In 2010, I met Eunice Hung at an orgy in a castle in France. (Not a sentence the ten-year-old me ever expected the adult me to type.) We kept in touch with each other after that, occasionally brushing past one another at poly network get-togethers.
In 2018, at another orgy (this one in a manor house in Lincolnshire), we decided to write a novel together. Eunice had created a magnificent, wondrous far-future post-scarcity science fiction world ruled over by benevolent AIs who the people worshipped as gods, primarily through ritualized group sex. She told me about it, I said "that would be a marvelous setting for a book!", and the world of the Passionate Pantheon was born.
In 2020, we finished three books set in this world. The first, The Brazen Altar, published last May.
The second, Divine Burdens, publishes this October. It's a radical shift from The Brazen Altar—where that book was upbeat Utopian fiction, this one is dark erotic horror.
The third, The Hallowed Covenant, publishes Spring 2022.
Writing these books has been an amazing experience. You can read them on the surface level as far-out super-kinky porn (seriously, these books have kinks so exotic they don't even have names), but hidden in the subtext is a lot of philosophy and some very complex worldbuilding.
We just finished the first draft of a fourth novel in the series, tentatively titled Unyielding Devotions, and we've sketched out a fifth book we'll be working on when the other two novels we're currently writing in completely unrelated genres are finished.
The first book is selling quite well, despite the fact it was banned from Amazon for sexual content, or so they say. (Apparently books like Daddy Don't Pull Out and Stretched By Daddy at the Waterpark are okay with them, but Utopian science fiction theocratic erotica is beyond the pale. No, I don't understand it either.)
Anyway, starting this coming Sunday, July 18, 2021, you'll be able to pre-order Divine Burdens on Indiegogo at a reduced price.
And just because it's completely absurd, one of the backer perks you'll be able to get is a special edition Passionate Pantheon kazoo ball gag, inspired by one of the drones on the front cover!
Eunice and I are also doing a virtual book event on Saturday, July 17, 2021 at 11:00 AM Pacific time/7:00 PM London time. Save the date! You'll need Zoom to attend. The last virtual book event we did was scheduled for an hour and a half but ended up running four and a half hours as we did a deep dive into everything from the writing process to the philosophy of the Passionate Pantheon to post-scarcity societies. Bring questions!