Jonathan L. Howard's Blog, page 2

GOON SQUAD #2! A Cover Revealed, and a Few Words about the World of the Goon Squad

Hello all.

It’s been a busy year so far. The fourth Johannes Cabal novel, The Brother Cabal, is all prepped and ready for the copy edit so its US publication date at the end of September is looking good. I’m sorry to say that there isn’t a UK contract in place yet; Headline have passed on publishing The Brothers Cabal, and it is notoriously awkward to hand off a series of novels in mid-flow like this. Still, I am nothing if not optimistic, so as and when another publisher steps into the breach, I shall announce it here.

There are a couple of other projects underway at present, neither of which I can talk about. Sorry, but at least there’s work to be done and I’m not spinning my wheels.

Oh, and there’s a blurb about my story “A Scandal with Bohemians” in the Schemers anthology over at Stoneskin Press, which includes the story’s opening: http://www.stoneskinpress.com/?p=864

This is actually Richard Malengine’s second outing, the first being in a literary advent calendar for a design company’s Christmas mailing campaign, for which I wrote a short story in 24 parts, one part to be revealed per day. That was fun (even if they did ask nicely if I could tone down the sauciness in it a bit. Why, yes, Virginia, I can write saucily).

Anyway, to my ongoing side project, GOON SQUAD, which is my personal delight. I have to say, I love writing this, and I hope that comes over in the prose.

First, a few words about the origins of the GOON SQUAD idea. This all dates back to an RPG I was running back in the 1980s (Lord, doesn’t that sound ancient now?). As an experiment and as a break from the Call of Cthulhu game I was running, I ran a mini campaign about superheroes, using Games Workshop’s Golden Heroes system (awful name, but not a bad system at all). When it came to where to set it, that was easy. I had no desire to set it in an American city, or London, both implied defaults of the system. We were playing in Manchester, we knew Manchester well, and setting a game in a familiar place allows memory to work alongside imagination, which often provides immediacy.

It also seemed fair enough to me that, in a world with superheroes, some at least would be based in Manchester. After all, concentrated populations engender crime, so why not? Also, Manchester, in common with all older cities, has a lot of obscure historical quirks and eccentricities that suggest stories. I shan’t list some of my favourites, mainly because there’s an excellent chance that they’ll turn up in the story sooner or later.

It also struck me that if there were superheroes, wouldn’t there be some attempt to hire, rather than tolerate or hunt them? That’s where the idea of Special Talent Response Teams came from, essentially Special Constables. Very Special Constables. There is also the implication that the government office that handles Special Talents Response Teams has much in common with the “spook” end of things; Special Branch, the Security Service, et al. While SpecT officers are primarily coppers, they may be called upon to handle cases that the government would prefer never become public.

The Goonbase is a bit swish, I grant you, but I thought they should have somewhere central, iconic, and eccentric. The tower of the former Refuge Building was perfect. The assumption is that they moved in while the building was unoccupied after Refuge Insurance moved to new offices, and what was supposed to be a temporary residence became permanent.

None of which to say there aren’t vigilantes in the GOON SQUAD‘s world. They certainly exist, and they act illegally. The Squad’s attitude and dealings with them will also appear in future stories.

So many stories I want to tell about this bunch of overpowered misfits. I can’t be cool about it; I have been wanting to share this world for years and I’m terribly excited to be doing so at long last.

Now, the cover reveal. This is by Alwyn Talbot (http://alwyntalbot.co.uk/), who is amazingly talented (and amazingly fast; I’d barely sent the picture description before the first draft sketch turned up). Primarily a concept artist, he’s also done work for games and for 2000AD.

The image is of another member of the Goon Squad, Ian Mears aka “The Revenant.” DIshevelled, disparaging, and dead, Ian’s superpowers so far seem to consist of withering sarcasm and being surprisingly chatty for a corpse. There’s more to him than that, though, as we shall see.

Goon Squad #2 Cover

GOON SQUAD Issue #2 drops in a week’s time, on the 28th.

Go Ahead, Steampunks… Make My Day

Tried to reblog this from Jo Hall’s blog, but something blew a gasket somewhere. So, Plan B is simply to copy and paste it in, thus:

Airship cover by Andy Bigwood

Take a walk around Bristol, and history seeps from the walls. The city can claim more than its fair share of firsts, including the first iron-hulled steamship, the first female doctor, the first chocolate bar and the first use of nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic, the invention of the Plimsoll line, the first undersea telegraph cable, the world’s first test tube baby and the first transplant organ grown from stem cells, and a large share of the world’s first supersonic airliner. Now, from this fertile ground comes an anthology charting other realities and alternate histories, in a collection as rich and varied as the true history of this great British city.

