(Welcome to the Monkey Queen website! Feel free to skip this if you’re a regular visitor.)
Hi, I’m Robert Dahlen. I’m the author of the Monkey Queen series, in which Michiko (teenage hero with a wisecracking streak) and Beth (fangirl college student) team up to “save the world” (they’re starting small). It’s fantasy adventure with heroines, humor and heart, and a friendship that may be leading to something more.
There are five books available so far – Of Introductions And Abductions, The Brigadoon Boondoggle, Under The Stars Of Faerie, A Tiding Of Magpies, and Redblade – and three more planned for 2016. You can see all the books in the series on my Amazon Central page. Also, if you click on the “Previews” button, you can read the opening chapters of the first five books. And the “Short Stories” button leads to five standalone short stories and a story-within-a-story that’s from A Tiding Of Magpies.
Michiko, Beth, and many of the concepts and settings in these books came from a proposal I had written many years ago for a comic book series. I had set it aside due to lack of interest, but I found what I had written in March 2013 and started writing the first Monkey Queen book the next day. I’ve been influenced by everything from Miyazaki to Doctor Who, Pixar to Pratchett, Phil Foglio to Bugs Bunny, and many more.
I live in northern California. I work full-time, but luckily I can still squeeze writing in. I have a really nice hat, a growing Disney Infinity collection, a knack for baking cookies, a joke for many occasions and a fondness for penguins. You can find me on Facebook, DeviantArt, and Twitter as @monkeyqueenbks, but I tend to put more time in on this blog than anywhere else. Feel free to follow me at any of those places, or sign up for the mailing list!
You may notice that I talk about Willow a lot. She’s an artist from France who does the covers for the Monkey Queen books; she also published her first BD / graphic novel, The Journey Of Earth, earlier this year. I discovered her on DeviantArt, and I think her work is amazing…and she’s also very friendly and funny. The best place to see her completed work is on DeviantArt. She’s also on Facebook, where she posts updates and works in progress. And she has a Society6 webstore where you can buy all sorts of goodies, including Monkey Queen merchandise!
(And the avatar you might have seen on my social media is by another talented French artist, Calomiel. Find out more about her at her blog, where you can also read her delightful BDs/comic strips and see her GIFs and process posts!)
If you have any questions or need more info, feel free to leave a comment here or wherever. I’m always glad to hear from visitors and readers. And thanks for dropping by!
