Bane Janzen is a fantasy author and historian. On this site, you can learn about his novel, Hector Valerious, his tabletop roleplaying game Lords of the Backstairs, and his short stories. For more on his academic career, visit his UBC Blogs site.
Bio
Bane Janzen is a fantasy author and medieval historian from Alberta, Canada. He started writing his novel, Hector Valerious, at age 14 and is working to finish it in 2026. At age 12, Perthes’ disease caused his right hip to fail. Walking was extremely painful. He was confined to a wheelchair for over a year before he recieved a hip replacement at age 14. He went on to study history at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, BC. There he published his first short story, “What Remains of Edmond Fisk.”
Bane is obsessed with making his stories feel like real-world history. At UBC, he studied medieval history, creative writing, English literature, Latin, Old English, German, communications theory, and editing and publishing. Inspired by Chaucer, Tolkien, and Boethius, his short story “The Silence of History” experiments with a writing style that sounds historical but is understandable for the modern reader. To make his fight scenes accurate, he joined the Historical Arts and Combat Club and became a sword fighting instructor. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (honours) in History and a certificate in Communications and Rhetoric, he moved to Edmonton, Alberta where he now dedicates more time to his writing. He endeavours to finish his novel in 2026 and develop Lords of the Backstairs into a full-fledged TTRPG.
Bane writing dances the line between fantasy and real-world history, exploring death, romance, and magic. His novel, Hector Valerious, is about an eccentric sorcerer’s fear of death, a noblewoman’s escape from an unwilling betrothal, and the mystery of how a civil war, magical catastrophy, foreign emperor, ancient dragon, rebellious prince, and burned library form a web of lies that hide the secret behind immortality. Seemingly separate subplots of romance, politics, history, and humour form a web where every subtle detail comes together to reveal that their lives have been shaped by a centuries-old cover-up and that their actions risk releasing a truth best lost to history. For more on Hector Valerious, click here.
Some More About Me
Favorite books: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, the Dragonlance Legends trilogy by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies by JRR Tolkien, and The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie.
Hobbies: I regularly play TTRPGs including Dungeons & Dragons and Triangle Agency. I also practice swordfighting with rapiers, sideswords, longswords, and messers.
Favorite games: I like games that dunk you into a unique world wherein you must unravel a mystery. My favorites include Outer Wilds, Inscryption, OneShot, Infra, and Baldur’s Gate. I am also somehow obsessed with Cities: Skylines.
My studies. I have a Bachelor’s Degree (honours) in History and a certificate in Communications and Rhetoric from the University of British Columbia. My honours thesis was “The Bay Fleet Capture: An Act of Corruption and Piracy Between England and the Hanseatic League, 1449.”
Join my Discord Server
Get frequent updates about my life and my writing, early access to Hector Valerious, and join the conversation around Lords of the Backstairs.