— Gareth L. Powell

Bringing together tales from the light and dark sides of Steampunk. Living ghosts, walking ferns and ingenious androids populate versions of the city at once familiar and peculiar. Above them soar the magnificent men, and women, in their flying machines. Whether they’re seeking release, revenge or adventure, the characters in these stories will draw you down the side-streets of Bristol to the brass and steam filled worlds you never dreamed were there.

Contents

Case of the Vapours, by Ken Shinn
Brassworth, by Christine Morgan
The Lesser Men Have No Language, by Deborah Walker
Brass and Bone, by Joanne Hall
The Girl with Red Hair, by Myfanwy Rodman
Artifice Perdu, by Pete Sutton
Miss Butler and the Handlander Process, by John Hawkes-Reed
Something In The Water, by Cheryl Morgan
The Chronicles of Montague and Dalton: The Hunt for Alleyway Agnes, by Scott Lewis
The Sound of Gyroscopes, by Jonathan L. Howard
Flight of Daedalus, by Piotr Świetlik
The Traveller’s Apprentice, by Ian Millsted
Lord Craddock: Ascension, by Stephen Blake
The Lanterns of Death Affair, by Andy Bigwood

It’s up on Goodreads now if you want to add it to your TBR, and e-copies should be available in the Wizard’s Tower bookstore in the next week or so.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20742290-airship-shape-and-bristol-fashion

http://wizardstowerpress.com/

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It contains the short story “The Sound of Gyroscopes,” which is a tale told in Blake’s, the slightly peculiar gentleman’s club in which “The Tomb of Umtak Ktharl” is recounted in Johannes Cabal the Detective. So, yes, it is a story about Cabal’s world that doesn’t actually involve Cabal at all.

Wherever you live is bound to have an effect on your imagination, and it’s no surprise that I’ve written stories set in places where I’ve lived for any length of time. I lived in and around Manchester for many years, for example, so it was no surprise that it became the setting for my ongoing “prose comic” GOON SQUAD. I lived in York for ten years, loved it, and was very reluctant to leave, so it turns up in my short stories “Between the River and the Road” and “An Unreasonable Doubt.” Now, I’m living not far from Bristol, I’ve written an as-yet unpublished middle grade book that, although it never explicitly states its location, is set in an area of the West Country bounded by Keynsham, Bitton, and Brislington, and anyone who knows that area will recognise a couple of landmarks mentioned in the text. They won’t recognise the school in the story, though, as that’s an amalgam of my daughter’s first primary school, and my own from the distant past.

Although Bristol is a fascinating city, I haven’t written anything about it before. I’m not sure I know enough about it, about how it feels, to do it justice; the result of not actually living in it, but only close by. Manchester and York, I understood well because I was in them every day for years. Bristol, however, is just down the road, and that’s not really close enough to understand the intimacies of a place. I am, however, quite well read up on its history, so I felt more at ease with the prospect of writing a story set in the past. Taking that history and giving it a firm twist to bring into Cabal’s world was an obvious thing to do, especially since Johannes Cabal the Detective is the only time I’ve ever been accused of an act of wilful steampunkery. To be honest, it never even occurred to me that it might be defined thus, so that was a bit of a shock. I thought I was just having a bit of fun with some of the more occult bits of science — such as the ether and gyroscopic levitation — that had fallen by the way.

Speaking of gyroscopic levitation, the title “The Sound of Gyroscopes” is a nod to the song of the same name by the wonderful Kev Hopper. I remember seeing the video on “The Chart Show” many years ago, and immediately going out to buy the single. The video looks remarkably like this:

The smooth chap in the leather jacket doing most of the singing is actually Tony O’Sullivan aka “Walter Ego.” Hopper’s the fellow in the suit and slightly mad hair. You can find his albums here, and his first solo album, “Stolen Jewels” featuring “The Sound of Gyroscopes,” is here.

It’s That Necromancer Again

Well, it’s been a funny week.

First, this happened:

SCHEMERS, new from Stone Skin Press.

