback format, his novel The Imagination Thief is available in an ebook that contains links to film and audio and photographic content in conjunction with the text. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-imagination-thief-reviews-media for reviews in The Guardian, Bookmuse, indieBerlin and elsewhere.
Four novellas—The Platinum Raven, The Host in the Attic, Apricot Eyes and Hallucination in Hong Kong—are published as separate ebooks, and also as a single paperback The Platinum Raven and other novellas. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-novellas-reviews-media for reviews of these novellas, including by Iris Murdoch, James Purdy, Lambda Book Report and New York Press.
All titles are also available in audiobook and video-book format, performed by the author.
375 words
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror. He grew up in South London, spent a couple of years in L.A. and then a decade in New York, where he ran around excitably, saying a few well-chosen words in various feature films and TV shows, such as Zoolander, Election, Oz, Third Watch, 100 Centre Street, The Last Days of Disco, The Basketball Diaries, Spin City and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (see www.rohanquine.com/those-new-york-nineties/film-tv). He’s now living back in East London, with his boyfriend and two happy free-roaming house rabbits—a white down-ears and a black up-ears.
His novel The Beasts of Electra Drive (a Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018) is a prequel to his other five tales, and a good place to start. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-beasts-of-electra-drive-reviews-media for reviews by Kirkus, Bookmuse, Bending the Bookshelf and others. From Hollywood mansions to South Central motels, havoc and love are wrought across a mythic L.A., through the creations of games designer Jaymi, in a unique explosion of glamour and beauty, horror and enchantment, celebrating the magic of creativity itself.
In addition to its paperback format, his novel The Imagination Thief is available as an ebook that contains links to film and audio and photographic content in conjunction with the text. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-imagination-thief-reviews-media for some nice reviews in The Guardian, Bookmuse, indieBerlin and elsewhere. It’s about a web of secrets triggered by the stealing and copying of people’s imaginations and memories, the magic that can be conjured by images of people, the split between beauty and happiness, and the allure of power.
Four novellas—The Platinum Raven, The Host in the Attic, Apricot Eyes and Hallucination in Hong Kong—are published as separate ebooks, and also as a single paperback The Platinum Raven and other novellas. See www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-novellas-reviews-media for reviews of these novellas, including by Iris Murdoch, James Purdy, Lambda Book Report and New York Press. Hunting as a pack, all four delve deep into the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
All titles are also available in audiobook and video-book format, performed by the author.
Videos presenting synopses, characters, talking points etc., for all of Rohan’s titles, are in the Vimeo showcase “Synopses, characters and talking points, for Rohan Quine’s novels”:
And in the YouTube playlist “Synopses, characters and talking points, for Rohan Quine’s novels”.
Other introductory videos may be seen in the Vimeo showcase “Rohan Quine – introductory videos”:
And in the YouTube playlist “Rohan Quine – introductory videos”.
Rohan Quine, literary fiction, litfic, magical realism, horror, dark fantasy, gay, transgender, LGBTQ+
If you’ve enjoyed any of these tales, then my warm appreciation for leaving a quick rating or just a handful of words of feedback on it, at the online retailer it came from. If you are able to do so, then this really would help me enormously, so very many thanks! 🙂
