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?