I have a short story in there entitled, “A Scandal with Bohemians,” featuring my new series character, the borderline competent, highly theatrical, Victorian criminal mastermind Richard Malengine. There are also stories by Ekaterina Sedia, Molly Tanzer, Jesse Bullington, plus many others to bring the total up to fourteen, the whole thing edited by Robin D. Laws.

Then this happened:

[image error]

“The New Girl.” Nadiya Kysla aka Puppet Girl graces the cover of the première issue of GOON SQUAD.

There’s a link to the announcement about this above, but I am very pleased with Goon Squad. There was a gratifying amount of interest in it right from the start, and I hope that will increase as the story progresses. Get in now to read what the cool kids are reading, or be irredeemably square. Believe me, nobody loves a regular quadrilateral that’s stuffed full of right angles, I’m telling you.

And now, this has happened:

OUROBOROS OUZO, the latest tale of Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some small infamy.

Like GOON SQUAD, “Ouroboros Ouzo” has been electronically published via Smashwords (putting it into the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble, and many others) and Amazon.

I hope you’re tempted to buy one. I also hope that, in the process of buying one, you are suddenly consumed with an uncontrollable desire to buy the others, too. Several times, both for yourself and for friends and family.

So, all this, and it’s only Wednesday…

Goon Squad!

Well, this is exciting and slightly terrifying for me. I’m committing to a major side project, Goon Squad, for which the plan is to produce a short story every month. The original announcement from the beginning of this month looked like this:

As you’ll probably gather from this, it’s essentially a prose comic. Indeed, if I can somehow find the time from somewhere, it will even have a Summer Special Annual containing a mélange of shorts and short-shorts, unrelated to any ongoing story arcs in the monthly issues.

Issue #1 has come back from my trusty beta readers, egregious typos and blurred meanings have been fixed, and a cover has been produced. The latter looks like this:

[image error]

“The New Girl.” Nadiya Kysla aka Puppet Girl graces the cover of the première issue of GOON SQUAD.

Nice, isn’t it? It’s by the very talented Laura Hollingsworth (whom you can find here).

The plan is to use lots of different artists to do the covers so as to keep the vibe fresh. The project is intended to be self-supporting once past the first few issues, so how much I can spend on hiring artists for the gig largely depends on how previous issues sell. Fingers crossed it goes well, or the covers will end up sporting stick figures scrawled by me.

GOON SQUAD Issue #1 goes online today via Smashwords (who distribute to Apple, Barnes & Noble, and many others) and Amazon at $0.99 or equivalent. If it tickles your fancy at all, please buy a copy. Better yet, buy two copies — one for reading and you can keep the electrons of the other in a mylar bag as a collectable.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you’ll visit my gratuitously warped vision of a northern city putting up with the sort of super-powered shenanigans usually associated with the likes of Gotham or Metropolis.

Erik Satie: Agent of Carefully Organised Chaos

So, this happened. Sometime last year, I suddenly got it into my head that I wanted to write a story for 2000AD. Apparently the place to start is with a “Future Shock” short story, so that’s what I set out to write. Note, that’s what I set out to write, but my brain malfunctioned and my mind ran away across the rooftops and I wrote a THING. “Future Shocks” are meant to be four pages, for example, yet I did a five page story. They’re meant to be set in the future (the name’s a broadish sort of hint, after all), yet I set mine in the past. One is not supposed to take the piss out of Tharg the Mighty, greatest editor in the galaxy, yet that sort of happened, too.

I’m still happy with the story, even if it did earn me a thrillingly abrupt “What the fuck were you thinking?” sort of rejection from 2000AD. I accept it’s just not a very 2000AD sort of story, and if I hadn’t been so aglow with gleeful madness at the time, I might have seen that. It might, conceivably, have been accepted in the early to mid ’80s, but tonally it’s not the kind of thing they do now. Ah, well. I still harbour a desire to see my name in 2000AD, so I shall have another go at some point. Ideally something not written while my lips are drawn back in a lunatic rictus, eyes wide, and muttering, “Hehehehehehehehehehehehe…” under my breath in a monotone. That didn’t work out so well last time.

So, since the script was intended purely for 2000AD and I can’t see it being much use for anything else, I shall publish it here. I still like the central thesis of it though. Might use that elsewhere at some point.

