{"id":34304,"date":"2026-08-24T14:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=34304"},"modified":"2026-08-24T13:38:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T17:38:53","slug":"guest-speaker-on-the-agenda-for-clubs-september-2026-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=34304","title":{"rendered":"GUEST SPEAKER ON THE AGENDA FOR CLUB\u2019S SEPTEMBER 2026 MEETING!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>MonSFFA\u2019s next<\/strong> club meeting<\/strong> will take place in about a month\u2019s time, on Saturday, September 19<\/strong>. We are pleased to be welcoming a guest speaker<\/strong> via ZOOM, Canadian independent SF author Sean Robins<\/strong>, who tallies 46 published novels across six series.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At our request, Sean kindly sent us a brief bio.<\/p>\n

This is Jack, your favorite ghost in the machine. If you\u2019ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven\u2019t, well then, SURPRISE!<\/p>\n

Dramatic pause for effect.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Jack\u201d (said in my best \u201cI\u2019m Iron Man\u201d voice).<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Okay, okay, I can hear my editor sighing from here. Sorry about that, folks. I could never resist a good meta-joke. Or a bad one. Or really any opportunity to break the fourth wall so hard that it files for structural damage insurance.<\/p>\n

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist\u2019s. I haven\u2019t saved the galaxy (yet), haven\u2019t performed any heroic space maneuvers (unless you count parallel parking in downtown Toronto), and the closest I\u2019ve come to fighting aliens was that time I tried to convince my cat to stop knocking things off my desk at three AM.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a university\/college-level English teacher, which means I spend my days trying to convince students that Shakespeare wasn\u2019t just writing fancy fanfiction. Including Canada, I\u2019ve lived and worked in six different countries, collecting stories and awkward language mistakes like some people collect postcards. I once ordered a coffee in Germany and accidentally challenged the barista to a duel. They declined, thankfully.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek<\/em> had a reunion party with the Fast & Furious<\/em> family while the Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> crashed it. They are from US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a ton of aliens and an a few AIs who insist they\u2019re \u201cnot your typical artificial intelligence\u201d (They\u2019ve watched I, Robot<\/em> way too many times). One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously. Because nothing says \u201cplot twist\u201d like a dead character cosplaying.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a huge Marvel fan (Team Cap, but don\u2019t tell Tony), plus Star Trek<\/em> (Kirk or Picard? Yes.), Star Wars<\/em> (Han shot first, and I will die on this hill), Battlestar Galactica<\/em> (So say we all!), and Stargate<\/em> (Indeed\u2122). This probably explains why my novels have more pop culture references than Ready Player One<\/em> at a Comic-Con. If you\u2019re a sci-fi fan (I assume you are, unless you got very lost in the bookstore and ended up here by accident), you\u2019ll enjoy them tremendously. You\u2019ll find everything from subtle nods to outright \u201cdid they just quote the entire Death Star trench run?\u201d moments.<\/p>\n

While the books aren\u2019t strictly comedies (there\u2019s also explosions, space battles, and that one scene where everyone thinks they\u2019re going to die but it turns out they just forgot to turn off the coffee maker), I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Think Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> meets The Martian<\/em>, with a dash of Spaceballs<\/em> when I can get away with it.<\/p>\n

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files<\/em>), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same light-hearted, funny tone as he does. Though unlike Harry Dresden, my protagonist has managed to keep his vehicle (space fighter) mostly un-exploded. Mostly. (Aliens<\/em> reference intended)<\/p>\n

So there you have it. I\u2019m just a simple teacher who spends his free time writing about space adventures, collecting passport stamps, and trying to convince his cat that three AM isn\u2019t \u201cstory idea time.\u201d Though sometimes I wonder if Sean Robins isn\u2019t the pen name, and I\u2019m actually a space pilot using a mild-mannered English teacher as my cover story.<\/p>\n

If any actual aliens are reading this: I\u2019m available for space adventures on weekends and during summer break. Must provide own spacecraft. No probing.<\/p>\n

Sean will engage us in a discussion of themes explored in his latest series, the story of a battle android that gains consciousness, and he\u2019ll talk, as well, about his writing career in general. His \u201cI, Anomaly\u201d series is available on Amazon: https:\/\/mybook.to\/YqPCYkm<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In addition to chatting with Sean, we\u2019ll also be revelling in our favourite<\/strong> \u201cso-bad-they\u2019re-good\u201d sci-fi B-movies<\/strong>, and examining<\/strong> the genre\u2019s doctors and scientists<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So mark your calendars accordingly, folks: Saturday, September 19<\/strong>, from 1:00PM to 5:00PM<\/strong>! As usual, we\u2019ll meet live and in person at our downtown meeting hall, and concurrently online via ZOOM. See all of you then!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MonSFFA\u2019s next club meeting will take place in about a month\u2019s time, on Saturday, September 19. We are pleased to be welcoming a guest speaker via ZOOM, Canadian independent SF author Sean Robins, who tallies 46 published novels across six series. At our request, Sean kindly sent us a brief bio. This is Jack, your … Continue reading GUEST SPEAKER ON THE AGENDA FOR CLUB\u2019S SEPTEMBER 2026 MEETING!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34307,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34304\/revisions\/34307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}