Meghan
asked
Jonathan L. Howard:
As Cabal's creator, you've probably come up with a fantastic amount of backstory and detail for him and the rest of his coterie. Is there any amusing (but non-spoilery) trivia you edited out, but wouldn't mind divulging?
Jonathan L. Howard
I tend to add rather than cut material, so there's not a great deal of deleted stuff. The most notable, I suppose, was the old preamble to JOHANNES CABAL THE NECROMANCER, which went into some detail about one soul out in Limbo, that of the failed bandit of the Old West, Dan "Mad Dog" Clancy. I was fond of it, but two readers I trusted said independently that it blurred the focus of the book for those vital first few pages -- Who is this "Mad Dog" guy? Is he the protagonist? -- and I should cut it. So I did, and instead used an opening culled from an unfinished Cabal short story that had a terrific start but then stalled. That scene is the summoning of Lucifuge Rofocale.
More Answered Questions
Aleksandra Mironova
asked
Jonathan L. Howard:
In the first novel about Cabal there's a dialogue between Johannes and Horst that suggests that both their parents are dead. Then in Brothers Cabal Horst thinks about visiting his mother in Hesse, but is affraid of "puting her in her grave with shock". That suggests that she is alive (for one can't give a heart attack to a dead person). Does this mean that Mrs Cabal has her part to play in some future novel or story?
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