M’lords, ladies, and gentlemen. Boy and girls. Allow me to present, Erik Satie: Agent of Carefully Organised Chaos. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

FUTURE SHOCK

ERIK SATIE: AGENT OF CAREFULLY ORGANISED CHAOS

By Jonathan L. Howard

PAGE ONE

1.) Big establishing frame. We are in the Arcueil area of southern Paris in the year 1916. It’s a good way from the centre of Paris and so none of the landmarks are visible. At this point, the Arcueil is in the suburbs and not quite as grim as it is now. There may be a car or motor van in view, but these are rare as the war is making demands on the petrol supply. Mostly it’s horses. We are looking at a wedge-shaped apartment house overlooking a road junction.

As a detail, across the road from the apartment house is a horse by the kerb. It is not hitched to a vehicle, nor does it have any saddle, bit, reins, or other accoutrements. It is, in brief, a naked horse.

The story is flashed as a Future Shock, even though it evidently isn’t.

CAPTION: The “House with Four Chimneys,” Arcueil commune, Paris, France, Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Earth. Anno Domini 1916.

VOICE FROM SECOND FLOOR WINDOW, THIRD FROM THE LEFT: That horse is up to something.

CAPTION (lower right): ThargNote – 1916? This is supposed to be a Future Shock, isn’t it?

2.) Interior. Satie’s apartment consists of two rooms, although he lives almost entirely in one of them. In here is a bed, wardrobe, a dresser, and a stand with a jug and basin. There is no sign of taps or cooking arrangements (in his day, his room didn’t have running water and he went out to eat. I wasn’t able to find a picture of the Arcueil room, only his room in the house where he was born in Honfleur. Just make this one up). Not far from the window is an upright piano up against the wall. There may also be a hint of another door to the extreme right.

In the middle ground, Satie’s cleaner is sweeping the floor. She is a woman in her forties, her hair in a bun, dressed in a black dress with a white apron. Not especially attractive, or otherwise. A stereotypical drudge of the time. We shall call her “Océane,” because it’s a pretty name and I like her. By the window stands Erik SATIE, composer and eccentric. He is not wearing his infamous corduroy suit, because even I have my limits. He is wearing a sensible suit of the period, dark trousers and waistcoat, high collar and a black cravat. His jacket and hat hang from hooks on the inside of the door. He is gazing out into the street over his pince-nez.

SATIE: There is a villainous aspect to that horse.

SATIE: I believe it means to rob a bank…

OCEANE: Almost done, M’sieur Satie. Doesn’t take long to clean one room. Although…

3.) OCEANE is leaning on her broom in the foreground, looking reflectively at the closed door to the apartment’s second room. SATIE is out of shot.

OCEANE: …perhaps one day you will permit me to do your other room, too?

SATIE (OS): …then escape to Morocco…

SATIE (OS): …via Marseilles.

Also emanating out of frame in the direction of the piano, is a sound effect.

PIANO (OS): plink plink plink plink plink

4.) SATIE has turned from the window to face OCEANE, who is facing him. Between them is the piano.

SATIE: Oh, you know I’m the only one who goes in there, Océane.

OCEANE: Of course. M’sieur, your piano is playing itself again. Why does it do that?

PIANO: plink plink plink plink plink

5.) The end of the piano’s keyboard is in the foreground. In the background SATIE regards it with mild interest, one arm folded across his lower chest to support the elbow of the other, the hand of which is stroking his chin. One key at the closer, trebley end of the keyboard is depressed. This key is apparently repeatedly playing itself.

SATIE: Mice.

PIANO: plink plink plink

OCEANE (OS): They keep excellent time.

6.) OCEANE is walking to the exit door, carrying her broom and a bucket from which a rag hangs over the side. We are looking at her back as she walks away from us.

OCEANE: You’ll be wanting me to leave while you deal with your mousy little metronomes, as usual.

SATIE (OS): Thank you, Océane.

PIANO (OS): plink plink plink plink

CAPTION (Lower right): ThargNote – Shouldn’t this be a Past Imperfect story?

PAGE TWO

1.) SATIE is at the door of the second room, unlocking it. He is looking over his shoulder to make sure OCEANE has actually left as he does so. His expression is grim, not furtive.

PIANO (OS): plink plink plink plink

2.) Inside the now unlocked room. We are looking towards SATIE as he steps inside. The room is small but busy. This is his sanctum sanctorum, where he deals with almost everything creative and official in his life. Light is cast forward into the room as if the desk is in front of a window. That this doesn’t agree with the building’s external architecture is neither here nor there.

