Jonathan L. Howard's Blog

Hello all. It has been a considerable period since I was last here, so hello all. My profile is sadly out of date since, for reasons that elude the best minds of the age, Goodreads has decided to lock me out of editing it. I have no idea why, but I have written to them to get it sorted. In the meantime, a quick update as to what I've been up to.

Firstly, Carter & Lovecraft came out last year to good reviews, which was nice. The TV rights have already gone to Warners so you never know; one day Dan Carter and Emily Lovecraft might be coming to the small screen. The sequel has been written and should be out in about September or October 2017.

Secondly, the fifth Johannes Cabal book -- The Fall of the House of Cabal came out last month, again to very flattering reviews. It's the last Cabal for a little while as I take a little rest from him, but I have little doubt I shall be going back to him at some point. I don't think it's unreasonable to take a rest from him. By my reckoning I've written about 600,000 words about Cabal, and that's about twice what Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes before becoming sick to death of him and slinging him off the Reichenbach Falls. I'm being positively temperate by resting Johannes Cabal in comparison.

Thirdly, I've launched a Patreon page to take some of the uncertainties of cashflow out of life. I shan't speak interminably about it here as the page does all that for me. You can find it at https://www.patreon.com/JonathanLHoward

Right, well, I shall try to be on here rather more often, and cheerio for now.

JLH

LONCON 3, largely unblessed by my genius. Philistines.

Firstly, I’d just quickly like to say I’m at WorldCon/Loncon3 from tomorrow, Thursday the 14th of August. Irritatingly I seem not to have been tagged on the “Yes, I’m available for panels” list, so I’m not doing a great deal. On the one hand it’s good because I can do largely what I like, but on the other hand it’s irritating. People need to hear my half-baked opinions. Their lives will not be complete without them. Now I shall have to sit around in audiences and listen to the ill-considered, off-the-cuff comments of others when it should be me up there, being a damnable fool. I’m quite cross about this. I was looking forward to humiliating myself.

That said, I shall be at the Skyboat Media table at 11 on Saturday morning with Gabrielle de Cuir. Skyboat’s publishing the audio books of Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute and The Brother Cabal. Bring yourself there, hear my witless bleatings in person, and then see for yourself how badly I could have lowered the tone of any panel and bemoan what a terrible waste of an opportunity it was.

Secondly, as I’ve said elsewhere, or possibly even here, July and now August has turned out to be ridiculously jam-packed with stuff, and something had to give. What gave, with a mighty sproing of overwound scheduling, was Goon Squad. Not only have I missed the July issue date, but there isn’t the flimsiest phantasm of a chance I’ll catch up by the end of this month. That’s the bad news (assuming you enjoy Goon Squad. If you don’t, really, why are you even reading this paragraph?). The good news is that I’m going to do my level best to catch up in September once the manuscript I’m working on at present is handed in. That means that, barring further disasters, September will see three Goon Squad issues released in rapid succession.

While I’m talking about Goon Squad, I’d just like to say the cover for #7 is gorgeous. I love it to pieces, and I hope you do, too. That issue’s title, by the way, is “Dead Man Tells Tale.” I’ll do a proper reveal just before it goes live.

Just a quick thing to say I’m going to be at Nine Worlds Festival of Geekery this Thursday through to Sunday. No panels this year I’m sorry to say, but I do have a signing session at the Forbidden Planet table at 10:00 on the Saturday (9th) morning.

I’ll also be doing something I’ve never before done in public (kof kof). I shall be playing “Call of Cthulhu” in Royal A from 8:30 to 10:45 on Friday (8th) evening, losing our collective marbles in the company of Kim Curran, Rebecca Levene, and Scott Lynch, with Jon Morgan lurking behind the gamemaster’s screen. Oh, very well. Behind the Keeper of the Arcane Lore‘s screen. Happy now?

 

 

I have a habit of building soundtracks to listen to while writing. Sometimes they’re quite straightforward — I’ll listen to Satie, Debussy, or Chopin when I’m writing anything structurally tricky, because they help me concentrate — but more often than not, I’ll also build soundtracks that put me into a state of mind that helps me to plot rather than write.

These latter sorts of soundtracks can be more raucous, as I won’t be writing while listening to them. In that sense, they’re more like a soundtrack for a non-existent film or TV series. The longest such selection I’ve built is for GOON SQUAD and is, according to Spotify, currently five hours and twenty one minutes long, comprising of 94 tracks.

If you would care to go for a paddle in the sonic ambience of GOON SQUAD, you’ll find the Spotify thingy below. Before you do that, however, I’d like to offer a few notes and suggestions to heighten your audio enjoyment.

