A paramilitary gang of thieves called the Rat Pack is terrorizing New York, and Norman Osborn, a.k.a. the Green Goblin, is scheming to take over the city government; can the amazing Spider-Man stop them?

I don't quite remember how this started. I know that when I heard there would be Marvel novels I wanted to write one, and Spider-Man was near the top of my want-list, but I'm not sure how Kurt got involved. I think maybe they wanted a bigger name than Nathan Archer, and I know I was happy to have the help of someone experienced in writing the character.

However it came about, I clearly remember Kurt and I sitting in my living room, hashing out the plot, which I then wrote down. Kurt did most of the plotting, though I did try to contribute.

Once we had our story, and the folks in charge had approved our outline, I wrote the first draft. Kurt then read it and made suggestions, which I incorporated; I don't remember whether he did any actual rewriting. Anyway, there it was.

There was a little more to it than that, of course. For one thing, despite what it says in Nathan Archer's bio, I'm not a native New Yorker, and I wanted to get it right, so I took the time to go to New York for a couple of days and check out locations -- the West Side power plant, Parkway Hospital, and so on. I even decided exactly where in Queens Aunt May's house is -- I mean, the specific house -- though of course that's not canon and I didn't discuss it with Marvel.

That was fun, figuring it all out, even though a lot of the details never made it into the novel -- "So the webline would attach there, and he'd swing across there..."

I was pretty happy with the whole thing -- until the book appeared.

Because right about then, a dispute arose between Marvel and the book packager, Byron Preiss Multimedia, and the series of novels was cancelled. Goblin Moon was already in production, so it did see print in both hardcover and paperback, but it got no support from the publisher, the packager, or Marvel, paperback distribution was limited, and there was no possibility of additional printings. Which sucked, but hey, what can you do?

I'm fairly proud of it even if hardly anyone ever saw it or got a chance to read it. Kurt seems to consider it just another project he worked on -- when the subject of him writing a novel came up, I mentioned it, and he said he didn't count it because he did so little of the actual writing.

But I liked it!