In the foreground we are looking over the top of a desk with a blotter, letters, sheets of musical manuscript, an inkwell, and other clutter. Behind the desk is an office chair. There are shelves stacked with books, piles of papers, rolled manuscripts bound with ribbons. There are a couple of filing cabinets to one side, the fancier old wooden style rather than metal ones. In the gap between them stands a large aspidistra in a pot. SATIE is looking right at it.

SATIE: Hmmm… that’s new.

3.) We are looking over SATIE’s shoulder at the aspidistra. The fronds have been parted and a man, RELAYER, is peering up at SATIE. The dimensions are impossible – he’d have to be sticking through the floor. It’s as if the aspidistra is part of a forest somewhere and the pot just allows it to be visible in SATIE’s room. If the window is visible, the view from it is all wrong. Just have something wrong out there – Daliesque stilt elephants, a lunar landscape, a child’s drawing – whatever. Just so long as it’s peripheral and doesn’t distract too much.

The RELAYER is a Dadaist, and is dressed as such – all pipes and geometry. His anxious little face peers out of a portal in a cone he’s wearing over his head.

RELAYER: Erik! Where have you been? The Vague Council has assigned an urgent mission to you! It requires the sort of organised chaos only you can create!

SATIE: There was a suspicious horse.

4.) We are viewing SATIE from behind the aspidistra. It appears that the RELAYER has somehow managed to surface in a pot far too small to hold a human. SATIE is listening intently.

RELAYER: A German general, Adalbert von Wärze, has hatched a plan to win the war for them by the end of the year.

RELAYER: By our calculations, it will actually extend it to 1924.

5.) Close up on the RELAYER as he earnestly explains things.

RELAYER: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to prevent the plan being put into operation.

RELAYER: It’s no good just getting rid of the general. The German Supreme Command is already considering the plan. You must make them reject it somehow.

6.) Close up of SATIE. He is very serious, brow furrowed and thoughtful, stroking his chin.

SATIE: Where can I find this General von Wärze?

RELAYER (OS): In his ancestral home – der Roteturm, the Red Tower! You can get there the usual way.

SATIE: Oh. I’ll get the mop then.

PAGE THREE

1.) Exterior. A shallow hillside in Germany. In the background are the grounds of a stately home, bordered with wooden fences and a tree line. Rising above the trees, proud against the sky is the RED TOWER, for which the rest of the place is named.

In the middle ground we see the doughty figure of Erik SATIE, now wearing his coat and hat, running up the hill towards the tower. In the foreground, a mop lies abandoned on the grass.

CAPTION: The Red Tower, Germany, Europe, etc. Minutes later.

CAPTION: And a new mission for Erik Satie, famous composer, phonometrician, proto-surrealist…

CAPTION (lower right): ThargNote – I am looking at Wiki right now, and this is all wrong.

2.) Close by the fence, SATIE is surprised by a German GUARD. The GUARD is wearing an early version of a Stahlhelm rather than a Pickelhaube. He has his rifle up although not directly aimed at SATIE. After all, the man’s not obviously armed and his hands are empty.

CAPTION: …Agent of Carefully Organised Chaos!

GUARD: Halten! Hände hoch!

3.) Close up of the two men’s heads as SATIE viciously headbutts the GUARD , aiming for the upper nose at about the level of the supraorbital ridges so the helmet doesn’t help. The GUARD clearly doesn’t like the experience. His eyes are shut and he is in pain.

CAPTION: Dadaist Master of Irrational Rationality!

GUARD: Ahhh!

EFFECT (hat hitting skull): BOKK!

EFFECT (nose breaking): crunchhh

CAPTION: ThargNote – I honestly don’t remember commissioning this story.

4.) Longish shot of SATIE running off through the trees towards the RED TOWER, almost directly away from the POV. He swinging his arms and has a very “knees up” gait. He should be drawn as somebody running in a very business-like way for comic effect.

It should be pointed out that the hat is covered with material; it doesn’t actually look like it’s made of wood.

SATIE: My hat is made of mahogany.

GUARD (OS. Wobbly word bubble, flaky lettering): Ow… owww… stunned… stunned quite badly…

5.) Close up. SATIE has reached the building. He is at a corner, back against the wall as he peers cautiously around it. The POV is before him, but the angle precludes seeing much of what is behind him but for a section of wall.

SATIE (thinks): I am fond of oceanic invertebrates.

CAPTION: ThargNote – ?

