Welcome to the newly-formed Passionate Pantheon blog!
The Meet-cute (aka where it all started): We met at an orgy in France. Then, at another orgy in Lincolnshire a decade later, we decided to write far future science fiction erotica together. Same old story, you’ve probably heard it a million times before, right?
When we finally stopped talking and started writing, Franklin wrote the first paragraph of the first draft of our first post-scarcity science fiction erotic novel on my back with fountain pens. And thus The Brazen Altar, first book of the Passionate Pantheon, was born.
We created this blog because apparently we have a lot to say. We hoped some of it might even be interesting to people other than us.
The far-future, post-scarcity, theocratic world of the Passionate Pantheon came from the depths of my strange, easily-distractible, demisexual mind. I do love me some porn, but I’m too demisexual for two (or more!) people having sex to be interesting unless I know how and why they got there. More than “because this is how you tip the plumber for a job well done,” I mean. (Is there still porn like that? I’ve never actually seen any, so this is all speculation on my part.)
The world of the Passionate Pantheon is rich and complex. We have pages of notes—about fifty pages, last I checked—of background information that isn’t in any of the books, because there’s nothing more tedious than starting a book with an info dump. (Franklin tells me that this has a name in the publishing community; it’s called the “Tour of the Enterprise,” since a lot of particularly awful Star Trek fiction starts with a literal tour of the Enterprise. I wouldn’t know, I’m a Firefly kinda gal.)
When we’re working on these books, it’s not uncommon for us to spend ten hours on a Skype call, discussing the society’s history, traditions, origins, and values, and the motives and ideas of the characters. Never mind the major characters, any of the minor characters in the books could easily have a novel-length story told about them. For example, a side character in the second book is briefly described as having a scar—a rarity in a world with near-unlimited biomedical nanotechnology—and yes, we know why that character has that scar, how he got it, and why he keeps it.
None of that is in the book, but we know it.
We created this blog because we wanted a place to talk about the philosophy of The Passionate Pantheon. If talking about the philosophy of porn seems weird to you, well, it’s an unusual world. (Also, porn without thinky stuff happening bores me, so I get distracted wondering why she’s tied up on that ziggurat about to have ritualised forced orgasms for a full day. Cos ritualised forced orgasms are hot, but story makes it better! ) We put a tremendous amount of thought into every element of those stories. If you ever find yourself wondering “well why does…?” or “but what about….?” or “how come…?” when you’re reading them, odds are pretty good we’ve thought about it too. And probably figured out ways to make it kinkier.
We aim to tell stories where nothing is gratuitous, everything serves a function. We’ve actually removed quite a few really hot sex scenes from the early drafts, when the sex didn’t serve the function of advancing the plot, showing you more about the characters, or revealing more about how the world works. (We’re thinking about putting up some of those outtakes as blog posts, in fact. Let me know if you’d like to see some of those!)
We hope you enjoy the books, but we’d also like to invite you on a behind-the-scenes look at the philosophy of the world. And if thinky porn is your jam, then hopefully you’ll enjoy this ride just as much!
