The Spoons That Are My Ears!

This is one of my very few fictions set in outer space. It's a retelling of the old story of Daphnis and Chloe but with robots and androids instead of goatherds and shepherds. The action takes place inside an asteroid rather than on an island.

I didn't follow the pattern of the original story exactly. My novella goes off at a tangent about halfway through. Originally I planned to call it Daftness and Chlorine but in one of my rare commercial moods I decided to give it a more marketable title.

The notion of 'rewriting' (and reworking) old myths and stories was suggested to me, I suppose, by certain works of Roger Zelazny and Samuel Delany, still two of my favourite science fiction writers.

I fondly recall the rather obscure Creatures of Light and Darkness by Zelazny, based on Ancient Egyptian mythology, the Zelazny book that has most inspired me (everyone keeps telling me that Lord of Light is much better, but I just don't agree). As for Delany: so many of his early novels and stories have some grounding in Ancient Greek mythology that it would be easier to list those that aren't connected to the Classic tales.

I am extremely pleased with the way Robots in Love has turned out. David Rix of Eibonvale Press is a truly excellent designer. The book currently exists only as a hardback but soon it will be a paperback too, and then hopefully an ebook edition will be released.