6.) The POV has moved back. SATIE is looking over his shoulder and is in the act of raising his hands. We see he has been surprised by a patrol of three or four German soldiers coming up behind him. They have their rifles levelled at him.

PATROL LEADER: Halten!

SATIE: Hände hoch.

PAGE FOUR

1.) Interior. The library of the Red Castle, ground floor, a pair of French windows stand open overlooking an open meadow. The book shelves are all wall mounted, none freestanding or otherwise taking up much floor space. If you could get close enough to read the titles, they would likely be several thousand different editions of Clausewitz’s On War. General von Wärze is very single-minded like that.

The room is dominated by a large table surrounded by upright chairs. It’s a good size of table for unrolling maps on, having councils of war at, and generally being martial around.

At the end of the table sits SATIE, very slightly dishevelled and hatless. Standing to one side of the table is WARZE himself, a stereotypical bullet-headed Prussian militarist in uniform. He is in his fifties and greying. He has a handlebar moustache. Currently, he is holding SATIE’s hat, studying it. In the background are the double doors leading into the rest of the house. Two GUARDS stand at attention on either side.

WARZE: A hardwood hat. A most ingenious toy.

WARZE: Guards! You may go! I shall conduct this interrogation myself.

GUARDS: Jawohl, mein General!

2.) The library. We are looking across the room from the French windows. WARZE is standing there, looking past us, his back to SATIE, whom he apparently regards as no threat at all. SATIE is still in his chair. On the table, but out of grabbing range, is SATIE’s hat.

WARZE: So, you are the best the Allies could send against me? A middle-aged clerk, by the look of you. Laughable.

WARZE: You can save yourself a lot of pain if you just tell me why you are here.

SATIE: Operation Buffalo.

3.) WARZE and SATIE. WARZE has apparently rushed to the table and is shouting in SATIE’s face. WARZE is astounded and furious. SATIE is unperturbed.

WARZE: WHAT? What would you know of Operation Buffalo?

SATIE: It’s a silly plan. Usually I like silly, but not when it results in hundreds of thousands of deaths. I’m here to stop it, mon général.

SATIE: I’m here to stop you.

4.) The library. From SATIE’s POV. WARZE is lowering over him, furious and arrogant, arms crossed.

WARZE: You know nothing, little man!

WARZE: My plan to encase parts of the Western Front in concrete while our men stand in trenches and shoot a lot of bullets at the English and French cannot fail!

CAPTION: ThargNote – This bit actually sounds about right.

5.) The library. From WARZE’s POV. SATIE is looking straight at us, calm and unruffled. His hands lie flat on the table in front of him. He seems disappointed with WARZE rather than angry with him.

SATIE: Your problem, you see, is that you are an inflexible thinker. Your mind is a rigid edifice… buttressed, solid, uncompromising.

SATIE: Should you be forced to think the unthinkable, to accept the incredible… Well, mon général, I fear that edifice will fall to rubble.

6.) The library. A two shot. WARZE is standing on the side of the table towards the French windows still, while SATIE remains seated. WARZE has regained his composure. He has his hands behind his back, chin out, nose up, all very Mussolini. Absolutely dripping arrogance. He has decided that SATIE is beneath contempt. SATIE for his part looks up at WARZE with something like friendly sympathy, as if commiserating with him. Importantly, in facing SATIE, WARZE is also facing the double doors.

WARZE: Such nonsense you spout!

SATIE: I get paid for it. I’m still going to stop you.

WARZE: Ha! You are my prisoner! You have no weapons! You cannot harm me! Truly, what is left to you, little man?

7.) Close up of SATIE. He is looking right at us over his pince-nez. He still looks sympathetic. Perhaps even a little regretful.

SATIE: Horses.

PAGE FIVE

1.) Largish panel, the width of the page. The focus is on the double doors of the library. They have been thrown open and three HORSES are galloping in, one massive in the foreground, the other two flanking it. All three are wearing burglar masks and striped black & white jerseys. The frame is dynamic and full of motion.

Horse #1: Nobody move! This is a robbery! Hand over the money and nobody will get kicked really hard!

CAPTION: ThargNote – ?

2.) The library. From our POV, we can close to the wall the library doors are in. The French windows stand open. SATIE and the HORSES are gone, as is SATIE’s hat. WARZE sits by himself on a chair one the French window side of the table. His mouth is open, utterly astounded. He is off in fairyland. Two GUARDS are rushing in.

CAPTION: Moments later.

