I was a little apprehensive about writing Sneak at first, because I felt like the story was just a little too similar to The Adventures of Jack and Miracle Girl: an ordinary guy is thrown for a loop when a female super-someone suddenly takes an unexpected interest in him. But I liked the characters, I thought it would be fun to write, and after spending seven or eight months writing a big epic fantasy I wanted to work on something a little more lighthearted. So I went for it...and my opinion now is that while they start out similarly, the two stories aren't really very much alike; in fact Sneak eventually evolved into a kind of superhero origin story. Expect to see more of these characters in future books, especially Alan.

Various aliens and alien planets had been mentioned in the earlier novels -- the Vaan, the Xenonians, and so on -- but I hadn't really explored the outer space side of the Signalverse yet, so I decided I wanted to do that in this one. We visit Darkplanet in this book, and meet the mysterious Star Marshal (a very important Signalverse hero) for the first time as well. It's a pretty crazy story, but I think it came together all right, and I really liked how Alan and Raye turned out. Fun stuff.