Switch off shuffle and repeat. In the best traditions of mix tapes, the listening experience is curated, which is a posh way of saying I didn’t bung these tracks together willy-nilly. They have an order and there are crescendos and diminuendos along the running order.
Don’t study the track listing. Just set it playing and leave it running. Part of the pleasure of this is the occasional sense of “Just what the hell am I listening to here?”  There are oddities aplenty. You can always check later.
There are lots of covers. One of the things about the world of the GOON SQUAD is that it’s like ours, but it isn’t. I like the idea that what we consider the definitive version of a song, isn’t necessarily the same as theirs. A couple of such tracks are also intended as personal or situational themes and multiple versions of particular tracks (with the sole exception of what we would consider the original) appear. Just go with it.
Some tracks chime with specific things from the story, others don’t. Some are profoundly obvious and I don’t apologise for those at all; their absence would be far more grating than their presence.
Some tracks just suggest times and spaces. Manchester’s been pretty busy down the years even without the GOON SQUAD along to complicate things. It was recently shown that Manchester was the most linguistically — and, by extension, culturally — diverse city in Western Europe, with some 200 languages spoken there. It’s a happening sort of place, so don’t expect every song to be in English.

Right, I think you’re all set. Below is a player or, if you have the Spotify client, probably easier to use the SPotify URI link. Hope you enjoy the ride. Please keep your hands inside the car at all times. Off you go…

Spotify URI: Goon Squad Soundtrack

Just a quick update. I have a tight schedule for a piece of contracted work that obviously has to be the priority, and it has impacted upon GOON SQUAD #6′s release date (as should be evident given that it’s already six days overdue as of this writing). I’m still writing bits of it as and when opportunities present themselves, but it’s slow going. I’m a little worried the same work pressures will also affect #7. That said, I am not stopping work on Goon Squad no matter what. It will arrive, just not on the schedule I hoped for. Thanks for your patience.

Well, it’s been a rum sort of day. At midday, I saw James Smythe tweeting about an imprint that had closed down, and thought, “Ouch, the poor sods. I wonder which imprint it is?”

It soon became apparent that it was Strange Chemistry, the publishers of my Russalka Chronicles books, Katya’s World, Katya’s War, and the intended third and final part. SC’s sister imprint, Exhibit A which dealt in crime fiction, had also gone under the axe.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. My work calendar has the time set aside to work on the third Katya novel on it, I was that sure it was going to happen.

It’s pointless to try to second guess what has gone on at Strange Chemistry, its parent imprint Angry Robot, and so on all the way to the top of the pyramid, Osprey Publishing. I’ve heard some guesses, some rumours, and one or other of them is probably true, but I shan’t theorise without data. All I know with certainty is that, if I ever want the third Katya novel to see the light of day (and I do), I shall have to explore other avenues.

No. That’s not quite all I know. I also know that I had a very, very good working relationship with the folks at Strange Chemistry, Amanda, Marc, Lee, and Caroline (and Leah, while she was there), and that they created a fine imprint that didn’t publish the same old sausage-machine YA that crowds the shelves of so many bookshops. I am proud to have been part of that, and to have worked with them. The experiment may be over, but I truly don’t believe it was a failure.

Furthermore, I am proud to have been on the same list as so many outstanding writers. There was a real sense of fellowship among us, and I hope we stay in touch in the future.

There’s little else to be said, so I shall finish with the dedication to Katya’s War, which I feel as keenly now as when I wrote it, and which I want understood includes the staff as well as the writers. We were all Strange Chemists.

 

Here’s fun. I’ve just published the shiny new GOON SQUAD 2014 Summer Special. It’s an anthology of four new stories, as well as an introduction to the series and a little bit of background stuff. It also has this lovely cover:

Bri Raymond’s cover for the Goon Squad 2014 Summer Special

You can pick up it up for as little as nothing at all on its Payhip page (although it’s set to “Pay What You Want,” so if you fancy slinging a bit of cash my way, don’t let me stop you) here: https://payhip.com/b/m2U5

It’s also free through Smashwords or any of its affiliates. It is not free — at least for the moment — on Amazon, who apparently don’t believe in free samples. I’ve had to put it up for the minimum 99c there, but they have a policy of matching prices, so when they realise Smashwords are giving it away, they will probably drop the price to nothing. I have no control over if and when that will happen, though. Don’t blame me; blame Amazon’s control freakery.

In any event, hope you read the GOON SQUAD 2014 Summer Special and enjoy it. If you do enjoy reading GOON SQUAD, please tell others about it. I’ve obviously got no advertising budget for this at all, and am entirely dependent on word of mouth. Thanks.

 

Actually, it staggered into life three days ago, but I forgot to post anything about it. Bit of a mixed bag in terms of production; I was well ahead of the curve with the writing, finishing the first draft before #4 was even published. Getting a cover together proved more problematical, with two artists falling through. I suppose I’ve been a bit spoilt previously with the art always going swimmingly, so I was rather caught by the lee. Happily, I then asked the excellent Terry Wiley if he could fill in at shortish notice, and he agreed, bless him. I’d been planning on asking him to do a cover later in the year, so I’ll have to think of somebody else for that gig now, but needs must and all that.