GUARD: General! What happened here?

WARZE: Horses… horsey horses… They rescued the spy and stole my wallet. Naughty robber horses with masks and stripy sweaters… heh… Went out the window…

3.) Exterior of the Red Tower. We are looking up the meadow towards the building and can distantly see the open French windows of the library. In the foreground are the three HORSES, unmasked and unsweatered, quietly grazing. Closer still is a bush. Behind the bush are the HORSES’ abandoned masks and sweaters in a heap. On top is General Wärze’s wallet, banknotes sticking out of it.

VOICE FROM THE LIBRARY: Uh, yes, mein General. I’ll… ah, just fetch some… people to have a quiet chat with you. About the robbery.

VOICE FROM THE LIBRARY: Definitely not to take you to the madhouse at all.

HORSE #1 (whispering): Just act natural. They can’t prove a thing.

4.) Interior corridor of the Red Tower with a corner in the foreground. There’s a telephone in the corridor on which a German COLONEL is speaking. Right in the foreground, SATIE is lurking around the corner, big in close up. He is listening intently to the ‘phone call. He is also wearing his trusty mahogany hat.

COLONEL: The general is a raving lunatic, sir! Yes, Operation Buffalo has been cancelled. How can we have confidence in the plan of a madman?

SATIE (thinks): My work here is done. Now… where did I leave my mop?

CAPTION: Another successful mission for… Erik Satie – Agent of Carefully Organised Chaos!

5.) A black frame with THARG’s head in it, except it isn’t. It’s a pineapple albeit with the distinctive Thargian mane and Rosette of Sirius.

CAPTION: Tharg the Mighty says…

THARG: je ne suis pas un ananas.

CAPTION: ThargNote – Quaequam blag! Right, that’s it. I want every droid involved with this in my office NOW. No exceptions.

BOX: FIN

Adventures in Publishing

Over the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with self-publishing short stories, some of which have been out of print for years. To date there are the following:

Johannes Cabal stories:

“Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day”

 

 

 

UK     US

 

“Exeunt Demon King”

 

 

 

UK     US

 

My very first professionally published story, ”Between the River and the Road.”

 

 

 

UK     US

 

A previously unpublished story that takes place in the universe of the Russalka Chronicles, “Mojito Doomsday.”

 

 

 

UK     US

 

A previously unpublished novella involving the supernatural, “Filming the Ghost.”

 

 

 

UK     US

 

If there’s anything in there that takes your fancy, please use one or other of these links to make your purchase.

A new Johannes Cabal short story and more!

Tor.com, bless them, have allowed me to clutter up their site a bit over the last couple of days.

There’s a new Johannes Cabal short story, and here’s a little thing I wrote about Lovecraft’s Dreamlands,

Bristol-Con Fringe

BRISTOL-CON FRINGE
http://www.bristolcon.org/?p=2062

7:30 pm Monday 18th November 2013

I shall be doing a couple of readings in the back room of the Shakespeare Tavern (the Shakespeare on Prince Street, that is. This one: http://gkpubs.co.uk/pubs-in-bristol/shakespeare-pub/ Not the one near Temple Circus), along with Ian Milstead. I’ll probably be doing a Johannes Cabal bit and something else non-Cabal. Might even write something v. short specially.

Shakespeare Tavern, 68 Prince Street, Bristol.

Katya’s War – Publication Date

KATYA’S WAR (RUSSALKA CHRONICLES #2) PUBLICATION DATE
http://strangechemistrybooks.com/books/katyas-war-by-jonathan-l-howard/

Tuesday 5th November 2013 US and ebook publication
Thursday 7th November 2013 UK publication

Katya’s War is out on these dates, and I’m very much looking forward to its publication. I’ve had some lovely feedback from readers about Katya’s World (along with some slightly boggled comments from people who are confused and sometimes resentful that I write things that aren’t about Johannes Cabal. Considering what a pejorative term “one-trick pony” is, I never expected to be criticised for not being one. Ah, well). I have a lot of plans for “The Russalka Chronicles.” Oh, you just wait.

No release or launch day plans yet, but I think there’s likely to be something happening. Tough to get anything planned at the moment, but I have a few ideas. Watch this space.

World Fantasy Convention

WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION
http://www.wfc2013.org/

Thursday October 31st – Sunday November 3rd 2013

Nothing scheduled in stone for this one, but I shall be round and about.

Hilton Brighton Metropole