I discovered Robert’s writing several years ago in Daily Science Fiction. His story, “The Sea Became A Diamond Sheet,” is a dystopian flash with a punk sensibility and gorgeous language. I’ve been a fan ever since. Thanks to Rob for answering my questions about his writing and his next novel, The Dark King Swallows the World!
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Myna: Tell us about The Dark King Swallows the World! What’s it about? Who are your characters?
Robert: It’s the story of an adolescent American girl in World War II Cornwall who gets lost in a world of magic. The other main character is her mother. And a fox-girl or girl-fox or fairy-fox-girl or genius loci or fairy or fox-fairy but certainly someone anyways. And a necromancer who is a cross between CS Lewis and Aleister Crowley. Plus a revivalist preacher who may or may not be from the 18th century. Avant-garde poets and painters. An anti-colonial tutor from India. A giantess the size of a bus. A smiling demon-child homunculus. And Death. And more.
Myna: What themes do you explore?
Robert: Grief. The limits of parental love.
Myna: What’s unique about this book?
Robert: The intersection of some pretty straight-forward tropes of classic English fantasy and a Cornwall imagined as much a part of industrialization and the transatlantic world as it is as a repository of Arthurian nostalgia and faerie whimsy.
Myna: When a reader finishes the last word in the book, what emotion will they be feeling?
Robert: Yikes. Can’t really speak for the reader. But I get a hit of melancholic contentment.
Myna: How did this book come about?
Robert: Very long gestation period. I started it just after the birth of my daughter almost fifteen years ago, typing it with one hand in the middle of night while I held her in the other. For something to do but also to work through that new parent anxiety. I picked it back up a few years ago and decided to finish it because I had always liked the opening couple of chapters.
Myna: If your book had a theme song, what would it be?
Robert: Secret Heart by Ron Sexsmith
Myna: Did you practice any special habits or routines while writing this book?
Robert: Other than the late nights with a baby at the beginning, it was just about finding the occasional moment to work on it.
Myna: How would you describe your writing style, in general? Does that hold true for this book?
Robert: It is quite varied, especially when it comes to short-stories and micro-fiction. But probably a little too purple for a very literal people. Preoccupied with words rather than just scenes and scenes more than just the production of propulsive plots.
Myna: What’s your favorite thing about writing?
Robert: Making stuff up. Anything. You can just make anything up and write it down. Totally crazy. Anything. How is it even allowed? It blows my mind.
Myna: Do you have other books or stories you’d like to mention?
Robert: I have a previous novel called Strange Labour which Publishers Weekly named as one of the best of 2020. And a recent micro-fiction called “Five Biographies of Ted Kaczynski” in Sundog Lit I’m pretty happy with.
Myna: Which mode of transportation would you prefer: electric seahorse, cyborg dragon, raven-starship hybrid, or something else (explain!)?
Robert: I think it would be interesting to travel about as sound waves, as a particular sequence of notes that capture your mood in the moment you begin your journey, and from which you manifest only when the waves wash over a landscape that suits the melody. Because it would make travel both arbitrary and not-arbitrary.
Myna: Would you rather live in a magical forest, an advanced urban high-rise, an enchanted underwater city, or a complex alien world? Or do you have another perfect living space in mind?
Robert: Magical forest but not too magical. Minimal to low magical. Nothing more dramatic than haiku-reciting flowers and walking mushrooms that squeak when you accidentally step and release puffs of soothing narcotics. But not too soothing.
Myna: Do you have a pet, or other non-writing hobbies/activities? Show us a picture!
Robert: There is a cat.
Myna: What’s next for you?
Robert: I’m shopping a manuscript about the British colonizing Hell in the 19th century.
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Robert G. Penner lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Dark King Swallows the World is his second novel. He is also the author of Strange Labour, one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Science Fiction Books of 2020, and has published numerous short stories in a wide range of speculative and literary journals under both his name and pseudonyms.
Web: https://www.robertgpenner.com
Twitter: @billsquirrell
Instagram: @robertgpenner
Pre-order The Dark King Swallows the World:
https://radiantpress.ca/shop/p/thedarkking
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-King-Swallows-World/dp/199892615X
Myna Chang 