Rohan Quine
ALLi Author Member
Location: United Kingdom
Genres: Fantasy/SciFi/Speculative, Horror, LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction
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; and for current film acting and producing, including as Producer at Luxe Films, see www.rohanquine.com/those-new-york-nineties/current-film-acting-and-producing-luxe-films-etc.) His novel "The Beasts of Electra Drive" www.rohanquine.com/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 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" www.rohanquine.com/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" www.rohanquine.com/the-platinum-raven, "The Host in the Attic" www.rohanquine.com/the-host-in-the-attic, "Apricot Eyes" www.rohanquine.com/apricot-eyes and "Hallucination in Hong Kong" www.rohanquine.com/hallucination-in-hong-kong – are published as separate ebooks, and also as a single paperback "The Platinum Raven and other novellas" www.rohanquine.com/buy/the-platinum-raven-and-other-novellas-paperback (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 the author. www.rohanquine.com "Rohan Quine is one of the most original voices in the literary world today – and one of the most brilliant." - Guardian Books blogger Dan Holloway, who included Quine’s "The Imagination Thief" on his list of the six "best self-published books of the decade" "A sensual ballet of rich characterisation, alluring subtlety and originality. 'The Beasts of Electra Drive' is a novel that I didn't want to put down while I was reading it. [...] I found myself underlining things on the page, throughout it, because of the allure of Quine's language. I was fascinated with the marriage of his vocabulary and his punctuation. [...] This book creates a luscious and sensuous effect, which you can expand into." - Suzi Rapport "The swooping eloquence of this book ['The Imagination Thief'] had me hypnotised. Quine leaps into pools of imagery, delighting in what words can do. The fact that the reader is lured into joining this kaleidoscopic, elemental ballet marks this out as something fresh and unusual. In addition to the language, two other elements make their mark. The seaside ghost town with echoes of the past and the absorbing, varied and rich cast of characters. It’s a story with a concept, place and people you’ll find hard to leave." - JJ Marsh in "Bookmuse" "Quine is renowned for his rich, inventive and original prose, and he is skilled at blending contemporary and ancient icons and themes." - Debbie Young in "Vine Leaves Literary Journal"
Rohan Quine's books
Genres: LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio, Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/the-beasts-of-electra-drive ***Finalist in the IAN Book of the Year Awards 2018*** From Hollywood Hills mansions and Century City towers, to South Central motels and the oceanside refinery, "The Beasts of Electra Drive" by Rohan Quine 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. Grand spaces of beauty interlock with narrow rooms of terror, both in the real world and in cyberspace. A prequel to Quine’s other five tales (and Winner in the NYC Big Book Award 2021, 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, exploring the mechanisms and...
Genres: LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/hallucination-in-hong-kong In "Hallucination in Hong Kong" by Rohan Quine, 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. At take-off, warmed by the presence of his friend Angel beside him, Jaymi starts to doze, and enters a fog of horror in seeming to remember that their destination lies in the past, not ahead … forcing him to explore those hellish possible events lying beneath the surface of our present and future, always ready to break through into reality. A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021. As their plane takes off, Jaymi is warmed by the presence of his beloved friend Angel beside him. They are bound for Hong Kong, to perform a grand concert of unearthly music from a stage...
Genres: LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/apricot-eyes In "Apricot Eyes" by Rohan Quine, 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. Beneath a waterfront waste ground in the Bronx, a monstrous population is being fattened up, by the preacher, for malign purposes. Jaymi and Scorpio are on his tracks, however, in a blast of fun that trumpets boldness, tolerance and voltage, celebrating the mystery and dangers furled just behind the surface of the everyday. A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021. Having partially regained a power of second sight that he'd once possessed but lost, Jaymi Peek uses this ability in a live weekly television show online, where he channels onto the screen those unexpected places, hidden colours and hatching plans that he can...
Genres: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/the-host-in-the-attic "The Host in the Attic" by Rohan Quine 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. High-flyer Jaymi discovers a secret novel online called The Imagination Thief, written by a woman named Alaia; and they meet and fall in love. In his attic he hides the prototype of a new worldwide Web-browsing hologram, for whose appearance he was the model. While this hologram deteriorates into ever more terrifying corruption, Jaymi’s appearance remains forever sweet and youthful, despite his escalating evil … until the inevitable reckoning unfolds. A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021. Brilliant software engineer Rik and executive Jaymi work at digital agencies in London (surely unaware that their fates are destined to echo those of Basil and Dorian, respectively the painter and the subject of "The...
Genres: LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/the-platinum-raven "The Platinum Raven" by Rohan Quine 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. The daydreams of the downtrodden Raven propel her into a fantasy life as a more glamorous version of herself: a party girl living in the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. This latter’s imagination then spawns a yet more empowered and intense version of herself, as empress of a sequence of events whose fusion of extraordinary beauty, violence and sensuality is bewitching… A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021. In her cubicle high in the Shard in London, a sweet-natured, raven-haired receptionist named Raven is even more rudely mistreated than usual for a Monday morning. Recovering from this, her daydreams propel her into...
Genres: LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/press-media/the-novellas-reviews-media "The Platinum Raven and other novellas" by Rohan Quine is a paperback comprising a collection of four novellas—"The Platinum Raven", "The Host in the Attic", "Apricot Eyes" and "Hallucination in Hong Kong"—each novella being also available by itself as an ebook. A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021, these four novellas are literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror, celebrating the darkest and brightest possibilities of human imagination, personality and language. "The Platinum Raven" 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. The daydreams of the downtrodden Raven propel her into a fantasy life as a more glamorous version of herself: a party girl living in the world’s tallest building, the...
Genres: LGBTQ+, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio, Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
https://www.rohanquine.com/the-imagination-thief "The Imagination Thief" by Rohan Quine 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. A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021, 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. Alone in his skyscraper office one night, Jaymi undergoes a transformation that will change his life: he acquires the power to see into others' minds, and then to control and project their thoughts. Realising the potential of this gift, he hypnotises a media mogul into agreeing to broadcast an electrifying extravaganza of sound and vision...