After the first four covers showed each member of the squad in isolation, I thought it would be nice to show them as a team. Rather than go for the traditional group shot, I got to thinking about Soviet posters extolling the powers of unity, and asked Terry to do something like that. I think it came out very well.

Goon Squad Unity! by Terry Wiley

I’m especially fond of Mr Tcho-Tcho, the soft toy panda on Nadiya’s shoulder, who is also looking clear-eyed into a future of collectivised crime-fighting. You can buy GOON SQUAD #5 in mobi and epub forms here, and back issues here. I’d obviously appreciate it greatly if you did.

If you don’t know Terry’s work, by the way, you’ve been missing out. Here’s a thing Forbidden Planet published about him a few years ago. He’s a vastly underrated creator, and a lovely bloke. You’re truly doing yourself a favour by checking him out.

I’m currently heavily engaged in writing a new project that I can’t talk about at present, and it’s slowing down work on side projects such as GOON SQUAD. The Summer Special’s first draft is almost finished, however, so it will see publication in June as planned. This, in case you haven’t read about it elsewhere, is an anthology of four short GOON SQUAD stories, plus an introductory essay on their world and the current team members, all for the bargain price of nowt, nothing, nada. FREE! In fact, what the hell, might as well give the story listing now. It might change yet, but that’s pretty unlikely.

Meet the GOON SQUAD
“Red Wolf, Red Wolf, Does Whatever a Red Wolf Can”
“Changes”
“No-No Dojo”
“A Tale of Terror”

I’ll try to remember to do a post on that when it goes live, as opposed to three days later.

GOON SQUAD #4 is now up and available at all the Smashwords outlets (Apple, B&N, etc) and on Kindle. It is entitled Exterminating Angel, and is altogether a darker story than was the jolly hijinks of recreational arms-dealing that was the debut story, The New Girl. I like to vary the tone of stories; keeps things fresh.

Once again I have been very lucky to get a terrific artist to do the cover, in this case Ian McQue. He has portrayed Talos, the GOON SQUAD’s great, hulking, robotic team member (so big I had to shunt the GOON SQUAD logo to one side to give it room), and done a beautiful job.

TALOS, art by Ian McQue

 

Ian excels at making a machine look like something that has actually been engineered, and took my fairly plain original idea and made it look like it had been across a drawing board and through a workshop. I love the arm joints; you can almost smell the hot metal and oil of the precision lathe that cut them. You can find more of Ian’s work at his blog here: http://mcqueconcept.blogspot.co.uk/ or buy at his shop: http://ianmcque.bigcartel.com/

Well, the first draft of #5 is already written, continuing the Exterminating Angel story. The issue even has a working title, Famous in Strange Ways. That will be coming out at the end of May, and — all being well — the GOON SQUAD SUMMER SPECIAL 2014 should be out in early June.

Very belated, this. I also didn’t realise it was well over a month since I last posted here. So busy; one loses track of time.

First up, here’s the cover of GOON SQUAD #3. It’s by Storn Cook, and it portrays Gilbert Sutton aka Red Wolf in full “Yeah, I’m dangerous” mode. The more GOON SQUAD I write, the better a handle I get on the characters. Ian and Nadiya were pretty easy, but Gilbert came into focus a little more slowly. I’m about there with him now, though. It helped that I wrote a short just about him last week, just a little character piece, called “Red Wolf, Red Wolf, Does Whatever a Red Wolf Can” that will be turning up in the GOON SQUAD SUMMER SPECIAL 2014 in a couple of months or so. I read a slightly shortened version of it as a flash fiction at a BristolCon fringe event last week, and it went down pretty well. Anyway, Gilbert has developed beyond just being a straight man to Ian’s barbs now; he’s his own character.

Goon Squad #3 Cover

This just leaves Talos to be rounded out, but Talos is a special case anyway, being a machine and all. It has a personality, but is rarely very chatty and doesn’t spend much downtime with the rest of the Squad. Talos actually has a pretty complicated backstory, and revealing it will not be a rapid process. I hope to hell that when I arrive at the end of the year and have to make the decision on whether GOON SQUAD has been enough of a success to continue devoting so much time to it, that the answer is an emphatic “Yes.” There is simply so much more story to tell. One year’s worth of issues (equating to over a hundred thousand words of prose) will not be sufficient.

Right, a little bit about The Brothers Cabal. Just to say I’ve completed the copyedit pass, which is pretty much my last involvement with the text. Once it’s back with the publisher, my final edits will be reconciled by the copyeditor (such folk have terrifyingly precise eyes for detail), and then it’s off to be formatted and typeset. Next step is the galleys (from which the advance readers’ copies are produced), and then onwards to publication. In terms of the look of it, Michael J. Windsor has once again done the cover, and Linda “Snugbat” Smith the chapter heading illustrations. Wouldn’t really be the same without them, would it?