Dawson Rambo

Fan
Name:	Dawson Rambo
Alias(es):	xfbandit, XFBandit, Bandit, Edward "Red" Burke
Type:
Fandoms:	The X-Files
Communities:
Other:
URL:	some fiction is here
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Dawson Rambo was a very popular X-Files writer and frequent poster to mailing lists and USENET in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Dawson wrote about 20 short stories under the pseudonym "XFBandit."

He currently lives in Northern California with his wife, Annie (who me met after she read ELS and contacted him ), is at work on turning "ELS" into a marketable novel.

Pseud

From Old School X Interview: Dawson E. Rambo (2021):

The Bandit stuff was my attempt to do two things: Mimic the author Andrew Vachss’ style (just to see if I could) and to see if people really liked my work, or if my ‘name’ had gotten too big. I know that sounds egotistical, but I was releasing some short stories around that time that I wasn’t that happy with and was curious to see if people would react to my writing or my name.

What’s amusing is that it took about 48 hours before a fan sussed me out. Apparently, at the time, I had a go-to phrase, “…in the space between two heartbeats” and I used it both in an XFBandit story and they grok’d it immediately.

Interview

• Working Stiffs Interview with Dawson Rambo (2001)
• Old School X Interview: Dawson E. Rambo (2021)

About

I have been blessed with an enormous amount of feedback. I actually sat down and counted one day, and since I started publishing "Snapshot" in the early part of 1997 (January 5, in case anyone cares...) I've recieved over ten thousand emails regarding my writing. Now, before you all gasp and fall over in slack-jawed amazement, I must point out in all humility that I have a hard-core group of about 30 correspondents that write to me on average of about 10-20 times a week. So, multiply that out, and...well, that 7,000 number doesn't seem too impresive anymore. But, I do get mail from all over. I have gotten questions from all over the world...

Where do you get your ideas?

Probably THE most asked question not directly related to something I wrote. There was no idea for Snapshot. It was supposed to be a one-time deal, a vingette about The First Kiss. The feedback was encouraging, and so I wrote more and more and more, and finally, by Chapter 8, they had Done The Deed. At that point, there was no way "out" of the story, so I cooked up the entire dead criminals/Zack Tarses plot out of thin air and constructed the rest. Umbra was my attempt at an action adventure novel, and the first one that I actually outlined from beginning to end; the ideas from that came from a lot of sources -- too many to name here. "ELS" came from a book called "The Bible Code" that I read, along with some other source material about serial killers; it seems some of the most vicious and evil serial killers have some kind of psuedoreligious influence, and so, "ELS" was born.

What do you use to write? (Equipment, software, tricks, etc?)

That has changed along the way. <grin> I started out on a Dell 386 with 4MB Ram and a puny 240MB hard drive using Word 2.0 for Windows. Around April of last year we replaced "Fred" (The 386,) with "Merlin," the P150 monster (at the time,) that I used Word98 on for long time...until Sancho came along. Sancho is my 486/DX TI Laptop that I adore and love and cherish. I am reminded of that Dilbert cartoon where Liz, (Dilbert's sometime girlfriend,) tells him that "...you love computers more than I do!" He's sitting in front of his desktop computer and replies, "I do not love this computer more than you." He then thinks, "Please don't ask about the laptop, please don't ask about the laptop." The final frame has Liz asking, "This computer?" I love Sancho that much. I use QEdit to write now, a nifty little DOS Text file editor. It has some features that I really like, and I also use a shareware spellchecker called SS, and another program called Sleek to trim the columns when I write too wide.

Tell us about yourself.

Male, 32, 6"4, about 270lbs, brown hair and eyes, mustache. Ugly as a dog's butt.

Some Influential Fiction

• ELS, (winner of a Spooky Award)
• Shapshot (novel)
• Umbra (novel) (plot points and author summary) and its sequel Ellipsis (which may not have been completed)

Rambo answers a lot of questions about his fiction here: Common Questions and Answers That I Get..., ^{Archived version}

Essays

• So What Am I Looking At? (1998)
• how to format your stories for posting to alt.tv.x-files.creative, ^{Archived version} (1998-ish)
• The Problem With Conspiracies (1999)

Fan Comments

XFBandit's Shtuff: Nice, short bites of first-person MSR angst. Punchy, sharp phrasing and well thought out plots (well, for vignettes, anyway.) A couple of good looks at revolving figures and shadow men. Not always consistent in quality, but quantity makes up for it. Seems like there's a new one every other day. Hate the formatting (indent/no space), but it's short enough for me to suffer through. -- Rating: 4 Flashlights

I don't know where this guy came from, but for those of you who enjoy a good Scully/Mulder romance, this author is a gem. He's literally burst on the scene lately and is amazingly prolific. There isn't a website that I know of *yet* that features his work, so you'll have to venture over to Gossamer for it. I'm especially fond of "Java Jive" that deals with a stake out and the emotional aftermath. I think you'll also enjoy "Night Eyes" that uses the perspective of a man that has Scully under surveillance for a third party interpretation of Scully and her "nutjob" partner. And if you want a little more...try "More" where Mulder and Scully decide they want more too. Editor's Note: We found a web site! All 15 XFBANDIT stories can be found in "X-tensions of My Mind" at http://welcome.to/X-ploringACreek@Gretensgarde.